Like many of you (we hope), we were sort of surprised by the news that Publishers Weekly had anointed E.L. James, author of the Fifty Shades of Grey trilogy, as the Publishing Person of the Year. After all, we like to imagine that PW has a little taste, and we know it has more than a little literary clout, so we’re not sure how its staffers looked past James’ terrible prose to give her any sort of prize. Then again, according to PW, it’s all about the money.
They write: “Because the success of the series continues to reverberate throughout the industry in a number of ways – among other things, the money it’s brought in helped boost print sales in bookstores and turned erotic fiction into a hot category – we have selected James as the most notable player on the publishing stage this year.” Well. Luckily for us, The Washington Post’s “totally hip book reviewer Ron Charles find this news nearly as funny as we do, and he created a hilarious video response in “celebration” of E.L. James’s victory. Caution: it includes a little light bondage. Watch the video below, and let us know what you think of the whole debacle in the comments.