No-Drama Mama to Pen Book Full of “Stuff”

Forgive me: you don’t need to know this. It has nothing to do with literature and only the scantest connection to books. The only reason I even mention it is because it’s been so very long since we had an item labeled Books-You-Just-Don’t-Want-to-Know-About. And when I saw this one, I knew it was it.

Here’s the skinny according to ONTD: Oh No They Didn’t (whose catchphrase is: “The celebrities are disposable. The gossip is priceless” so take everything quoted here with a grain of salt and maybe a shrug if you can manage one), Big Ang Raiola, the No-Drama Mama from VH1’s Mob Wives, is writing a book.

Big Ang said Friday that her first book will be released on Sept. 11 through Simon & Schuster. It's called "Bigger Is Better: Real Life Wisdom from the No-Drama Mama." She said it will include “all kinds of stuff.”

’Nuff said.

Snoop to Release Book You Can Smoke

We’ve all heard of smoking hot books, but this is off the hook. From Time’s newsfeed:

Snoop is releasing Rolling Words: A Smokable Songbook, which is made of the rapper’s new Kingsize Slim Rolling Papers, featuring lyrics to classic songs like “Gin and Juice,” “Still a G Thang” and “What’s My Name.”

“This thing can also be smoked with some of your finest, where you at or however you at,” Snoop explains in a promo video. The book is made of hemp material, a twine cover and perforated rolling-paper pages, and you can even strike a match across the spine, thanks to its special surface — multipurpose!

New Yesterday: Crafting With Cat Hair by Kaori Tsutaya

We all have our limits. We all have our lines. Thing is, you’re never sure where yours will be drawn until you hit it. When we saw Crafting With Cat Hair (Quirk), we knew we’d hit ours.

Are your favorite sweaters covered with cat hair? Do you love to make quirky and one-of-a-kind crafting projects? If so, theCrafting With Cat Hairn it’s time to throw away your lint roller and curl up with your kitty! Crafting with Cat Hair shows readers how to transform stray clumps of fur into soft and adorable handicrafts.

Oy vey.

Sheer Sheenius

The big news isn’t that reality star and one-time vampish ingenue Denise Richards has written a book. It’s that her ex-husband, former Two and a Half Men star apparently gone mad, Charlie Sheen, likes The Real Girl Next Door (Gallery) when we’d expected… well… more madness. And what do we get? Endorsements via the Twitterverse. But if Richards is at all like most new authors, she’ll take her kudos as they come. From iVillage:

“Your book rocks!” Sheen, 45, tweeted to Richards, 40, on Friday. “Never thought I’d say it... but loved it D! xo c”

Sheen accompanied the compliment with a link to the book, along with the hashtags #HotMomma and #KeepItInTheFamily.

So what does Richards’ memoir say about her famously unstable ex? She does dish a bit of dirt, like the fact that his one-time bachelor pad “was decorated entirely in black,” with a panic room, a bulletproof bedroom door and a fire pole in the closet for quick escapes. She also describes their seriously unromantic-sounding first date: watching the World Series on TV while each eating their own plastic-wrapped diet meals.

The Real Girl Next Door was published last week.

Meanwhile, when Two and a Half Men comes back this fall, it will be without Sheen. The rumor mill is saying that his Charlie Harper character will be killed off in a two-episode season opener. It’s no secret that Ashton Kutcher is set to replace Sheen, although just how they’ll fit Kutcher into the show is a closely guarded secret.

Royal Wedding Overdrive

Just when you thought you’d managed to escape royal wedding fever entirely, Bluewater productions has to go and rain on your parade:

With the considerable media buzz and excitement surrounding the upcoming royal wedding, Bluewater Productions is releasing the much anticipated biography comic book and graphic novel based on the lives of Prince William and Kate Middleton will be in stores on Wednesday, April 27.

The Royals: Prince William & Kate Middleton written by CW Cooke and penciled by Pablo Martinena, looks to give context to two perceived fairy tale lives and how an eight-year romance flourished in such a fishbowl existence.

But don’t take my word for it: Bluewater offers up a press release here. (And forwarned is foreamed: the company is cooking up a Charlie Sheen comic right now. Amazon says Infamous Charlie Sheen will go on sale July 12.)

