Stop looking for life’s answers by downloading The Secret and reading the Talmud because Carrie Fisher has it all figured out in her memoir, Wishful Drinking. Just listening to her on WNYC the other afternoon saved me from road rage as I sat in traffic on the BQE. I’ve got to agree with Princess Leia’s strategy for life - “it better get funny fast or it’s just going to be something that haunts you. So I make very difficult situations funny, as quickly as possible.”

Listen to the WYNC interview after the jump (radio is cool, you don’t always need a picture!) The best line about hallucinogens starts at 18:39 >>
Continue »

Not since the days of Moses has a simple 10 chapter outline caused such excitement in the publishing world– but this week literary agents were buzzing about the bidding war that Sarah Silverman and Jerry Seinfeld set off with their book proposals.  Sarah’s pot has past $2.5 and keeps climbing, while Jerry’s up to $7million.  What a week for dark-haired funny Jews … hey Daniel Strone of Trident Media Group, tell the publishing houses that if they need something cheaper, I’ll write them something real funny for a bargain - no problem.

Mia Kirshner plays twisted scribe Jenny on The L Word, but Lez Girls has nothing to do with her first book, I Live Here.  Following in her father’s footsteps - Sheldon Kirshner is a journalist for The Canadian Jewish News and was born in a displaced persons camp in Germany in 1946- Mia chronicles her travels around the globe and the humanitarian crisis of refugees and other displaced people that she witnessed. This “paper documentary” is part diary, part graphic novel. I Live Here spans the war in Chechnya, ethnic cleansing in Burma, globalization in Mexico and AIDS in Malawi.  Look for it on bookshelves October 14th (Pantheon Books.)

Who needs 90210 when your No. 1? As of Sept. 14, sTORI Telling, will move into first place on the New York Times’ prestigious non-fiction best sellers list. Tori second book has been on the best-seller list for 14 weeks, and is so successful that it is in its 19th printing. Only way Tori’ Mama, Candy, is going to beat this is to get John Grisham to pen her new tell-all book. Perhaps turning Allen Spelling’s death into a murder mystery with a trust fund legal battle will launch Candy to No. 1.

Watch out Dostoevsky - The Devil Wears Prada author, Lauren Weisberger is writing again!  She just signed a new 2 book deal with her publisher Simon and Schuster.  The first novel slated for 2010 will be a revenge novel featuring an overnight celebrity.  Wonder if this idea came from one of Weisberger’s “fans?” After all she did post on her blog -

“As always, I invite you to write in with any story ideas.  You’ll get zero acknowledgement/credit (and I’ll vehemently deny taking your idea), but if you don’t mind that, send away!

Wouldn’t be the first time  - from what I hear she never gave credit to the friend who came up with the INGENIOUS The Devil Wears Prada title, which was really the best part of the book.

It’s about time that someone spilled the beans on Belding! Dustin Diamond will be “writing” a tell all book recounting his Saved By The Bell days complete with stories of “sexual escapades among cast members, drug use, and hardcore partying.” Did Slater get freaky with Jessi Spano? Did Screech nail Lisa Turtle behind the scenes? What about Zack and Kelly? Oh I hope it’s on book shelves in time for Hannukah!

With the success of sTORI Telling (seven weeks on The New York Times best-seller list), Tori Spelling will be at it again with a new tell-all book slated to hit shelves April 2009. But since her day to day trials and tribulations with Dean and the kids are captured on her reality show and she’s already covered her doomed first marriage, her father Aaron’s death and the roller-coaster relationship with her mother, Candy, how is she going to fill all those pages?

Max Gross, a reporter for the NY Post, gives tips in “reveling in your schlubbiness, not purging it from you,” in his memoir, From Schlub to Stud: How to Embrace Your Inner Mensch and Conquer the Big City. For instance, Gross advises his protégés, become a writer: “Dress code is flexible. As are working hours. And all the time you spend goofing off reading anything from Dostoevsky to Maxim magazine can legitimately be called research.” Wise Words!!

Life With My Sister Madonna, a new book by her brother, Christopher Ciccone spills even more of the Pop Diva’s sordid secrets when it comes out later this month. Baby bro reveals that Kabbalah practicing Madonna grabbed GWYNETH PALTROW, while they danced on table tops at a boozy showbiz party, and kissed the Oscar winning actress right on the lips!

The tell-all book even covers the rocky SEAN PENN years.