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Tag: books

  • Author John Green Calls Out Indiana Library For Removing His Book From YA Section

    Author John Green Calls Out Indiana Library For Removing His Book From YA Section

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    Author John Green called out an Indianapolis area library on Wednesday for its decision to remove his hit novel “The Fault in Our Stars” from its young adult section.

    The Hamilton East Public Library, which has locations in Fishers and Noblesville, Indiana, released a list of fiction books that as of July have been removed or moved from its YA section. The list named two of Green’s novels, including “The Fault in Our Stars.”

    In a tweet on Wednesday, Green responded to news of the books’ removal, calling it “ludicrous” and an “embarrassment to the city” of Fishers.

    “The Fault in Our Stars has been removed from the YA section in the suburbs of Indianapolis and is now considered a ‘book for adults.’ This is ludicrous,” he wrote. “It is about teenagers and I wrote it for teenagers. Teenagers are not harmed by reading [“The Fault In Our Stars”].”

    The book removals are related to an effort brought forward by the library’s board in December, which implemented a policy requiring books that are deemed not “age-appropriate” for children to be removed from the YA section and relocated to the adult section.

    The board also ordered an extensive review process, which was expected to cost up to $300,000, to determine if books are age-appropriate to be shelved in the children or teen sections.

    Age-appropriateness, under the policy, is determined based on criteria related to nudity, alcohol and drug use, violence and sexual content. The criteria was later expanded to include a list of profanity and criminal acts.

    According to IndyStar, the policy was expected to impact “more than 18,000 books” in the library. By April, its teen section was nearly emptied as a result of the library’s review process, with books on puberty, comics and “Forever” by Judy Blume disappearing from the shelves. Still, the book review process is far from complete, with 74.4% of titles still requiring review as of July 27.

    “I only have a small voice in these decisions, of course, but you won’t catch me alive or dead in Fishers, Indiana until these ridiculous policies are revoked,” Green tweeted on Wednesday.

    The Hamilton East Public Library did not respond to HuffPost’s request to comment on Green’s criticism.

    Libraries across the country have been conducting similar reviews and removing books from young adult sections that they deem harmful to minors, a move that has largely targeted books about race and LGBTQ+ topics. In 2022, the number of book ban attempts surged, and the number of book challenges nearly doubled from the previous record in 2021.

    Librarians have also faced harassment and legal threats as a result of these book bans. This year, Indiana enacted a law that allows for school librarians to be criminally charged if they fail to comply with House Bill 1447, which calls for a ban on “harmful materials” in school libraries. At least four other states passed similar legislation.

    “Today and every day I am so, so grateful to librarians whose work is absolutely essential to making art and information available to all―even amid absurdly difficult working conditions. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you,” Green tweeted later on Wednesday.

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  • Simon & Schuster’s Private-Equity Marriage Looks Good on Paper, but Will the Honeymoon Last?

    Simon & Schuster’s Private-Equity Marriage Looks Good on Paper, but Will the Honeymoon Last?

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    In the newspaper world, a sale to private equity tends to feel like a funeral, with ink-stained wretches lamenting the slow and painful death of their industry. In the adjacent world of book publishing, the news this week that KKR would acquire Simon & Schuster from Paramount Global hardly seemed so grim.

    “In the spring of 2023, we began a series of fascinating and stimulating conversations with members of KKR’s Media and Entertainment industry team about every aspect of our business, reflective of their keen interest in acquiring our company. All of us from Simon & Schuster who participated came away from those conversations impressed by KKR’s acumen, as well as their team’s desire to help our business grow and thrive in the future,” S&S boss Jonathan Karp wrote in a company-wide email Monday afternoon, right as the sale was announced ahead of Paramount Global’s latest quarterly earnings call. “That commitment to growth is one of the reasons I’m so glad KKR will be our next owner.”

    Karp, who is one of the most successful people in publishing, has good reason to celebrate on a personal level. If S&S had gone to, say, HarperCollins, it’s possible he might have found himself the odd man out. In either case, of course Karp was going to convey an upbeat assessment to his 1,600-plus worker bees, who have essentially spent the past two and a half years in limbo. It began in late 2020, when S&S’s parent company—then known as ViacomCBS—struck a deal for the publisher to be sold to Penguin Random House, the biggest of the Big Five publishers. The Biden administration challenged the deal, leading to a protracted legal battle between PRH and a consolidation-averse Department of Justice. The showdown culminated last fall when a federal judge ruled in favor of the DOJ, kiboshing the acquisition once and for all and sending Paramount Global back to the drawing board. In this sense, anyone employed by S&S is probably just relieved to finally know who their new overlords are going to be.

    Still, there’s reason to believe that Karp’s happy talk isn’t just hot air. Exhibit A: the involvement of Richard Sarnoff, who leads KKR’s media and entertainment team. Sure, Sarnoff’s undergraduate art history degree from Princeton suggests he’s a cultured fellow and not just some soulless finance shark. But it’s a different notch on his résumé that is most germane to the matter at hand: Sarnoff himself is a former book-publishing executive, serving in the early 2000s as chief financial officer of, ironically enough, Random House. (He also chaired the Association of American Publishers during that time.)

    As far as I can tell, the man has a good rep. Sources in the know described him as “very smart,” a “great guy,” and a “book person.” Karp, who overlapped with Sarnoff at Random House (where Karp eventually rose to editor in chief) was similarly effusive in his company note: “I have known and admired…Richard Sarnoff for two decades…. Richard understands the nuances of the book business as well as anyone I know.”

    Sarnoff told the Associated Press that no layoffs are planned, and in his own boilerplate message about the sale, he declared, “We see a compelling opportunity to help Simon & Schuster become an even stronger partner to literary talent by investing in the expansion of the company’s capabilities and distribution networks across mediums and markets while maintaining its 99-year legacy of editorial independence.”

    The icing on the cake is that the S&S crew will get an ownership stake once the sale closes. (And it is expected to close this time, since KKR ownership won’t raise the kind of antitrust alarms that a rival major publisher would.) For context, as part of KKR’s flip of the audiobook company RBmedia, now being offloaded to the investment firm H.I.G. Capital, the average payout once the ink dries is expected to be a year’s pay or a minimum of $50,000. Here’s Karp again: “Of all the prospective buyers we spoke to—and there were a lot of them—KKR was the only one that discussed its plans to support Simon & Schuster in creating an equity ownership program to provide all of our employees with the opportunity to participate in the benefits of ownership after the transaction closes.” 

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    Joe Pompeo

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  • The Ending of ‘The Guest’ Is Anyone’s Guess

    The Ending of ‘The Guest’ Is Anyone’s Guess

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    “I remembered the story as this surreal journey that starts off so light, and this sense for the character that they can live this way forever,” Cline told me in that VF interview. “And by the end, ending up in this place that’s so far from what you thought, and being so estranged from your own life. There’s something really haunting about it to me.”

    Of The Guest’s end, she said, “I knew from the beginning the emotional temperature of the ending, how I wanted it to feel. I didn’t know what the specifics were, but I knew where I wanted the book to leave this character.”

    That’s the thing about a book like this—the ending, maybe, isn’t so much a what-then as it is a state of mind. I’m content in the lingering unease, the creepy dissonance of an upbeat song playing on repeat.

    But just ask Alex: Where did anyone get, in life, being content? Other people who read it have provocative ideas. So, herein, a host of theories.

    All of Alex’s maneuverings would be impossible if she didn’t look the way she does: pretty, young, white, with nice clothes. (I didn’t feel any dread for Alex, reading the book. I was feeling dread for the people whom she was impacting, the people without power. Not the Simons or the Helens, but the caretaker at the house where she scratches the painting, and the nanny at the swim club whose charge she co-opts.) But that changes, in the end. She’s in the car accident with Jack, and I’m assuming that the airbags have gone off, and she’s dirty, and even though she’s changed in the bathroom, I think her hair is messy, and that stye in her eye is back. She’s probably got a bloody lip or something—because the way it’s set up, she so wants to be clean. She looks in the mirror, but it’s brushed metal, so she can’t really see what’s going on. When she finally sees Simon, she’s probably got a weird look on her face, because she’s Alex. I don’t think Simon is at all pleased that she’s standing on his lawn, but I don’t think he’s calling the cops, because I don’t think he wants to make a scene. Simon cares too much about appearances, but he’ll just get someone to get her out of there, and then she has nowhere else to go. I think that Alex is not long for the world and that, ultimately, no good comes of Dom. He’s probably hunting her down. —Miwa Messer, creator and host of Poured Over: The B&N Podcast; friend of VF

    I think she has to be dead. And that’s a sociocultural read. People like her aren’t arrested. The only thing that stops them is death, right?—Tressie McMillan Cottom, VF contributor and author of Thick: And Other Essays