Meanwhile, yesterday on my personal blog I offered up a much lamer royal wedding link with absolutely no book connection at all. You can see that here.

Charlie Sheen Cans Literary Agent. Or Not?

Over the past few months, there has been plenty of Charlie Sheen madness on which to report. We’ve resisted all of it with very little effort. Yesterday, however, Digital Spy said that the former Two and a Half Men star reportedly fired his literary agent, Peter McGuigan, “after being disappointed by the money offered to pen an autobiography.”

Earlier this month, Sheen used Twitter to announce his intention to write the book. At that time, Digital Spy said:

“The title of my book has finally been delivered thru vast and extensive Lunar channels (sic),” he wrote.

“Apocalypse Me. Warlock Latin for WINNING.”

Late on March 24th, however, ABC reported that aspects of the agent-firing story may have been overstated. (With Charlie Sheen involved? How could that even happen?) They also said that Sheen “has boasted he could get $10 million for a book.”

Stories of Sheen’s shenanigans with books and agents, however, pale in comparison to just about every other aspect of his life right now. The latest flood of rumors has been around who might replace him as Charlie Harper on Two and a Half Men. Jeremy Piven, John Stamos and Rob Lowe are three of the names that have been talked about as possible replacements.

Franco and Lohan to Get Naked for Terry Richardson

Just in case you haven’t heard enough about James Franco and Lindsey Lohan lately: it’s rumored that the former couple will be getting full frontal naked together for a book by Terry Richardson, whom Jezebel once called “the world’s most f__ked up fashion photographer.” Though that honestly doesn’t sound like a terribly interesting book to me (for so many reasons) the rumour-milling blogs have been churning with the story since it broke on the 28th. Here, for example, is Black Book:

Now, we don't normally push hearsay, but this is just nuts. Today, Jezebel reported that Lindsay Lohan may have signed a million dollar deal to pose nude for an explicit photography book, shot by none other than provocative fashion photographer Terry Richardson. And she's posing alongside James Franco. And the piece is already being compared to Madonna's notorious 1992 book, Sex. The photos were apparently shot this past Saturday.

Though some of the stories say that the photos have yet to be shot, everyone seems to be reaching for that Madonna comparison, which seems kind of silly: that was a different subtext, a different time and a much better photographer (Steven Meisel). And here’s another silly thing: since Lohan has lost a serious amount of work with her (ahem) dances on the dark side, how does she figure that “getting her kit off” (as The Daily Mail so charmingly put it) is going to help?

No word on when or where or by whom this tome will be published.

The Idol Noise In His Head

The latest installment in our ongoing coverage of Books You Just Don’t Want to Know About: HarperCollins will publish Aerosmith frontman Stephen Tyler’s Does The Noise In My Head Bother You? in May of this year.

In all fairness, if you like this sort of thing, Tyler’s story is likely to be a good one and autobiographies from stars of the same stratosphere have done very well. Slash’s 2007 biography, Slash, as well as last year’s Life by Keith Richards. Tyler certainly belongs in the same company and, at least according to Tyler himself, he’s got a fair amount to say. From GunShyAssassin.com:

“This is not just my take -- this is the unbridled truth, the in-your-face, up-close and prodigious tale of Steven Tyler straight from the horse’s lips,” said Tyler, who was paid a reported $2 million for the rights to the book.

And if you love that sort of thing, you probably already know about last month’s American Idol: The Untold Story (Hyperion) though, as a review in Booklist pointed out, “The subtitle is not entirely accurate. A lot of this story has been told before.” If that’s true, though,a lot of it has been told by author Richard Rushfield who covered American Idol for the Los Angeles Times for three years. Rushfield is also a Vanity Fair contributing editor and a columnist for The Daily Beast.

Another Book from the Jersey Shore

We haven’t done a Books You Just Don’t Want to Know About item for a long time, but this is one we couldn’t resist. Seriously, if even backseatcuddler.com (I’m not making this up) is scathing about it, who are we to argue? From that august outfit:

Since when did being a Guido or Guidette become a qualification for becoming an author? The latest Jersey Shore cast member to “write” a book is Jenni “JWOWW” Farley. HarperCollins is about to publish Farley’s The Rules According To JWOWW: Shore-Tested Secrets on Landing a Mint Guy, Staying Fresh to Death, and Kicking the Competition to the Curb.

