News Bits, In Brief

This is one of those News Bits I hate to publish, as every other book news site will already be covering it. Then again, if'n I choose to ignore it, we'll look like we never knew about it in the first place. So here goes: James Frey, the writer you love to hate, has a new novel coming out through HarperCollins in the summer of 2008. The fact that Frey has already been so thoroughly kicked to the curb over the faked authenticity of A Million Little Pieces (his Oprah appearance was especially/deliciously brutal), compounded with the fact that similar cases keep coming to light as of late (Augusten Burroughs, J.T. Leroy) makes me think that he might actually receive an underdog's welcome when he returns to the media spotlight. Sort of like Britney at this past Sunday's VMAs.

Jenna Bush's new children's book, Ana's Story, is getting rave reviews. When asked how she was able to put herself into the mind of a child, Jenna said, "I thought of how my Daddy talks. Then I made it sound a little less retarded."

BookBlog.net has a brief article about the oft-reported Death of Hardcovers. Their angle is the publishers' infrequent attempts at releasing high profile books in a variety of formats simultaneously (say, an equal number of hardcover and trade paperback, or a 75/25 trade paperback/mass market release). I like this idea, but the fact that they've been toying around with it for over twenty years now leads me to believe that it's not exactly the next big thing.