    I read The Guest like I might take lines of cocaine: in small doses inhaled at frequent intervals. I found the protagonist so stressful that I could only assume her consciousness for five pages before taking a break to anxiously pace my room, only to mainline her antics again. So when the novel ended with Alex—after she’s maneuvered herself, over five days, into weekend party rentals, art-filled mansions, members-only beach clubs, and a hookup’s ex-girlfriend’s empty beach house—being stunned into immobility after finally making it to her now ex’s Labor Day party, I was less perplexed by the plot and more subsumed by the book’s overall mood, which felt orchestrated to mimic a drug rush (or even a shopping spree or the fulfillment of any desire) where the high of attainment meets the inevitable comedown, landing with a horrific thud—like someone cannonballing unknowingly into a water-drained pool. —Alexis Cheung, VF contributor and editorial director for Four One Nine and EADEM

    Alex dies in the car crash with Jack and goes to Simon’s Labor Day party as a ghostly figure, desperate to resolve her unfinished business with him. Her unwavering belief that supersedes everything, even the finality of death, is that all will be resolved if she can just get to the party, back to Simon and the life she had before. Obsession has kept her alive during the novel’s desperate week, and it now tethers her to earth forever. She will now haunt the place where she last had some modicum of happiness and safety, as an eternal, unwanted guest. —Maggie Robe, marketing & events manager at Flyleaf Books, Chapel Hill, NC; friend of VF

    The odd thing about Alex is that she is hyperconfident about her ability to get away with things, but she almost always gets caught. The taillight, the painting, Dom’s money, et cetera, et cetera. The story of the book is in some ways the story of all her bad behavior catching up with her, in cumulative fashion. The schadenfreude of seeing her torture all these privileged people is matched only by the schadenfreude of seeing her get her due. So by that logic, my theory is not that she dies or gets killed, but rather that she is finally busted once and for all, whether by a hand on the shoulder from Dom or a pair of cuffs around her wrists. The gig is up, and the Hamptons are once again safe for people who can’t imagine why anyone would steal a shoe. —Michael Hogan, executive digital director

    At first I felt a sense of shame come over me, like I just wasn’t getting it. What the fuck is happening here? So I reread the ending, starting from the (second, final) car accident, like a good English major. Then, like a bad English major, I put aside all the drowning/ghost (the Guest = the Ghost?) imagery and arrived at my own little not fully formed take: Alex is critically wounded with a neck injury, on a consciousness-losing number of pills, and looks completely messed up (grimy duffel, funky eye, sweat-stained dress, probably not smelling delish)—but not necessarily like she needs urgent medical attention. Like, no need to call an ambulance—just the cops, very discreetly, which Lori does, while everyone else less discreetly shuns her. (Is this capitalism responding to the mental health crises of the vulnerable or what?!) As the cops show up, with Simon spotting them behind her, she either succumbs to her injuries and self-medication or “goes crazy,” despite her assurances throughout the book that she never would. —Claire Howorth, executive editor

    The book begins with Alex nearly drowning, and ends with her actually drowning. When those little girls bump into her, she definitely doesn’t fall. But she did—into the pool. Now, the aquatic references are numerous and echo earlier underwater scenes. Everything she experiences makes more sense now: muffled voices, languid movements, a “sun like a sodium flash.” Why didn’t her limbs work at the end? Her body had gone limp. She used her last bit of power to slightly widen her smile at Simon—not too much, don’t want to look desperate while literally dying—hoping to lure him. —Mike Nizza, publisher of Bloomberg Opinion; friend of VF (and Claire’s husband)

    I assumed that some type of security had come to collect Alex, since Simon was looking beyond her in the final scene. Also, she maybe collapsed from injuries sustained in the car accident. The last lines say she couldn’t move, and it seems like the end of the road for her could have been very literal and physical. Whatever happened, though, she loses and the Simons at the party win, in spite of their having to endure the mild discomfort of a strange character at their party. —Kenzie Bryant, staff writer

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    Keziah Weir

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  • Judge blocks Arkansas law that would allow librarians to be charged for loaning

    Judge blocks Arkansas law that would allow librarians to be charged for loaning

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    Arkansas is temporarily blocked from enforcing a law that would have allowed criminal charges against librarians and booksellers for providing “harmful” or “obscene” materials to minors, a federal judge ruled Saturday.

    U.S. District Judge Timothy L. Brooks issued a preliminary injunction against the law, which also would have created a new process to challenge library materials and request that they be relocated to areas not accessible by kids. The measure, signed by Republican Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders earlier this year, was set to take effect Aug. 1.

    A coalition that included the Central Arkansas Library System in Little Rock had challenged the law, saying fear of prosecution under the measure could prompt libraries and booksellers to no longer carry titles that could be challenged.

    The judge also rejected a motion by the defendants, which include prosecuting attorneys for the state, seeking to dismiss the case.

    Under the law, librarians or booksellers that “knowingly” loan or sell books deemed “obscene” by the state can be charged with a class D felony. Anyone “knowingly” in possession of such material could face a class A misdemeanor. “Furnishing” a book deemed “harmful” to a minor could also come with a class A misdemeanor charge.  

    Under the law, members of the public can “challenge the appropriateness of” a book. Under that process, officials at both school and municipal libraries must convene committees to review and determine through a vote whether a challenged book should be moved to areas of the library that are “not accessible to minors.”

    The ACLU of Arkansas, which represents some of the plaintiffs, applauded the court’s ruling, saying that the absence of a preliminary injunction would have jeopardized First Amendment rights.

    “The question we had to ask was — do Arkansans still legally have access to reading materials? Luckily, the judicial system has once again defended our highly valued liberties,” Holly Dickson, the executive director of the ACLU in Arkansas, said in a statement.

    The lawsuit comes as lawmakers in an increasing number of conservative states are pushing for measures making it easier to ban or restrict access to books. The number of attempts to ban or restrict books across the U.S. last year was the highest in the 20 years the American Library Association has been tracking such efforts.

    Laws restricting access to certain materials or making it easier to challenge them have been enacted in several other states, including Iowa, Indiana and Texas.

    Arkansas Attorney General Tim Griffin said in an email Saturday that his office would be “reviewing the judge’s opinion and will continue to vigorously defend the law.”

    The executive director of Central Arkansas Library System, Nate Coulter, said the judge’s 49-page decision recognized the law as censorship, a violation of the Constitution and wrongly maligning librarians.

    “As folks in southwest Arkansas say, this order is stout as horseradish!” he said in an email.

    “I’m relieved that for now the dark cloud that was hanging over CALS’ librarians has lifted,” he added.

    Cheryl Davis, general counsel for the Authors Guild, said the organization is “thrilled” about the decision. She said enforcing this law “is likely to limit the free speech rights of older minors, who are capable of reading and processing more complex reading materials than young children can.”

    The Arkansas lawsuit names the state’s 28 local prosecutors as defendants, along with Crawford County in west Arkansas. A separate lawsuit is challenging the Crawford County library’s decision to move children’s books that included LGBTQ+ themes to a separate portion of the library.

    The plaintiffs challenging Arkansas’ restrictions also include the Fayetteville and Eureka Springs Carnegie public libraries, the American Booksellers Association and the Association of American Publishers.

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  • David Grann: The 60 Minutes Interview

    David Grann: The 60 Minutes Interview

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    David Grann: The 60 Minutes Interview – CBS News


    Watch CBS News



    Abandoning his comfort zone, author David Grann ventures to an inhospitable island off the coast of Patagonia. He explains to Jon Wertheim how and why he followed in the footsteps of castaways.

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  • How Entrepreneurs Can Use Books to Attract High-Value Clients | Entrepreneur

    How Entrepreneurs Can Use Books to Attract High-Value Clients | Entrepreneur

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    Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

    In a rapidly evolving business environment, competitive differentiation is no longer a luxury but a necessity. Entrepreneurs must continually innovate and leverage strategies that set them apart from the crowd. The task isn’t simple, but it’s indispensable. Among the arsenal of strategies that can be used to attract high-value clients and position oneself as a leader in the industry, authoring a book has emerged as a powerful tool. Yet, this technique remains underutilized, with many entrepreneurs not realizing the profound impact a book can have on their professional image and clientele.

    Establishing authority and dedication through authorship

    The process of writing and publishing a book is arduous, requiring intensive research, a deep understanding of the subject matter and the ability to articulate complex ideas clearly and engagingly. The rigor and diligence involved in this process inherently project the author’s authority on the subject, portraying them as experts in their field. This projection of expertise serves as a compelling magnet, drawing high-value clients seeking specialists, not generalists, to solve their challenges.

    Moreover, the commitment and dedication inherent in authoring a book serve as testimonials to the entrepreneur’s resilience and perseverance. These traits, highly sought after in the business world, resonate with high-value clients. When an entrepreneur takes the time and makes the effort to write a book, it demonstrates that they are willing to tackle significant challenges, follow through on their commitments and produce valuable results. This resilience cultivates trust and confidence in potential clients, making the author an attractive choice.