The article also says that previous Jersey Shore-penned literary (ahem) efforts have not done as well as their publishers might have hoped. Are we entirely sure they’re aiming at a demographic that actually reads?

The Rules According to JWOWW will be published by William Morrow on February 8th.

Demi Moore Book May Not Be Memoir (Unless It Is)

The buzz that actress Demi Moore is shopping a book is all over the wires, as confirmed here by that (ahem) rock-solid news source, People magazine:

Moore, 47, has met with publishers in New York, her agent, Luke Janklow, tells the Associated Press. No prospective title or other details have been reported.

That seems to be the extent of the information. Still, pretty much everyone is buzzing. Read more here and here and here.

New Brangelina Tell-All Will Link Jolie with Jagger and Fiennes

The big book news on the celebrity blog circuit today was word of a “soon to be published” book about Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie’s courtship. From Canoe:

An explosive new tell-all about Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie’s courtship is set to stun star watchers thanks to suggestions the actress once briefly romanced rocker Mick Jagger, while he was married to model Jerry Hall.

Author Jenny Paul has spent six years researching the tome about the world's most fascinating couple, and she's convinced she has the goods on the couple's private worlds when they met on the set of Mr & Mrs. Smith in 2004.

And though I found similar stories about the alleged book (including one from the entirely cerebral Celebitchy: Escapism Can Be Smart, who knew?) I couldn’t find either a release date or publisher mentioned on any of the stories, leading me to think that either the whole thing is a hoax or author Paul is trying to scare up an agent or a publisher... or both.

Madoff Mistress Writes Tell-All

Just when you think you’ve heard the end of Ponzi scheming financial slime bucket Bernie Madoff, another shoe drops.

This time, the dirt is being dealt by Sheryl Weinstein, a woman who not only claims she had a 20 year affair with the Ponzi jailbird, she’s written a book about it. Madoff's Other Secret: Love, Money, Bernie, and Me is due out later this month from St. Martin’s Press. From the Macmillan Web site:

Bernie Madoff has struck a deep chord in the American psyche. This well-coiffed, impeccably groomed, affable, yet sinister man has come to symbolize the entire financial sector for the countless Americans whose net worth has plummeted and whose jobs are either lost or in danger due to the continuing recession and tight credit.

Sheryl Weinstein, former CFO of Hadassah, controller of Lincoln Center, and graduate of the Wharton School of Business has seen Madoff up close for more than twenty years, as she reveals in Madoff’s Other Secret: Love, Money, Bernie and Me.

“Up close” seems a dangerous euphemism here. I love, for instance, the title CBC News adopted for their piece on the book: “Madoff Screwed Charity Then Slept with CFO, Says Book.” Kinda says it all, doesn’t it? ‘Nuff said.

File This Under “Books You’re Never Going to See Reviewed Here”

Remember Carrie Prejean, the slender 22-year-old blond model who got a boob job, was named Miss California USA, placed first runner-up in this year’s Miss USA pageant, and then was stripped of her title after speaking out against gay marriage at the televised pageant and seeing racy photos of herself ... er, exposed on the Internet? Well, it seems this woman, who for a time was all over conservative talk shows touting her Christian credentials, has now been signed by right-wing Regnery Publishing to write her autobiography (or at least have somebody write it for her). Really? Only 22 years old and she thinks her life is interesting enough to justify people spending dough on her thoughts?

Regnery president and publisher Marji Ross insists, “It’s not a book about gay marriage. It’s not a book about traditional marriage ... She wanted to write a book about freedom of speech and the double standard that seems to exist when someone speaks their mind and doesn’t happen to be politically correct or consistent with what a crazy Hollywood celebrity thinks is the right answer.”

Oh, pleeeease. It sounds like American conservatives are simply using Prejean to advance their own out-of-step political ends. She’s a pretty tool, but a tool nonetheless.

