Between the Covers

Phelps: He swims - and writes

Already worried that you're going to have to get a life now that the Olympics are over? Rest easy; you'll get a fix come December, when gold medalist Michael Phelps publishes his first book with Free Press.

In Built to Succeed, the swimmer - who won eight gold medals at the Beijing games - will write about his philosophy on training and competing, overcoming his attention deficit disorder and growing up with a single mom, reports AP.

No word on whether or not it will contain pictures.

Blooming incest, creepiness, etc.

Fridays should be all about the fun, and since it's too early to hit happy hour, I say we stroll down memory lane, to a place where children are locked in a small room together and a brother and sister share a love that dare not speak its name. I'm talking, of course, about the cheesefest that is Flowers in the Attic by V.C. Andrews.

But let's allow Jezebel columnist Lizzie Skurnick lead us through this maelstrom, shall we?

More proof Brad Meltzer is the coolest writer on earth

Yes, he got his recent Eisner Award from Jules of Pulp Fiction. But Brad Meltzer's "trailer" for his new thriller Book of Lies stars not only Christopher Hitchens, A.J. Jacobs and one of the Lost writers but also God of All on the Known Earth, Joss Whedon.

This is hilarious:

Book fair madness begins

We don't have a full, set-in-stone schedule just yet, but we've got some book fair news: The 25th anniversary edition of Miami Book Fair International - which runs Nov. 9-16 at Miami Dade College - kicks off with appearances by Cornel West (Hope on a Tightrope: Words and Wisdom) and Tavis Smiley (What I Know For Sure: My Story of Growing Up in America) and ends with An Evening with Salman Rushdie (The Enchantress of Florence).

In between we'll see - and this is just for starters; there are more than 250 confirmed authors -Gore Vidal, Derek Walcott, Joyce Carol Oates, Junot Diaz, Dennis Lehane, Margot Livesey, Francine Prose, Billy Collins, Wally Lamb, Naomi Klein, Art Spiegelman, Peter Mathiessen, Amy Tan, Debra Winger (!), Anthony Bourdain, Andrew Sean Greer (The Story of a Marriage) and newcomer David Wroblewski (The Story of Edgar Sawtelle). And many, many more.

I know you're thinking: Wasn't Salman Rushdie just here in July? Yes. He was. But this is good news for me, since I was out of town when he was here. Thank you, book fair!

The fair website doesn't have a full list up yet, but keep checking, it's bound to go up soon.

We have become like they are

Thirty years later, Captain Trips is back, this time in comic book form: Marvel Comics' adaptation of Stephen King's The Stand debuts on Sept. 10.

King's classic - about a virus that wipes out almost all of the population of the U.S. and the survivors' struggle to put their lives back together, all while evading a menacing figure named Randall Flagg - is widely considered his best book, and it's scary stuff (although the hand of God bit is really a bit much, isn't it?) The story lends itself to comic book form and should be fun for writer Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa (also a writer for HBO's Big Love) and artist  Mike Perkins.

When you read it, though, don't forget to dig out the old Blue Oyster Cult album and remember the not-terrible 1994 TV miniseries with Gary Sinise and Molly Ringwald (!), which opened with a landscape strewn with dead bodies and Don't Fear the Reaper.

Blurb me

The New York Times recently ran an excellent essay on the art of blurbing that's worth checking out.

Blurbs, of course, are those quotes from famous (sometimes less than famous) writers on the backs of the books you buy, telling you how wonderful the novel/memoir/nonfiction/history is. I'm not talking about the ones from publications (like the " A literary anthology of the all-star variety" - Miami Herald that adorns the top of the latest edition of New Stories from the South, which happens to be sitting on my desk. Funny how Herald reviewers are rarely mentioned by name. Hmmm). I'm talking about names you know: Rushdie, Sedaris,  that ilk.

Does anybody pay attention to blurbs? If you see the name of someone you respect and admire on a new novel, are you more likely to pick it up?

B&N celebrates 1 million hits

The world's largest bookseller is marking a big online milestone: one million video views in the first six months since the launch of the Barnes & Noble Studio, a multimedia destination with original content about books, readers and writers, including web video series.

Two new series are being added: "Moving Paragraphs," which pairs writers, passages from their favorite books and original animation, and "Why I Read," a man on the street style program from Los Angeles in which readers talk about their favorite books.

I don't buy much at B&N myself, being an independent-store supporter when I can be, but I have to say there's some interesting stuff on this website. It's worth checking out if you're wasting time at work. Not that I'd ever do that, of course.

What are you reading now?

"The book that I have enjoyed the most lately - and it has made the most difference in my life! - is The Wall Street Diet by Heather Bauer. I gained
40 pounds while writing my novel Schooled because I sat on my butt all day and wrote and then congratulated myself with a feast of carbs each night. This diet book is the only diet book I have ever been able to read from start to finish, and it has helped me shave off 15 pounds. It's readable, easy to follow and at times absolutely hilarious. I have nothing to do with Wall Street
- I'm just a girl with a predilection for pizza - but the book
really spoke to me.''

ANISHA LAKHANI, author of Schooled

Thanks for making us laugh; we needed it

Three finalists have been selected for the 2008 Thurber Prize for American Humor (named for - and surely you know this - humorist James Thurber):

Former Simpsons writer Larry Doyle for I Love You, Beth Cooper

Former SNL writer Patricia Marx for Him Her Him Again The End of Him

Former Harvard Lampoon president Simon Rich for Ant Farm

The winner will be named Oct. 6 at (where else?) The Algonquin Hotel in NYC. Judges are Christopher Buckley, one of the funniest satirists in America, who won the Thurber Prize for his novel No Way to Treat a First Lady; Funny in Farsi author Firoozeh Dumas; and Robert Kaplow, author of Me and Orson Welles. Dumas and Kaplow are previous finalists for the award.

A visit with the "Girl from Foreign"

Sadia Shepard, a documentary filmmaker, comes from an interesting family. Her dad is a Christian; her mother a Muslim. And then Shepard discovered that her mother's mother was not born a Muslim but part of the Bene Israel community,  a small group of Jews that settled in India. Turns out Grandmother had secretly married a Muslim at 16, and though she never converted, raised her own children in the Islamic tradition.

Shepard's new book, The Girl From Foreign, is about that discovery and her own journey to India and Pakistan, where her mother's family moved after Partition. Shepard, who's bright and interesting and someone you could happily talk to for hours, is scheduled to speak Tuesday at Books & Books. If she can get a flight in, that is. Ah, August! She has also made a documentary about the Bene Israel, which is making its way through the film festival circuit.

You can read my interview with her here.