Stephen Colbert stayed in Colbert Report character for all of about two
seconds--just long enough to admit he liked the books by the other
speakers at the Saturday book and author breakfast. But he immediately
backtracked, saying that his forthcoming I Am American and So Can You
(Grand Central) was "the best!"
Colbert praised the booksellers in the room, saying, "You're all good
looking and intelligent! Those of us who know we need booksellers all
like to make love with you. We put out. I'll wear something loose to
the next one of these."
Colbert and another panelist also got into the one of the funniest
public exchanges at BEA. After being introduced by Colbert, Khaled
Hosseini, whose new book is A Thousand Splendid Suns (Riverhead), said,
"I'm a huge fan of our emcee, but I've been dying for this chance."
Addressing Colbert, he continued, "You went on Amazon and gave The Kite
Runner an F-minus. It is un-American to diss The Kite Runner. Hell hath
no fury like the wrath of a Kite Runner fan. Now you know how the
president felt."
Later Colbert responded that the wrath had resulted in "women's book
clubs gathered on my front lawn, wielding a torch in one hand and a
glass of cheap white wine in the other."
Noting that this was his first time at the show, Hosseini called it "a
thrill to see the chaos that is BEA." He also thanked booksellers for
the success of The Kite Runner, despite Colbert's diss, saying, "You
loved the book from the beginning and shoved it into the hands of
readers."
He noted that "one constant in my writing is that I've always written
for an audience of one: me. . . . I never intended to get The Kite
Runner published even as far as two-thirds of my way through it. I
never thought anyone would read it, except my wife--because she loved
me."
A very earnest, but sometimes funny Rick Burns talked about his coming
film and book, The War (Knopf), focusing on World War II. "It's been 17
years since The Civil War," he said, "It's daunting that in 17 years
I've managed only to remove the word 'Civil' from the title of my work."
He noted several reasons for doing the project now. For one, "we're
losing a thousand veterans of World War II every day. I'm in the memory
business; memory is the DNA of history." In addition, "Huge numbers of
kids today think we fought with the Germans against the Soviets."
For her part, Lisa See, whose next book is Peony in Love (Random
House), told the assembled booksellers, "I want to say thank you. I
thought no one would read Snow Flower and the Secret Fan. While I
was writing it, I was told, among other things, that it wouldn't be
read because it was set in China, because
it was set in the 19th century, because all the characters were women. I was told, 'people will think you're a
lesbian.' I thought maybe 5,000 people would read it, but it would be
the right 5,000."
Alan Alda, whose new title is Things I Learn While Talking to Myself
(Random House), summed up the theme for the Saturday book and author
lunch as "If doing the right thing is the right thing, what is the
right thing?"
Valerie Plame Wilson, the former CIA operations officer who was outed
by the Bush administration, which was angry at her husband, Joe Wilson,
said proudly that she and her family recently moved to Santa Fe, N.M.,
from Washington and had 12,000 lbs. of stuff, 6,000 of which were
books. She expressed delight at having recently caught one of her
seven-year-old twins reading with a flashlight under a blanket, saying,
"I'm doing something right!"
She's been busy, besides moving. "Simon & Schuster and I are suing
the CIA [over clearances for her October book, Fair Game]," she said. "I
never thought I'd say that. But I should be able to write as others have
and be able to write my story with unclassified information. . . . I'm
very, very grateful S&S stepped up."
Paul Krugman emphasized that his new book, Conscience of a Liberal
(Norton), consists of essays and is not a collection of his columns
from the New York Times. "It's not so much about bashing Bush and
Cheney, but more about what comes next." Krugman is trying to take the
long view retrospectively, too. The conservative movement "ultimately
is trying to roll back the achievements of the '30s and '40s and turn
around the New Deal," he said. "It finally got hold of all the levers
of power in 2000. So far it hasn't gone well . . . this administration
is so bad and so incompetent that there is a real chance of change"
that could lead to a "new New Deal."
Russell Simmons said that his book, Do You! (Gotham), is "about how to remember to
remember the obvious. Hopefully this book will ring a bell for us." He
said most people live by the same laws and want the same things: to be
"stronger, more creative and connected." His book is also "about
spirituality and money. The world is obsessed by them."
Ben
Karlin, who was added to the Sunday book and author breakfast after
Paulo Coelho cancelled, said he and Coelho have more in common than
people may think. "He's from Brazil. I've been to Argentina." He also
compared himself with the bag of sand that replaces the golden monkey
head in the opening scene of Raiders of the Lost Ark, saying, "I am that bag of sand."
The former executive producer of the Daily Show and Colbert Report will have a new book in February, an anthology called Things I've Learned from Women Who've Dumped Me. His mother wrote the foreword, which includes her rousing support: "I think my son is a catch." Karlin is now happily married.
Ian McEwan, author of the new short novel On Chesil Beach,
began by quoting Herodotus: "No man should speak longer than he can make love. So
thank you very much." He started for his chair but
returned and continued, "My theme is brevity, but I'll get to that
later." He went on to say that "the short novel has a peculiar kind of
pleasure. You feel the form, shape and architecture of the short novel
that you can't feel in the long novel until the second or third draft."
Of his new book, he said, "I wrote down 5 by 8. Five chapters, 8,000
words." The characters' marriage "only lasts six hours so the short
novel seems appropriate. It's a novel of tender failure."
"You have been the lifeblood of my writing life," he added. "Bookstores are the last outpost of civilization."
Alice Sebold, whose new book is The Almost Moon (Little, Brown),
thanked booksellers for helping her and her husband pay off all
their student loans. She said she was concerned about publishing a
second novel after the success of The Lovely Bones, which she repeatedly referred to simply as Bones, saying, "I hope the new book doesn't suck."
Sebold said also that she wouldn't read from her book because it starts
off with the lead character murdering her mother, and "murdering your
mother doesn't go well with breakfast."
Rosie O'Donnell, whose new book is Celebrity Detox (Grand
Central), talked a bit about the book, the meaning of "celebrity" and
how it changes people, especially some she has been very close
to. Unfortunately she couldn't stay because it was her turn to
watch her son's soccer game. He scored three goals last week, and it
was a big game for the Bumble Bees.
O'Donnell thanked her editor Jamie Rabb for helping her work on the timing
for the release of the book, teasingly suggesting that maybe
she created the recent controversy on the View to create more interest
in the book. Concerning BEA show director Lance Fensterman, who emceed
the Sunday book and author breakfast with his usual wit, she said, "That tall guy is
really funny."--John Mutter and Susan L. Weis