Kent Jones, a regular contributor to MSNBC-TV’s Rachel Maddow Show, presented a segment last night about Prejean’s book, which is to be called Still Standing and appear in bookstores near you come November. Somehow we suspect that Jones’ “tribute” is much more entertaining than the finished tell-all volume will be.

Edwards Aide to Ink Tell-All

There’s something really awful in this item from Muckety:

A man who was one of former Senator John Edwards’s closest aides has a deal to write a tell-all book about Edwards’ affair with Rielle Hunter that among other things repudiates his earlier claim that he is the father of Hunter’s baby.

The aide, Andrew A. Young (not to be confused with politician and diplomat Andrew J. Young), reportedly signed a contract with St. Martin’s Press for an undisclosed price to tell his story about the former presidential candidate.

‘Nuff said about this one, I think. We’ll file it under Books You Just Don’t Want to Know About and call it done, done, done like dinner.

Streisand’s Ex-Beau Hand Slapped Over Proposed Tell-All

“Whatever happened to Jon Peters?”

“Who?”

“Jon Peters?”

“The Star 80 guy?”

“Naw. Not that guy. Maybe the guy who was boffin’ Streisand in the early 80s.”

“Oh, that guy. Maybe he’s dead?”

That might have been the conversation before last Friday when a shitstorm broke lose over the possible publication of a Jon Peters (“Jon who?”) tell-all that had the knickers of a lot of era stars in a twist last Friday. From The Wrap:

The Hollywood rumor mill was ablaze on Friday over the leaked proposal; speculation mounted that News Corp chief Rupert Murdoch, the parent company of Harper Collins, decided to pull out of the deal as too troublesome.

But The Wrap also seems fairly certain that the whole thing was a bit of a ploy by the coy:

But at least one prominent insider was convinced the entire incident was an exercise in attention-grabbing by Peters. "It's arranged hype," said this insider. "I don't think there's been any lawsuit at all."

Peters is already a somewhat notorious figure in Hollywood, a former hairdresser who rose through ambition and drive to cut a swath through the industry in the 1980s. Along with his former partner Peter Guber, he led Columbia- Sony Pictures and legendarily spent a fortune there before losing his job.

I remember Peters. Sorta. A lotta pretty hair in the shadow of Streisand. And while I sorta remember -- again, sorta -- I have trouble imagining exactly who would be rushing to buy that book. And, honestly, if you’ve been thinking about it, think again. There are a lot of terrific -- and even important -- books published every year. You’d likely feel more enriched by almost any of them than you would from the kind of trumped up tripe on offer here. Check it out:

In the noted Hollywood tradition of bridge-burning, the proposal included numerous outrageous stories and anecdotes, most of them depicting Peters as a street-smart macho man bedding his way across a sea of Hollywood goddesses, while bitch-slapping the town’s most feared figures, including Barry Diller and Ray Stark.

In one such story, two girlfriends called Peter from Washington to whisper: “I just f---ed the President.”

In another, he offers up stories about his former girlfriend Barbra Streisand – “he saw her becoming even hotter under his Pygmalion skills - and how producer Ray Stark had molested her during an audition.”

OK: that’s just stupid. Anyone who knows anything knows that Streisand was way hot before Peters ever dialed her number. Let’s just do the math: Streisand, who won a Grammy for Album of the Year in 1963, the same year Peters was allegedly 19.

Here’s the thing: every year thousands of books are published everywhere that are better/more intelligent/more meaningful than what we’re talking about here. This is just goofy. Please: be good and sensible people. Go and buy one of those better books.

Catcher in the Rye Sequel Probably a Hoax

Will this be what finally wrenches notoriously reclusive author J.D. Salinger from the comfy nest he’s been hiding out in for more than 50 years? Or was the book penned by Salinger in a lame disguise? Both are possible. Time will tell.

From the publisher’s description of Sixty Years Later: Coming Through the Rye:

A 76-year-old man wakes up in a nursing home in upstate New York. This seemingly normal day brings with it an unnerving compulsion to flee his present situation and embark on a curious journey through the streets of New York City. Powerless to resist these strange new urges, Holden Caulfield, like a decrepit marionette, finds himself in the midst of bizarre and occasionally depraved escapades. Is senility finally closing in or is some higher power controlling the chaos? 60 years after his debut as the great American anti-hero, Holden Caulfield is yanked back onto the page without a goddamn clue why.

