Book News, In Brief

A new book, Toy Monster: The Big, Bad World of Mattel, reveals Barbie's creator to be a gay boob fetishist who once dismantled Zsa Zsa Gabor's Rolls Royce in a fit of anger. Needless to say, Skipper's creator was decidedly less interesting.

Last year's phony holocaust love story may find new life -- as this year's hot fiction release! Via The NYTimes: Days after Berkley Books announced that it was canceling the publication of the memoir Angel at the Fence, after its author, Herman Rosenblat, acknowledged that he had falsified parts of his story, an independent publisher said it was negotiating to release the book as a work of fiction.

Coming soon: Dave Eggers' Where The Wild Things Are. It's a book based on a movie based on a book. Did I lose you? Then allow The Guardian UK to explain: A new book from Eggers is always an event, and here he attempts a novelization of Maurice Sendak's children's classic Where the Wild Things Are, in a collaboration with the film-maker Spike Jonze. I hope this means that novelizations are back in vogue. When I was in the sixth grade, The Goonies by James Kahn was one of my favorite books.