Tangled Web Ad Nauseam

A lot of ink has been spilled over the last few days over the latest brace of “fake” books to be unmasked. If you want to learn more about the publishing history of or the moral dilemmas presented by either the Jungle Bookish Born with Wolves or the fake quasi gang memoir Love and Consequences this is not the place.

While there’s lots to be said, others have been saying it.

The New York Times’ Motoko Rich pipes up here.

At The Guardian, John Crace gets a little bitchy here.

At The Nation, Amy Alexander checks her amateur psychiatrist badge here. (“Not being a mental health professional, and never having met Margaret Seltzer, I am hardly qualified to say that the young lady is a sociopath.” And then, of course, she says exactly that.)

Ooh, and I love Bob Thompson’s line from The Washington Post, when he calls Seltzer “a bigger, fatter liar than the immortal James Frey.” When did it get to be a contest?

And if you just want the facts, ma’am, Agency France-Presse does a good job here.

Right then, ’nuff said.

There’s a lot of great book news out there and a lot of terrific books filled with stories that are real and others filled with stories that are honestly made up.

Let’s move on.

READ MORE: “Memorable Literary Hoaxes,” by Kristina Lindgren (Los Angeles Times).