    Related: 4 Ways Writing a Book Accelerated My Professional Career

    Sharing unique insights and innovative solutions

    In addition to establishing authority, a book provides an unmatched platform for entrepreneurs to share their unique insights and innovative solutions. It allows them to delve deep into the industry’s challenges and present their groundbreaking approaches to solving them. This visible display of creativity and problem-solving aptitude attracts high-value clients looking for unique, cutting-edge solutions.

    Additionally, a book allows entrepreneurs to discuss and predict emerging trends in their field, thereby positioning themselves as forward-thinking and proactive leaders. By showcasing their foresight, they further appeal to high-value clients who value being on the cutting edge of their respective industries.

    Sharing personal experiences and narratives is another crucial aspect. Entrepreneurs humanize themselves and their brands by weaving their journeys, challenges and triumphs into the narrative. This authenticity and relatability create an emotional connection with potential clients, making the author and their services/products more appealing.

    Related: How Entrepreneurs Can Make Money Writing a Book

    Building credibility and fostering connections

    Publishing a book can significantly enhance an entrepreneur’s credibility. The author’s commitment to their field and ability to articulate and share their knowledge is spotlighted in a tangible form, contributing to their perceived credibility. When it comes to attracting high-value clients, credibility is a key factor; these clients are often looking for proven professionals with a track record of expertise.

    Furthermore, books can serve as powerful tools for building relationships. A book that offers tangible value in the form of actionable advice, valuable insights, or fresh perspectives can serve as a magnet for potential clients. By engaging readers and encouraging them to think differently, a book opens the door to further discussions, networking opportunities, and, ultimately, the establishment of meaningful connections with potential high-value clients.

    The long-term impacts of book publishing

    Unlike many other forms of content marketing, a book provides long-lasting benefits. Its impact extends far beyond its initial release, providing a long-term return on investment. The content of a book remains relevant for years, continuing to draw new readers and potential high-value clients long after its publication.

    A book is a timeless asset that keeps giving back. Its longevity means the benefits of publishing a book extend far into the future, unlike a blog post or social media update that might quickly fade from memory. The published book keeps the author’s name and expertise circulating, continually attracting potential high-value clients.

    In essence, a book is like a business card that doesn’t get discarded — it sits on bookshelves, gets shared among peers and remains available online, continuously making an impression. This continual client attraction is another compelling reason for entrepreneurs to consider writing a book.

    Conclusion

    In a business world where differentiation is the key to standing out from the crowd, a book can provide that unique edge. By establishing authority, showcasing unique insights, building credibility and fostering connections, a book becomes more than just a product; it’s a tool for personal branding and client attraction.

    The impact of publishing a book goes far beyond the immediate short-term benefits. Its influence continues long after the initial release, providing an enduring testimony to the author’s expertise and a persistent attraction for high-value clients. In a competitive business environment, entrepreneurs who leverage the power of a book can position themselves for greater success and a more robust professional presence.

    In closing, a book is more than just an aggregation of pages filled with words. For entrepreneurs, it’s a platform to demonstrate their expertise, share their unique perspective, connect with high-value clients, and differentiate themselves from the competition. With these long-term benefits, it’s clear that a book can be a potent tool in an entrepreneur’s arsenal for attracting high-value clients.

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    Vikrant Shaurya

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  • Amazon Prime Day Blowout: All Entrepreneur eBooks Just $1.99 | Entrepreneur

    Amazon Prime Day Blowout: All Entrepreneur eBooks Just $1.99 | Entrepreneur

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    Our 48-Hour Flash Sale is happening now! Get any eBook in the Entrepreneur Bookstore for just $1.99 — that’s a savings of up to 80%. You won’t find a better deal anywhere else on Amazon Prime Day.

    Use code LAUNCHSALE at checkout to save big on eBooks that will help you:

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    Entrepreneur Staff

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  • Jackie O’s Review of Alleged Former Flame Warren Beatty’s Bedroom Work: Meh

    Jackie O’s Review of Alleged Former Flame Warren Beatty’s Bedroom Work: Meh

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    When you’re a legendary Hollywood sex symbol, not all contributions to the mythology are welcome. It’s like being a really prolific Uber driver: Every star counts, so it’s important to maintain that good rating. And according to a new biography of late former first lady Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, Warren Beatty’s star rating just dropped a skosh.

    In the upcoming biography Jackie: Public, Private, Secret, due out in July, author J. Randy Taraborrelli sheds light on an alleged brief romance between the two in the mid-’70s, when Jackie was working as a book editor and liaising with potential celebrity memoir writers. According to an excerpt provided to People, one of these writers was Beatty, with whom she eventually allegedly shared a romantic relationship. 

    According to the book, the two saw each other for a few months, and Jackie later told those close to her that Beatty was self-absorbed and career-obsessed. Not her thing. The most devastating blow, however, is what she allegedly told a friend who asked how Beatty was in bed: “Oh, he’s fine. Men can only do so much, anyway.”

    As anyone who’s ever had a performance review of any sort can confirm, “fine” is a dagger. “Fine” is a hand wave. “Fine” is an afterthought, Don Draper’s “I don’t think about you at all” in one little word—the most underrated of the four-letter words for all the ego-crushing impact it can carry.

    Compare Jackie’s assessment to that of another of Beatty’s encounters, Diane Keaton, who dated Beatty: “A collector’s item, a rare bird…Warren was stunning.” In the same 2016 Vanity Fair profile that includes Keaton’s assessment, an unnamed source calls him “a samurai of sex,” and an alphabetical list of rumored paramours (with writer Sam Kashner’s in-text apologies to any left off the list) includes Isabelle Adjani, Brigitte Bardot, Leslie Caron, Cher, Julie Christie, Joan Collins, Britt Ekland, Goldie Hawn, Keaton, Elle Macpherson, Madonna, Michelle Phillips, Vanessa Redgrave, Diana Ross, Barbra Streisand, and Liv Ullmann.

    Fine.

    In the same VF article, Kashner mentions seeing a photo of Jackie while dining with Beatty. “‘Not true,’ he said about Jackie, before I could even ask,” he writes.

    Biographer Taraborrelli, however, told People, “When it was over, Jackie said it lasted two weeks longer than it should have.”

    This wasn’t the only less-than-stellar appraisal of Beatty’s bedroom bravado. Cher, who told Playboy in 1988 that she was underage when the actor bedded her,  said, “When I was 16 years old, I fucked Warren Beatty,” according to Vanity Fair contributor Peter Biskind’s book Star: The Life and Wild Times of Warren Beatty. “Of course, I’m one of a long list. I did it because my girlfriends were so crazy about him, and so was my mother. I saw Warren, he picked me up, and I did it. And what a disappointment! Not that he wasn’t technically good, or could be good, but I didn’t feel anything. So, for me, I felt, There’s no reason for you to do that again.”

    Beatty, now 86 years old, has been married to fellow actor Annette Bening since 1992. In 2022, a lawsuit was filed against him alleging that he’d sexually assaulted Kristina Charlotte Hirsch multiple times in 1973, when she was 14 or 15, grooming and coercing her for sex. (Neither Beatty nor his reps have publicly commented on case.)

    Vanity Fair has reached out to Beatty for comment. 

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    Kase Wickman

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  • Best-selling author Elizabeth Gilbert cancels publication of novel set in Russia

    Best-selling author Elizabeth Gilbert cancels publication of novel set in Russia

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    “Eat, Pray, Love” author Elizabeth Gilbert said Monday she will not release her new novel, which is set in Russia, as scheduled over “a massive outpouring of reactions” from Ukrainians who took issue with its setting. 

    “The Snow Forest” was scheduled for publication on Feb. 13, 2024, but Gilbert said she has decided against moving forward with that timeline.

    “I’m making a course correction and I’m removing the book from its publication schedule. It is not the time for this book to be published,” Gilbert said in a video posted on Instagram. 

    “The Snow Forest,” which is set in Siberia in the 20th century, tells the story of “a group of individuals who made a decision to remove themselves from society to resist the Soviet government and to try to defend nature against industrialization,” according to Gilbert. 

    The author, whose 2006 bestseller “Eat, Pray, Love” was turned into a feature film starring Julia Roberts and Javier Bardem, said her Ukrainian readers expressed “anger, sorrow, disappointment and pain” over the book’s slated release because of its Russian setting. 

    “I want to say that I have heard these messages and read these messages and I respect them,” Gilbert said. 

    Riverhead, an imprint of Penguin Random House, the book’s publisher, did not immediately respond to CBS MoneyWatch’s request for comment. 

    Gilbert said she came to realize that now is not the time to publish her new novel because of Russia’s ongoing war in Ukraine, which has now dragged on for more than one year, displaced millions of Ukrainians and led major corporations to cut business ties with Russia.

    “And I do not want to add any harm to a group of people who have already experienced, and who are all continuing to experience, grievous and extreme harm,” Gilbert said. 

