Binky, Binky, Binky

Oh, that New York Observer, always on the cutting edge.  This time with an article entitled "Is There Any Glamour Left in Publishing?"  Short answer: no.  Long answer: Please, please, please do not let us have to relive our hideous publishing experiences through memoirs and novels written by those people. Seriously: please.

Here's an excerpt: ICM agent Binky Urban does not believe it would be possible to write much of a novel about modern book publishing. “What is there to say?” she said by phone Monday. “It’s such an internal, sort of cerebral job. ‘And then I edited …’? I don’t quite get how that would work, to tell the truth.” According to Ms. Urban, there might be a few people in the business (she suggested former head of Knopf Bob Gottlieb and Grove publisher Morgan Entrekin—hint, hint) who could write pretty good memoirs in the tradition of longtime Simon & Schuster editor in chief Michael Korda’s beloved Another Life. But in general, she said confidently, the world at large is not so curious about the book business these days. And those books that take it as their main subject—whether they’re novels or memoirs or works of history—never really do that well with readers, even if they do tend to catch the attention of the publishing community. “They’re fascinating to all of us because we’re all narcissistic,” Ms. Urban said.