Today at Flavorpill, we sharked ourselves. We agreed with Lizzie Skurnick that Lisbeth Salander is the perfect foil to Elizabeth Gilbert in Eat, Pray, Love. We were happy to see that Lady Gaga made Vanity Fair‘s 2010 International Best Dressed List (as did Alec Baldwin!). We ranked the relative credibility of several suspicious celebrity couples. We got a kick out of Jennifer Belle’s viral marketing campaign for her latest book: hire actresses with good laughs to read it in public places! We wished that we’d had an early ’90s bat mitvah for Paul Rudd to DJ at. We downloaded Wale’s latest mixtape. We were kind of freaked out by how much this guy obviously loves Ghostbusters. We watched Joanna Newsom and Fleet Foxes cover Kid Rock and Sheryl Crow. And finally, we wondered if Christopher Nolan really did rip off a Scrooge McDuck comic with Inception. (We’re not upset if he did, as long as it helps us figure out the ending.)
Yesterday, Obama visited Iowa City and stopped by the Prairie Lights bookstore, expressing to the public how the now-passed health care plan will help small businesses. He pretended he was there for Karl Rove’s memoir and owner Jan Weissmiller responded: “We believe in freedom of expression so we have to carry the book.” Instead of buying Rover and Mitt Romney’s latest, he went for the following:
1. The Secret of Zoom
by Lynne Jonell
2. Journey to the River Sea
by Eva Ibotson
3. Star Wars: A Pop-Up Guide to the Galaxy
by Matthew Reinhart
That’s right. Star Wars: A Pop Up Guide to the Galaxy. Sure, our geeky Commander-in-Chief claimed that he “purchased it for a friend.” He probably ordered the special edition hardcover on Amazon. We began thinking, “Well, what other books should he have picked up?” This is what we came up with.
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When J.D. Salinger died last week at the age of 91, the Twitter- and the literatti aligned to mourn the reclusive writer. Charles McGrath wrote a touching obit in the New York Times; Lillian Ross waxed poetic in The New Yorker and Bret Easton Ellis, tweeted, “Yeah!! Thank God he’s finally dead. I’ve been waiting for this day for-fucking-ever. Party tonight!!!” Ah, the Twitterverse, where Chilon of Sparta’s maxim “Don’t speak ill of the dead” doesn’t apply, as long as you can do it in under 140 characters. We turned to the Twitterverse to see how other luminaries, literary and decidedly unliterary, marked Salinger’s passing*.
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Let it be known that if you live in New York, then we’re spying on what you read during your commute — and no, that free issue of AM NEW YORK doesn’t count. This morning quick reads, mysteries, and best sellers conspicuously dominated the picks of those on the 1 train that shuttles us down the west side to Flavorpill each day.
JOHN GRISHAM’s THE FIRM and ELIZABETH GILBERT’s EAT, PRAY, LOVE weren’t too much of a surprise. And, of course, STEPHANIE MEYER’s TWILIGHT — if you watch for it you’ll see one of Meyer’s novels around every corner.
Apparently, everyone is waiting with bated breath to find out if the mortal and the vampire will ever get it on. We got off the train, walked a block to work, walked toward the elevator, pressed the button and looked up only to see the same Twilight fan standing ahead of us, with thick paperback still in hand.
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