Speaking of book blogging monkeys, Wordsmiths’ Russ writes about the mixed feelings involved in welcoming people into your brand new book store on the National Book Critics Circle blog. He’s all famous now.
The Washington Post Book World has a rave review of The Wild Trees by Richard Preston. Of course, their review ran after BGB’s blogging monkeys RaeRae and Nitro commented on it here. I’m just sayin’… This ebola-free monkey just made the connection that the author, Richard Preston, is the same Richard Preston that wrote The Hot Zone. The man can drop some science on you.
McSweeney’s (not monkeys at all) have announced that their fire sale was a huge success. I can’t find a link, but a recent McSweeney’s newsletter says:
In the past ten days, thousands of you have visited, shopped, bid, and bugged your friends to follow suit. From the first morning of the sale, we’ve been mindboggled by your response — the enthusiasm, the encouragement, the stern commands to persevere. We’ve been sitting in our office all these days, emboldened and so happy, sharing with each other each kind note, each crazy order and new auction item, cheering at the end of each day when we tally up.
You’ve made a very real difference: because of your incredible response, McSweeney’s isn’t going anywhere. We’re sticking around as long as you’ll have us. The ship is damp but afloat, sails full, jib doing whatever the jib is supposed to do, and we’re getting back to work. (For last-minute shoppers, we’ll keep this sale going through the weekend, and the auction still includes pieces from Art Spiegelman, John Hodgman, David Foster Wallace, and Miranda July.)
The J.T. Leroy court case verdict is in. That was quick. Where were the weeks’ worth of testimony. I haven’t even had time to learn the judge’s name on E! Our legal monkeys have explained the verdict to me this way: if you sign a contract with a fake name, you don’t get to keep the real money. Galley Cat wonders if the verdict sets a bad precedent.
The feel good hit of the summer: The NYT drops in on a Long Island book club that has been meeting for about 50 years. Ike was President when they started.
June 26th, 2007 at 1:54 pm
Okay. Let’s look at the J.T. Leroy thing from another perspective. Let’s say that you buy a house from a twelve-year-old orphan girl we’ll call Little Nell. Little Nell has a whole sob story to go along with her house, so maybe you offer more for the house than you would were she an adult without a sob story. So, you buy the house and make the payment to a corporation that has ostensibly been set up to look after the girl’s interests. Everything’s fine and you start thinking of what you’re going to do with this house you bought.
And then you find out that the house you bought wasn’t the property of Little Nell, but was, in fact, owned by me, a 47-year-old fat guy with no sob story. And I also owned the corporation. And there was no Little Nell. Did we have a valid contract?
No. Plain and simple. I would have defrauded you, and you would be entitled to get your money back.
It’s the same thing, just with a different kind of property. Laura Albert sold some intellectual property by misrepresenting herself. The jury was 100 percent right.
And as far as Galley Cat’s contention that Random House would’ve wiped the floor with the plaintiff’s claim, that is nonsense for a couple of reasons. the first is the same reason why Laura Albert lost: She’s wrong and they are right. The second is more fundamental: Random House would never have defrauded the plaintiff in the first place.
June 26th, 2007 at 2:20 pm
Well, they don’t call themselves “Legal Cat” for a reason I suppose. It’s been a fascinating case. I wish had gone on a little longer. Why do we get two minutes of this and six months of OJ?
June 26th, 2007 at 2:23 pm
Had the LA prosecutors office represented the plaintiffs, not only would it have gone on for six months, but Laura Albert would have won. And maybe gotten a free cheesesteak or something.