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  • Sarah Jessica Parker Launches Her New Literary Imprint

    Sarah Jessica Parker Launches Her New Literary Imprint

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    “The main obstacle to my simple, happy life,” muses Eleanor, the narrator of Elysha Chang’s debut novel, A Quitter’s Paradise, “was that I was prone to secret-keeping.” According to her new husband, Ellis, at least—her marriage to whom Eleanor hasn’t yet shared with her mother, Rita. When Rita finds out, she sends Eleanor an email: “Why hide yourself from me? Why why?”

    When the book begins, Eleanor is a PhD candidate at Mount Sinai studying mouse cortices, though soon after marrying Ellis, she quits the program and becomes a technician in her husband’s lab, a source of consternation for her mother and colleagues. That decision, coupled with a family tragedy, sends Eleanor into a spiral of erratic decision-making: She kicks off an affair and also jeopardizes the work and safety of her labmates. Punctuating Eleanor’s sections are dips into her family members’ lives, from both earlier years and long before she was born.

    “Eleanor’s voice came to me first,” Chang says. “But she’s very evasive; she’s a slippery character. And at some point I understood, I’m not getting more information out of her—that’s part of her charm, right? And so I did, initially, just start looking for other sources of information—from her sister, her parents.” Soon, those characters bloomed to play a larger role than simply being in service of Eleanor’s narrative: A pair of brothers, decades earlier, became estranged during the Chinese Civil War, with one growing up in China and the other Taiwan; the origin story of the relationship between Eleanor’s parents, Rita and Jing, comes to light. “I became interested in that family dynamic—that there’s so much of our family history that we don’t know, we don’t have access to. That’s not a new tradition. James Baldwin does that. Toni Morrison does that. I think this is, maybe, my immigrant spin.”

    The book also calls to mind recent explorations of science and relationships, including Weike Wang’s Chemistry and Brandon Taylor’s Real Life—it’s no surprise when Chang says they’re two of her favorites. And, as if in keeping with the scientific method, the characters’ narratives are peppered with questions: “What was its purpose?” Eleanor thinks, frustrated by her research. “Was this the life she wanted?” her mother worries when Eleanor is a child. “What in his life had ever made him think that money would come easily?” wonders Jing, newly in America.

    The novel is the first from Sarah Jessica Parker’s SJP Lit, a new imprint from the independent publisher Zando, launched in 2020 by Molly Stern. “What struck me about this book was that it was exactly what I was looking for, which was a brand-new voice who was telling a story unfamiliar to me,” Parker says, “but also a story that would connect with readers who were looking for stories of their lives, who had yet to experience them in a book.” The story “is so smart and funny and heartbreaking,” she says. “And then we just had to fight for it. We just had to hope that she would trust us with this gift.”

    Chang calls the decision to work with Zando editor Erin Wicks “a no-brainer” because of “the enthusiasm that I felt from Sarah Jessica and also from Erin. They had clearly read and read the book.” (And it’s true that Parker’s palpably enthusiastic about books she loves, whether on Instagram or during this interview. “Oh, my God. Oh, my God,” she repeats each time I mention that I haven’t read one of her favorites.) 

    Parker and Zando publisher Stern connected at a lunch hosted by Joanna Coles; Stern had seen Parker photographed with a copy of Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl, which Stern had published. (Flynn has her own eponymous imprint with Zando; its first book, Scorched Grace by Margot Douaihy, launched in February, and Ayesha Manazir Siddiqi’s The Centre will be out in July.) After the lunch, Stern sent Parker a stack of books, including A Constellation of Vital Phenomena by Anthony Marra; over time, after the two started a book club together, Stern convinced Parker to launch a literary fiction imprint with Crown called SJP for Hogarth: “That book,” Parker says of Constellation, “became the standard-bearer.” 

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    Keziah Weir

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  • The 25 Best True Crime Books to Add to Your TBR List

    The 25 Best True Crime Books to Add to Your TBR List

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    Every item on this page was chosen by an ELLE editor. We may earn commission on some of the items you choose to buy.

    Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup by John Carreyrou

    Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup by John Carreyrou

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    While she was once known as “the next Steve Jobs,” Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes is now best recognized as what she truly is—a scammer. You’re probably familiar with the general story (and have potentially seen Amanda Seyfried play Holmes in Hulu’s true crime limited series The Dropout). Still, you may not know all the details. Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup, written by investigative reporter John Carreyrou, charts the rise and fall of the former CEO and her fraudulent company.

    I’ll Be Gone in the Dark: One Woman’s Obsessive Search for the Golden State Killer by Michelle McNamara

    <i>I'll Be Gone in the Dark: One Woman's Obsessive Search for the Golden State Killer</i> by Michelle McNamara

    I’ll Be Gone in the Dark: One Woman’s Obsessive Search for the Golden State Killer by Michelle McNamara

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    Before her untimely death in 2016, true crime author Michelle McNamara became enamored with a man whom she dubbed “the Golden State Killer.” For over ten years, this enigmatic predator committed a slew of assaults and murders, yet he always escaped punishment. Three decades later, McNamara made it her mission to find out the truth about who this man was. Now, I’ll Be Gone in the Dark: One Woman’s Obsessive Search for the Golden State Killer is considered a true crime classic.

    Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI by David Grann

    <i>Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI</i> by David Grann

    Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI by David Grann

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    “Can you find the wolves in this picture?”

    After you’ve watched the teaser trailer for the upcoming film adaptation of Killers of the Flower Moon directed by Martin Scorsese, familiarize yourself with the source material. After discovering oil beneath their land in the early 1900s, members of the Osage Nation in Oklahoma became the wealthiest people per capita in the world. Soon after, many started to die unexpectedly and under mysterious circumstances. The newly developed Federal Bureau of Investigation then began working on the case to uncover one of the greatest conspiracies and mysteries in U.S. history.

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    The Wolf of Wall Street by Jordan Belfort

    <i>The Wolf of Wall Street</i> by Jordan Belfort

    The Wolf of Wall Street by Jordan Belfort

    Speaking of books whose film adaptations star Leonardo DiCaprio, The Wolf of Wall Street is perhaps the most well-known. In his memoir, the former stockbroker Jordan Belfort takes you behind the scenes of his time as a sleazy entrepreneur, from running up a $700,000 hotel tab to sinking a 170-foot motor yacht. This is as American as it gets—a story filled with greed, capitalism, drugs, and power.

    Catch Me If You Can: The True Story of a Real Fake by Frank W. Abagnale

    <i>Catch Me If You Can: The True Story of a Real Fake</i> by Frank W. Abagnale

    Catch Me If You Can: The True Story of a Real Fake by Frank W. Abagnale

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    We’ve officially come to our last installment in the Leo Cinematic-Literary Universe. Catch Me If You Can: The True Story of a Real Fake tells the story of a notorious conman named Frank W. Abagnale. In just a few of his many scams (all committed before he even turned 21), Abagnale pretended to be a pilot, practiced law without a license, and cashed over $2 million in phony checks.

    The Red Parts: Autobiography of a Trial by Maggie Nelson

    <i>The Red Parts: Autobiography of a Trial</i> by Maggie Nelson

    The Red Parts: Autobiography of a Trial by Maggie Nelson

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    For fans of Bluets or The Argonauts by Maggie Nelson, The Red Parts: Autobiography of a Trial offers a slight departure from the author’s usual style. In this part memoir and part account of a trial, Nelson investigates the death of her aunt who was murdered in Michigan in the late ‘60s.

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    In Cold Blood by Truman Capote

    <i>In Cold Blood</i> by Truman Capote

    In Cold Blood by Truman Capote

    You simply can’t discuss true crime without mentioning Truman Capote. Widely regarded as one of the first non-fiction novels ever written, In Cold Blood tells the story of four members of a family who were murdered in 1950s Kansas.

    The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair That Changed America by Erik Larson

    <i>The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair That Changed America</i> by Erik Larson

    The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair That Changed America by Erik Larson

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    The Devil in the White City follows an architect who constructed the Chicago World’s Fair of 1893 and the serial killer who used the fair as his own personal torture chamber. A gas chamber and dissection table were just a few of the sinister components that this killer (who also happened to be a doctor) employed at the fair.

    Black Klansman Ron Stallworth

    <i>Black Klansman</i> Ron Stallworth

    Black Klansman Ron Stallworth

    If you’ve already seen the film adaptation directed by Spike Lee, give the book a try. In Black Klansman, a Black detective named Ron Stallworth goes undercover in order to infiltrate the Ku Klux Klan. To do this, he enlists his partner to play the “white” version of himself, while he feeds him messages over the phone.

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    Filthy Rich: The Shocking True Story of Jeffrey Epstein by James Patterson

    <i>Filthy Rich: The Shocking True Story of Jeffrey Epstein</i> by James Patterson

    Filthy Rich: The Shocking True Story of Jeffrey Epstein by James Patterson

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    Thriller writer James Patterson tells the story of the late Jeffrey Epstein, a sex offender and financier from New York. For an in-depth look at Epstein’s various crimes and offenses, Filthy Rich includes interviews with his alleged victims and critical details about his case, including his subsequent death in 2019.