The sequel will be published in September by a Swedish outfit called Nicotext. (“We make books. More specifically, we make books whose sole purpose it is to make you giggle. While thumbing our collective nose at the literati, we have found our niche amongst the useless, the trivial and the potentially offensive. The books in our catalogue may not reflect our capacity for intellectual athleticism, but they will put a smile on your face, which is our main objective.”)

It’s not by Salinger, but by (ahem) a freelance travel writer, “former gravedigger and Ironman triathlete” (what?) named John David California.

The world press and the blogosphere are abuzz. “The world needs a Catcher in the Rye sequel like it needs an asshole on its elbow,” Richard Lawson said for Gawker earlier today. The Guardian and the Quill and Quire blog offer up just-the-facts as they see them. However, considering author California’s bizarre biography and the fact that a sketchy Wikipedia entry lists his birthday as April 1st, I have a hunch we’ve not heard the last of this story. At all.

Jerry Hall Closes Book on Pricey Jagger Memoir

Two years into the writing of an “explosive tell-all book” about her life with lead Rolling Stone Mick Jagger, The Daily Mail reports that the project “has been abandoned in mysterious circumstances.”

The book, which Miss Hall has spent two years writing, will remain forever in manuscript form after she had an unexplained change of heart and reneged on a £1 million deal with HarperCollins.

The publisher is said to have become frustrated that, despite promises that the book would be overflowing with juicy detail about the Rolling Stones singer’s dalliances, 52-year-old Miss Hall provided only a very sanitised account.

So sad! The literary world can only sigh and wonder. Meanwhile, The Mail has said that HarperCollins has asked for the return of their £500,000 advance. (The cheek!)

The Mail’s story is here. Contact Music offers their short, sweet but basically identical explanation here.

Austen Zombie Author Will Write About Lincoln

This is just annoying: Seth Graham-Smith, the author of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies (Quirk Books) has inked a six figure two-book deal with Grand Central.

According to EW, “The author’s first book with the publisher will be Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, a re-imagined biography of the president, if he were a vampire hunter.” Ummm.... hello?

EW also reports that Hollywood is expressing interest. Was there ever any doubt?

And who said we weren’t ready for escapism? Let’s go to the bat-cave and discuss it.

In case you missed it, we previously wrote about Graham-Smith’s book here.

McCain Fille Inks Big, Fat Book Deal

Meghan McCain, daughter of former US presidential hopeful John McCain has signed a six figure deal with Hyperion. As The New York Observer breathlessly reported:

John McCain's 24-year-old daughter Meghan has a book deal! Sources say Hyperion has prevailed over at least three other publishers in an auction that began earlier this week, following a round of meetings during which the in-your-face young conservative and the literary agent she shares with her father, Sterling Lord Literistic president Flip Brophy, discussed a number of possible approaches to the book with editors around town.

Several sources said the advance Ms. McCain will receive from Hyperion, which is owned by the Disney Company, is in the high six figures.

It all makes me wonder, maybe McCain pere was looking too far North for a running mate in the 2008 US presidential elections? I’m not suggesting that choosing author/daughter/blogger Meghan over Alaska soap opera maven Sarah Palin would have delivered him to the White House (that would be silly), but maybe everyone wouldn’t have laughed so hard while he took a run at it?

The New York Observer’s reportage of Meghan’s book deal is here. The New York Times chimes in here. McCain’s surprisingly sharp scribblings on The Daily Beast are here.

Can S&S Touch This?

Simon & Schuster would like to claw back the $61,000 advance they gave to old school rapper MC Hammer back in 2002. From EURWeb News:

MC Hammer was sued by publishing house Simon & Schuster earlier this month over claims that he never finished an inspirational book for which he received advance money to write.

The 46-year-old Hammer, born Stanley Kirk Burrell, reached the zenith of his fame back in the late 1980s when he was best known for his rhymes and his pants.

The full story is here.