    Under the Banner of Heaven: A Story of Violent Faith by Jon Krakauer

    <i>Under the Banner of Heaven: A Story of Violent Faith</i> by Jon Krakauer

    Under the Banner of Heaven: A Story of Violent Faith by Jon Krakauer

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    Religion, fanaticism, and faith are at the core of Jon Krakauer’s Under the Banner of Heaven: A Story of Violent Faith. He investigates the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and the two Mormon Fundamentalist brothers who commit murders because God “commanded them” to. The Hulu miniseries starring Andrew Garfield is a great adaptation to watch once you’re done reading.

    Lost Girls: An Unsolved American Mystery by Robert Kolker

    <i>Lost Girls: An Unsolved American Mystery</i> by Robert Kolker

    Lost Girls: An Unsolved American Mystery by Robert Kolker

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    Lost Girls investigates the disappearance of several escorts in their early 20s. All of the women advertised on Craigslist and Backpage, which couldn’t possibly be a coincidence. Award-winning investigative reporter Robert Kolker attempts to solve this unsolved mystery and track down the serial killer who’s responsible for the lost lives of young women.

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    Monster: My True Story by Aileen Wuornos

    <i>Monster: My True Story</i> by Aileen Wuornos

    Monster: My True Story by Aileen Wuornos

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    Charlize Theron portrayed Aileen Wuornos in the 2003 film Monster and the book is just as intense and gritty. Told in her own words, Wuornos tells her story about escaping an abusive household, working as a prostitute, and then becoming one of the world’s few female serial killers.

    Party Monster: A Fabulous But True Tale of Murder in Clubland by James St. James

    <i>Party Monster: A Fabulous But True Tale of Murder in Clubland</i> by James St. James

    Party Monster: A Fabulous But True Tale of Murder in Clubland by James St. James

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    Descend into the pit of hedonism and crime of New York’s downtown party scene with Party Monster. Drugs, sex, and murder fill the pages as the author James St. James, a former club kid, breaks down the underbelly of reckless nightlife. Home Alone’s Macaulay Culkin also stars in the film adaptation as the “king of the club kids.”

    Zodiac by Robert Graysmith

    <i>Zodiac</i> by Robert Graysmith

    Zodiac by Robert Graysmith

    The Zodiac Killer has become an essential part of pop culture lore, so it’s important to read the book so that you have the full context. If you’ve seen the film directed by David Fincher, then you’ll definitely be interested in taking a peek at the previously unreleased letters that the Zodiac Killer left behind, which are just a few of the exclusive contents that you can find in the book.

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    Wiseguy by Nicholas Pileggi

    <i>Wiseguy</i> by Nicholas Pileggi

    Wiseguy by Nicholas Pileggi

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    Calling all film buffs for this one. Get to know the real-life story behind the gangsters in Martin Scorsese’s Goodfellas. Wiseguy: Life in a Mafia Family tracks the life of Henry Hill, a Mafia associate who turns into an informant.

    Casino: Love and Honor in Las Vegas by Nicholas Pileggi

    <i>Casino: Love and Honor in Las Vegas</i> by Nicholas Pileggi

    Casino: Love and Honor in Las Vegas by Nicholas Pileggi

    In another Nicholas Pileggi classic—which also served as inspiration for yet another Scorcese film—Casino: Love and Honor in Las Vegas tells the story of two men who oversaw a Las Vegas casino operation for the mob. This multi-million dollar illegal operation soon gets the attention of the FBI and chaos, lies, and betrayal ensue.

    Molly’s Game by Molly Bloom

    <i>Molly's Game</i> by Molly Bloom

    Molly’s Game by Molly Bloom

    Molly’s Game is the true story of “Hollywood’s poker princess.” Molly Bloom (played by Jessica Chastain in the Aaron Sorkin film adaptation) built one of the most exclusive underground poker games in the world and hosted several celebrities, businessmen, and millionaires. Here, she tells her story about how she gained and lost it all.

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    The Good Nurse by Charles Graeber

    <i>The Good Nurse</i> by Charles Graeber

    The Good Nurse by Charles Graeber

    Known as “The Angel of Death” by many, registered nurse Charlie Cullen was responsible for the death of hundreds of his patients. The Good Nurse: A True Story of Medicine, Madness, and Murder includes wiretap recordings, interviews with informants, and never-before-seen police records. After reading the book, make sure you check out the Netflix film adaptation starring Jessica Chastain.

    All the President’s Men by Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein

    <i>All the President's Men</i> by Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein

    All the President’s Men by Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein

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    For the history buffs, All the President’s Men: The Greatest Reporting Story of All Time is all about Watergate. Journalists Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein provide a first-hand account of one of the most well-known scandals in American politics.

    Headshot of Juliana Ukiomogbe

    Juliana Ukiomogbe is the Assistant Editor at ELLE. Her work has previously appeared in Interview, i-D, Teen Vogue, Nylon, and more.  

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  • Caroline Calloway Survived Cancellation. Now She’s Doubling Down

    Caroline Calloway Survived Cancellation. Now She’s Doubling Down

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    She continued to make plans after 2017, yet, one by one, they’ve sputtered, conked out. There’s a Reddit thread created by SMOLBEANSNARK dedicated to tracking and annotating her Instagram posts about Scammer. She’s blamed holdups variously on the return of her mother’s cancer, excessive partying, solidarity with Black Lives Matter. Shipping dates have come and gone many times. On November 8, 2020, she vowed that Scammer would be “AT LEAST 400 pages, more likely 450.” (Flash forward: One month after my Sarasota visit, I receive a text. “Scammer update: It’s taking shape before my eyes into more a book of 65 prose poems than a ‘memoir.’ ” Second flash forward: As of the printing of this issue, Scammer has not yet shipped. Neither has I Am Caroline Calloway, nor Cambridge Captions.)

    Calloway is still talking, and as I watch her mouth move, the realization dawns: Natalie Beach, c’est moi.

    Beach isn’t who I want to be. That, though, is who Calloway has turned me into. First of all, she makes disinterested journalism impossible. You can’t stay detached. She simply won’t allow it.

    For example, a few weeks ago, over Zoom, I was listening to her read out loud a paragraph she’d written: “For months, I let a pool boy who is also a plumber fuck me without a condom. I haven’t used a condom in years.”

    Unable to help myself, I interrupt. “You should stop having sex without a condom.”

    She looks up at me, looks down, then gives a small shake of her head. “Oh,” she says. “No.”

    I sigh.

    For another example, over a different Zoom, I notice that she keeps pausing to suck on a lemon wedge. I ask her what she’s doing. She’s just taken mushrooms, she explains, and the lemon enhances the mushroom’s potency. I express irritation because I’d blocked out two hours for this interview, and now she was going to be too high to answer questions. No, no, she assures me, she won’t be too high to answer questions. Five minutes later she whispers, “I’m too high to answer questions.” I sigh.

    She can be sweet and funny and charming, yet she has no respect for boundaries, personal or professional. In the middle of a conversation, she’ll fasten her eyes on mine, say breathily, “I’ve always thought I’d meet a journalist that I’d be friends with. I really hope it’s you.” Last March, she randomly sent me a video of herself getting ready to go out for the night. She was wearing a minidress and kept flipping it up, flashing her Red Scare thong, and doing this obscene darting thing with her tongue. My sons, then nine and seven, were constantly stealing my phone to watch.

    If I continue talking to her, researching her, writing this piece on her, I’ll end up scrubbing the period blood out of her comforter, same as Beach. (Well, Beach didn’t scrub the blood-stained comforter, but she did stash it.) 

    Really, though, Natalie Beach, c’est moi because Calloway makes me her collaborator. She needs one more than anybody I’ve ever met. There’s an air of purgatory about her. She’s been locked in a moment for six years, the moment she broke the contract with Flatiron. She’s doomed to try to write the book and fail to write the book over and over. She gives the book different titles—And We Were Like, Scammer, I Am Caroline Calloway—but it’s all, I’m convinced, the same book because it’s all the same story, the only story she has to tell: hers. And yet, for some mysterious reason, she can’t tell it. Not by herself, anyway.

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    Lili Anolik

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  • “The Good, The Bad, The Fabulosity, The Ugliness, The Absurdity”: Geena Rocero on Her New Memoir, ‘Horse Barbie’

    “The Good, The Bad, The Fabulosity, The Ugliness, The Absurdity”: Geena Rocero on Her New Memoir, ‘Horse Barbie’

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    The mordant irony of her location is not lost on Geena Rocero. When Vanity Fair reaches her by phone, the filmmaker, model, and activist is perched in a guest room on a Virgin Voyages cruise ship idling in the port of Miami, preparing to set sail for the Bahamas; she’s there for the Summit at Sea conference, at which she’ll give a talk about her debut memoir, Horse Barbie, out next week from The Dial Press. But in Florida, in 2023, “Can I get off this ship and scream, I’m a proud trans woman speaking at a convention here?” says Rocero. “Maybe a different story.”

    Horse Barbie details Rocero’s childhood and teen years spent with her family in Makati, a city in the Philippines, her subsequent move to San Francisco, and eventually a life modeling in New York. Raised on Hollywood exports and the Catholic Church, Rocero traces major moments of self-discovery to these two juggernauts: as a hand interpreter in the church choir at age 10—a child chosen to stand before the congregation and perform graceful hand movements in sync with the music—Rocero writes of having felt a sudden bolt of understanding. “I am a child, I am Catholic, and I am femme.” 

    Rocero was 15 years old when she started modeling in trans pageants, “a national sport” of the Philippines tied to religious celebrations, she writes, and an “amalgamation built through centuries of war and conquest”: pre-colonial heritage, which honored gender-fluid identities; the Spanish institution of Catholic festivals; and American pageant culture. At her first show, Rocero met a young woman named Tigerlily who became her trans mother and gave her the moniker Horse Barbie, a reclamation of the insults hurled by teasing onlookers who called her appearance horsey. It was Tigerlily, too, who introduced her to the story of the woman who would become her Hollywood idol: Caroline Cossey, also known as Tula, who worked as a model throughout the 1970s. When Cossey appeared in the 1981 James Bond film For Your Eyes Only, the British tabloids outed her as trans, an experience that drove her to suicidal ideation. “She was communicated in our community as, Look at this girl who has made it,” Rocero says. “And then the culture and media were not ready for her, and this is what they did to her”—a “complicated model to have.” 

    In 2001, following her father’s death, Rocero moved with her mother to San Francisco, a place she had come to know through films like Vertigo and Basic Instinct. After living openly in her trans identity for years, Rocero became closeted again. “Trans people in the Philippines are culturally visible, but not politically recognized,” she says. “And then when I moved to America, it was the other way around. At the time I was politically recognized—I was able to change my name and gender on my legal documents—but there was no mainstream cultural visibility.” 

    It’s no surprise, she says, that one of her longtime favorite film genres is the spy thriller. (Particular current favorites are the French series The Bureau, starring Mathieu Kassovitz, and Slow Horses, starring Gary Oldman.) When she eventually moved to New York and began working as “a stealth fashion model,” Rocero felt like a spy. “I felt like I was in a covert operation for eight years where I had to protect my cover. I had to be so hypervigilant,” she says. “At the same time, my cover is about being sexy. I have to be sensual. I have to be that girl.” 

    Rocero writes with openness and humor (“I’m Filipino,” she says, “everything is funny!”) about exceedingly personal experiences, from undergoing her gender confirmation surgery, to being the focus of a date’s anger after telling him that she’s trans, to her panic while on set, wondering if she’ll be found out. She describes going to a San Francisco sex club called Power Exchange, “the Catholic guilt…surging up,” and praying for orgasms, and overcoming shame. (Rocero no longer subscribes to any organized religion. Nature is her spirituality now—hiking to camp “six hours away from the parking lot, 10,000 feet high.”) The book contains, she says, “the good, the bad, the fabulosity, the ugliness, the absurdity, all of that madness.” Accessing her sensuality after years of repression was a kind of ultimate freedom. Writing the book “in the freest way that I could, in the details that only I could, maybe it will give freedom to somebody else.”

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    Keziah Weir

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  • “It’s Almost Like It Isn’t About Me”: Susanna Kaysen on Writing Girl, Interrupted, 30 Years Later

    “It’s Almost Like It Isn’t About Me”: Susanna Kaysen on Writing Girl, Interrupted, 30 Years Later

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    “Time is very weird,” says Susanna Kaysen, best known for her first memoir, Girl, Interrupted. “It just seems impossible that it’s 30 years ago that it came out. Of course, at the same time, it seems a long time ago. It’s both.”

    The memoir, published in 1993, catalogs Kaysen’s 18-month stay at a Belmont, Massachusetts psychiatric facility colloquially known as McLean’s; Sylvia Plath had been a patient, as had James Taylor, Ray Charles, and Robert Lowell. She was admitted in 1967, at age 18, following a one-off visit to a psychiatrist prompted by an episode where she ingested 50 aspirin. A nurse’s admission report, one of several logs Kaysen includes in the memoir, describes her as a “very depressed, desperate young lady…cries easily…very cooperative.” 

    The idea for the memoir was sparked by Kaysen’s working on a novel about an anthropologist: “It came to me,” she writes in the introduction to a new anniversary edition out from Vintage Books, “that I had lived in another small, self-contained place and had observed its alignments and hierarchies, its customs and special language. I intended this memoir to be my own village study.” There are episodic descriptions of the patients she lived alongside. A young woman who arrived each year around Thanksgiving and left after Christmas, who consumed whole roasted chickens brought weekly by her father, the carcasses of which she hoarded in her room. There is a young woman covered in severe, self-inflicted burns, and one described by another patient as a “suburban junkie.” Kaysen describes the institution’s lack of privacy, the 15 and 10 and five-minute checks performed by the nurses. “It was our metronome, our pulse,” she writes. “It was our lives measured out in…dented tin spoons brimming with what should have been sweet but was sour, gone off, gone by without savoring it: our lives.” As much as it is a study of this very specific time and place, it is an engagement with the slipperiness of perception.

    In 1999 the film adaptation debuted, ushering in a fresh wave of fans. It had been a passion project of Winona Ryder, whose bookdealer father gave her an early copy of the memoir soon after her voluntary stay at an in-patient facility following her breakup from Johnny Depp. She played the character of Susanna Kaysen and Angelina Jolie played opposite as Lisa, a fictionalized version of a woman Kaysen knew at McLean’s, for which she won the Oscar for best supporting actress.

    In 1987, Kaysen had published her debut novel, Asa, as I Knew Him, told from the perspective of a young woman imagining the adolescent life of a former lover. It’s a languid book—an intra-office affair at a literary magazine; privileged boys lolling in Cambridge backyard pools—filled with perfect lines: “He had three dollars and she looked like a five-dollar lunch.” Three years later she published Far Afield, the one about an anthropologist working in the Faroe Islands. In another three, Girl, Interrupted. The next books, The Camera My Mother Gave Me, a memoir about the medical saga she embarked upon after developing an acute vaginal pain, and Cambridge, which would now be called autofiction but in 2014 was described as a “novel-from-life,” took eight and 13 years. 

    In all, Kaysen is a superb and sly observer of the minute strangenesses of being human, the interconnected fragility and resilience of the body and mind, and the day-to-day absurd. (While we chat, she brings up the July 1993 issue of Vanity Fair, which featured an item on Girl, Interrupted. “I think my head is wrapped in a curtain,” she says, wryly, of the accompanying portrait, and indeed it is.) Her in-the-works writing project about the “absolutely ridiculous details” of the pandemic—“every single motion of having somebody over for dinner on the porch, everything you had to wash and sterilize and touch, not touch, how exciting it was to go to a store finally and buy a light bulb”—was derailed by what she describes as “this cancer business.” Of her recovery from a recent lung surgery, “Everybody tells me it’s great,” she says. “I don’t agree. But they know. I’m just experiencing it.”

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    Keziah Weir

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  • How Entrepreneurs Turned Authors Make Money | Entrepreneur

    How Entrepreneurs Turned Authors Make Money | Entrepreneur

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    Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

    The average reader in the United States is a college-educated female, with a household income over $75,000 U.S. dollars, with a strong preference for non-fiction and self-help books, with their male counterparts not far behind. It makes sense that businesses would use books to reach their ideal clients.

    In addition, authors get instant credibility, authority and opportunities such as speaking engagements, meet-the-author events, guest blogging, spots on expert panels and more. So, it’s no wonder that savvy entrepreneurs are using books today to build their personal and professional brands and to grow their businesses overall.

    I will explain to you how this works and what you need to know before diving into the deep end of book writing and publishing.

    Why should entrepreneurs write non-fiction books?

    Since self-publishing has made becoming an author much more accessible for the general population, more and more entrepreneurs are using books to promote their brands and businesses. They are having great success using this strategy because people buy from people they like. But for them to like you, they have to get to know you. And that is the hard part.

    Think about it. When you are online — on social media or checking your email — you are probably doing several things at once, aren’t you? And if you are like me, you might have a small child or two competing for your attention as well. As we speak, my daughter is making a house out of recently delivered Amazon boxes and popping the bubbles in the wrap that came along…not exactly the quiet, distraction-free environment needed to be able to soak up the information in front of me, is it?

    But think about when you read a book. What do you do? Where do you go? I wouldn’t try to read a book right now in this environment. I know that just opening a book would be like a Bat signal to my 7-year-old to show me something… anything, … right away!

    I know that if I want to read a book, I need to find a quiet place and a block of time, all for myself. This is what readers naturally do when they sit down to read a book. And there is no other medium today that elicits the undivided attention of someone more than a simple book. Preferably paperback.

    Related: After Early Rejection From Publishers, This Author Self-Published Her Book and Sold More Than 500,000 Copies. Here’s How She Did It.

    How much does it cost to publish a book?

    To be honest… a lot of money. Books are just one of those things that costs a lot to produce, especially if you want to produce a high-quality, successful one.

    If you are considering self-publishing, you will have to do all the hiring when it comes to building the team to produce your book. How much you spend will depend on your current skill set and how many people you need to hire to fill in the blanks.

    This may or may not include a:

    • Book/writing coach
    • Cover designer (for both electronic and print versions)
    • Developmental editor
    • Beta readers
    • Line editor
    • Proofreader
    • Formatter
    • SEO researcher
    • Amazon category researcher
    • Copywriter
    • Website designer
    • Publisher
    • Book marketer
    • Social media marketer
    • Public relations team

    And more. There are a lot of moving pieces that go into a successful book.

    Related: 10 Truths About Self-Publishing for Entrepreneurs With a Book Idea

    Even someone who is experienced in writing and technologically advanced can expect to spend several thousand dollars on their book project in editing and cover design alone. More if they want it to be successful, which requires hiring public relations experts and marketers long-term or putting in all of the hours yourself.

    Looking at the previous list might be intimidating, but I promise you that there is a light at the end of the tunnel. Remember that becoming an author in your niche puts you in front of your ideal client, who has given you their unlimited attention.

    Related: The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Writing a Book

    How do authors make money?

    The way that authors make money isn’t through book royalties. If you publish traditionally, the publisher will keep 80-90% of your royalties anyway. If you opt for the smarter option, self-publishing, you will keep 100% of your royalties AFTER you split them with the platform you upload our book to. Either way, your royalty will be pennies compared to other opportunities to grow your brand and business.

    Realistically, you might only sell 250 copies of your book, like the average non-fiction book published today. So, you need to make those sales count. You need to give the best to the readers in your writing and offer them the best options to work with you if they decide. Basically, your non-fiction book is your sales funnel.

    Entrepreneurs turned authors who have figured this out are using their non-fiction books to sell or market their:

    • Coaching services
    • Consultations
    • High-end, online courses
    • Done-for-you services
    • Group programs
    • Subscriptions
    • Memberships
    • Affiliate products/programs
    • New businesses or products
    • Events, summits, conferences, etc.
    • Masterclasses/live online classes
    • Speeches
    • Workshops
    • In-person retreats
    • Evergreen webinars
    • MLM opportunities
    • Charity/non-profit/cause, etc.

    And many more creative monetization strategies.

    Related: 12 Ways That Writers, Speakers and Experts Can Make Money as Key People of Influence

    Conclusion

    It makes complete sense. Why worry about a few cents in book royalties — that you are splitting with a platform like Amazon — when you can sell premium products and services for thousands of dollars per sale?

    If you have an offer that includes even one of the sales strategies listed above, then publishing a book in your niche featuring your business is an easy decision.

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    Sara Tyler

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  • Martin Amis, acclaimed British author, dies at 73

    Martin Amis, acclaimed British author, dies at 73

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    Novelist Martin Amis on “Inside Story”


    Novelist Martin Amis on “Inside Story”

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    British novelist Martin Amis, who brought a rock ‘n’ roll sensibility to his stories and lifestyle, has died. He was 73.

    His death, from cancer of the esophagus, was confirmed by his agent, Andrew Wylie, on Saturday.

    His publisher Penguin Books UK, wrote on Twitter, “We are devastated at the death of our author and friend, Martin Amis. Our thoughts are with all his family and loved ones, especially his children and wife Isobel. He leaves a towering legacy and an indelible mark on the British cultural landscape, and will be missed enormously.”

    Amis was the son of another British writer, Kingsley Amis. Martin Amis was a leading voice among a generation of writers that included his good friends, the late Christopher Hitchens, Ian McEwan and Salman Rushdie.

    Among his best-known works were “Money,” a satire about consumerism in London, “The Information,” and “London Fields,” along with his 2000 memoir, “Experience.”

    Jonathan Glazer’s film adaption of Amis’ 2014 novel “The Zone of Interest,” premiered Saturday at the Cannes Film Festival. The film, about a Nazi commandant who lives next to Auschwitz with his family, drew some of the best reviews of the festival.

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  • How Writing a Book Can Accelerate Your Professional Career | Entrepreneur

    How Writing a Book Can Accelerate Your Professional Career | Entrepreneur

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    Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

    Have you ever thought about writing a book? Believe it or not, most people have thought about writing a book, but very few people follow through with it.

    I ended up writing my book for fun, but I had no idea how many doors it would open for me. Not only has it opened doors for me professionally, but it also made it easier for me to make friends and date — and I’ve also been able to use it as a tool to get into certain rooms I usually wouldn’t have access to.

    In this article, I’m going to share how I accidentally wrote a book and how I was able to accelerate my professional career with it.

    Related: 5 Ways Your Business Will Benefit From You Writing a Book

    How I wrote a book by accident

    Writing a book is a huge commitment. Most books on the market have between 30,00 to 50,000 words, so writing a book by accident makes no sense.

    Luckily for me, I was good at keeping a digital journal. In this digital journal, I documented the lows and highs of starting a company in my parents’ basement. In this journal, I wrote everything I learned, the mistakes I made and everything else in between.

    At a certain point, I looked at my entire journal and realized it was enough to turn it into a book. Over the next two weeks, I put together a book cover and immediately ordered a marketing copy (an empty book for marketing purposes).

    Once my marketing copy came in, I hired a photographer for a photo shoot and rebranded my entire online presence to pre-sell and build up hype for the book.

    As I did this, I noticed some interesting things I initially never expected:

    I started getting job offers (and accepted one)

    One thing I did not expect from writing and marketing my book online was that companies would approach me with job offers for marketing and writing. I wasn’t getting dozens of offers each week, but once or twice a week, a new opportunity would make its way to me, specifically through social media.

    This started to happen after I began marketing my book on Instagram. I took a part-time copywriting gig in mid-2022 and recently accepted a Chief Marketing Officer position at a commercial real estate company. All of these opportunities arose because of my book.

    My book “pre-sold” me and made me stand out. It got me in the door. All I had to do was attend the interview and close the deal.

    Related: The World’s Best Marketing Tool: Writing a Book

    It allowed me to start charging what I am worth

    Writing a book, especially within your expertise, is a great way to shoot your credibility through the roof. After I started publicly marketing my book online, I felt way more comfortable and confident charging exactly what I’m worth.

    I already accumulated the skills and portfolio, but having a book helped me feel more confident when asking for those prices.

    Whenever I am faced with objections, I noticed that they are more focused on the price, delivery of service and fear of taking action. I get fewer objections on the topic of credibility.

    Networking is a million times easier

    One thing that has gotten significantly easier after writing a book is networking. Not only have I been able to meet lots of cool and high-profile people online through platforms such as Instagram and Twitter, but I’ve also been able to connect with people in person as well.

    One of my favorite tricks is bringing a physical copy of my book everywhere I go. Naturally, as I go through my day, people ask me, “Oh, what book are you reading?” This serves as the perfect transition for me to dive into the book I wrote and get more into exactly what I do.

    These conversations lead to us exchanging contact information and potentially working together in the future. I’ve also been able to make lots of friends this way as well.

    Related: Looking for a Game-Changing Way to Showcase Your Expertise? Why a Book Is the ‘World’s Best Business Card’

    More speaking opportunities

    Publicly advertising my book online has made it easier for me to attract and land speaking opportunities. Having a book is a great way to boost your credibility, but speaking about the book can open many doors as well. These doors include:

    Plus so much more!

    Getting book sales is amazing, but there is even more money to be made on the back end through various things such as speaking events, workshops, interviews, etc.

    As I mentioned at the beginning of this article, I never planned to write a book. It all happened accidentally, but I’m grateful I did it because the benefits are amazing — especially the professional benefits.

    Don’t get me wrong: Writing a book takes some work and requires quite a bit of sacrifice. But if you want to take your professional career or life to the next level, you should highly consider writing a book. You’d be surprised as to where it will take you.

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    Dejon Brooks

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  • Children’s author and illustrator Vashti Harrison on new book “Big”

    Children’s author and illustrator Vashti Harrison on new book “Big”

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    Children’s author and illustrator Vashti Harrison on new book “Big” – CBS News


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    “Hair Love” illustrator Vashti Harrison joins “CBS Mornings” to share her newest children’s book “Big,” and takes us inside her process creating a book that visualizes how hurtful words stay with kids.

    Be the first to know

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  • Emma Cline on ‘The Guest,’ Creative Vulnerability, and Finding Inspiration in Playboy Bunny Memoirs

    Emma Cline on ‘The Guest,’ Creative Vulnerability, and Finding Inspiration in Playboy Bunny Memoirs

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    “I knew from the beginning the emotional temperature of the ending, how I wanted it to feel,” said Emma Cline of writing her new novel, The Guest. “I didn’t know what the specifics were, but I knew where I wanted the book to leave this character.” 

    When we first meet that character, 22-year-old Alex, she is spending August at her boyfriend Simon’s Hamptons house. He’s in his 50s, and during the day while he works Alex takes his painkillers and floats in the pool or the ocean. “The light—the famous light—made it all look honeyed and mild,” Cline writes, “the dark European green of the scrub trees, the dune grasses that moved in whispery unison.” A man on the beach is “tanned to the color of expensive luggage.” Simon’s place is “near enough to the ocean.” High ceilings, polished concrete floors, a freezer stocked with halibut that he’d grill “with so much lemon that Alex felt her mouth vibrate.” It’s a book with the dog days languor of a Sofia Coppola film and the chilling tension of a Patricia Highsmith novel. 

    Back in New York City, Alex did sex work, placing ads for services in exchange for “six hundred roses” or “six hundred kisses.” Her relationship with Simon is also transactional—as perhaps most relationships are—but less blatantly; he buys her a buttery leather bag and designer silk dresses, and is apparently unaware of her history. By the time she’s met Simon, New York has tarnished for Alex. She has left behind angry roommates to whom she owes months of back rent, hotel bars in which she is no longer welcome, and a violent, shadowy contact named Dom who is trying very hard to get in touch. Simon is her way forward, her beam of light. But narrative storm clouds gather when Alex engages in a mild flirtation with Simon’s friend’s much younger husband; it lands Alex in a pool, and puts both her phone and relationship on the fritz.  

    Kicked out of Simon’s—temporarily, she believes—Alex begins hustling her way into other living arrangements, planning to surprise him at his annual Labor Day party, just six days away. By then, she believes, he’ll have cooled down. What follows is a beach vacation by way of an anxiety dream: Alex meets a house manager and wiles her way into a night at the mansion; she finds a group of young people with a beach rental and convinces them she belongs there too. But these encounters spoil, like milk left out on a hot day, and for all her strategy she remains incredibly vulnerable to the whims of others; the men she hopes will protect her do not. 

    “She’s a character who distills a lot of my natural interests as a writer,” Cline said of Alex. “There is something mysterious about what you’re drawn to, any creative person.” Alex, she said, “is somebody whose experience in the world literalizes or exaggerates a lot of my interest in power or sex or the dynamics between men and women.”

    Her 2016 debut novel, The Girls, sold in a three-book deal worth $2 million and was loosely inspired by the 1969 Manson family murders, focusing on the psyches and sexuality of the girls and young women who live at a Spahn Ranch–like commune under the control of a charismatic, volatile, Manson-like leader. Daddy, her collection published in 2020, explores gender and generational tension in 10 taut stories of upper-class discomfort. The Guest reads like the ambitious logical next step in the continuum.

    “In a lot of ways,” she said, the book is “a reaction to The Girls, which was so much about the way the past informs the present. With this book, I knew from the beginning that I really wanted all the action contained over a few days but also, for the reader, that you stay very close to this character in the moment.” Alex’s past isn’t accessible; Cline said that she wanted to resist providing what she called “trauma math.” When someone asks Alex why she is the way she is, Cline writes: “And he was really asking. Expecting some explanation, some logical equation—x had happened to her, some terrible thing, and so now y was her life, and of course that made sense. But how could Alex explain—there wasn’t any reason, there had never been any terrible thing. It had all been ordinary.”

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    Keziah Weir

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  • In Dykette, Jenny Fran Davis Makes Her Contribution to the Lesbian Lexicon

    In Dykette, Jenny Fran Davis Makes Her Contribution to the Lesbian Lexicon

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    Jenny Fran Davis shows up to our interview with, as promised, a prime piece of book swag: a white baseball cap with Dykette, the name of her forthcoming novel out May 16, in hot pink cursive along the front. On the walk from her apartment to the coffee shop, she hadn’t quite worked up the nerve to don it, she said. “I was like, Am I a fraud? Can I really walk the walk and wear the hat? It’s blazing neon. I found that I couldn’t. And even though I was carrying it very prominently, men still hit on me! I thought that would be an interesting experiment. If you’re wearing the hat and men still hit on you, that might be the most dykette thing of all.” 

    In the queer world, where language, concepts, and terms describing sexuality and gender are both supremely important and constantly in flux, new additions to the lexicon are lapped up feverishly. Davis’s Dykette reads like a taxonomy of queer theory, references, and history, while offering up wholly new words and takes on contemporary lesbian life. Chief among them is the eponymous dykette, which Davis describes as “a dyke with frills and bows and ruffles. An accessorized, aestheticized, decorated dyke. The most extreme, exaggerated version of a femme. So exaggerated that it kind of perverts itself and becomes weird.” 

    At the center of the novel is Sasha, an unapologetically fashion-obsessed femme and self-styled dykette, whose preoccupations include queer tropes, her pug Vivienne, out-femme-ing everyone around her, and her “boyfriend” Jesse (a he/him dyke). At the beginning of the book, Sasha overhears Jesse say some less-than-flattering things about her in a therapy session, right as they are about to join two other queer couples on an upstate getaway. The ensuing trip is a blur of intoxicated dinners, dysfunctional relationship dynamics, major/minor infidelities, performance art, and endless vibes, all read through Sasha’s perspective, which is not exactly reliable. “Part of being a dykette is being in thrall to someone else’s reality, getting to reality by way of someone else’s perspective. It’s very unstable. Which is fun, but also scary, right? To put your reality in someone else’s hands, especially masc hands.”

    The precursor to Dykette is Davis’s 2020 essay for Los Angeles Review of Books, “High Femme Camp Antics,” a manifesto and polemic that announced a new kind of lesbian archetype, an over-the-top femme who, when their desire is too big or complicated or unsavory to be satisfied, performatively acts out excessive femininity. Examples, as she writes in the article, include “Alice B. Toklas replacing the word ‘may’ with ‘can’ every time it appeared while copyediting Gertrude Stein’s Stanzas in Meditation because Stein’s ex-lover was named May. The top-bitch attitude of Glee’s Santana, played by the late Naya Rivera, along with her smirky catchphrase, ‘wanky.’”

    Sasha was born out of Davis’s essay, which went viral, with Davis recalling one tweet calling it an “apologia for lesbian abuse” and other readers lauding it as a true investigation into the weird unpredictability of lesbian femme logic. Though I’d be hesitant to call myself a dykette (out of fear I’m not femme enough, which Davis says “is so dykette” of me), I felt extraordinarily seen by the notions of lesbianism laid bare in Dykette. 

    Vanity Fair spoke with Davis about trends in queer fiction, femme studies, and the “spiritual center” of her novel. 

    The below interview has been edited and condensed for clarity. 

    Vanity Fair: So much of queer fiction seems to be acutely sincere, or only about oppression and hardship. It’s as if we believe that unless we’re peddling our suffering, we don’t have literary value, or won’t be taken seriously. There’s a place for all types of queer literature but I’m very excited that you aren’t doing that, and that you wrote a fun, funny lesbian book. 

    Jenny Fran Davis: It never occurred to me to write a book about gay people where they’d suffer—why would I? And it’s not that my life or my friends’ lives have been devoid of suffering. But it’s much more funny than it is sad to be gay. We are hilarious. We’re always laughing and having fun—whether we’re laughing at or with each other. There’s a moment in Dykette when Jules’s parents call on New Year’s Day and brag about how much fun they’re having on their holiday cruise, and Jules hangs up the phone and is ranting and raving to the group and says, with bloodshot eyes, clearly traumatized from the week: “We had so much fun! They can’t even imagine how much fun we had!” A humorless butch is 10 times funnier than a straight man. It just seems like the ratio is all wrong in these tragic tales. I think the book is a rejection of the humorless, moralizing, holier than thou tone in literature that I see so much of. A friend of mine said that Dykette is a love letter to our community, but it’s also a gentle spank. I think that was kind of the perfect way to put it. It’s humor and callousness and frivolity are kind of spanking our culture to say: It’s okay to have fun and be beautiful and sexy and not be so serious and suffering and weighty.  

    It brings up a really good question about seriousness, both of the book and Sasha as a character. Firstly, can a book be funny and serious at the same time? And also, when it comes to Sasha, we often don’t know if she is being serious. For example, this moment: “She couldn’t believe straight girls made such a big deal about never faking it, like faking it was anti-feminist. Faking it was easy and fun. She sighed cutely into Jesse’s sweaty hairline for good measure.” 

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    Svetlana Kitto

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