I was contemplating a survey asking what books editors were ashamed of reading when, lo and behold, People had the very same idea. Kelly Ripa was ashamed of having read Sextrology, which is about what your sign means sexually — what you’re attracted to. She covered it with a magazine in the park so no one could see! Kelly, I’m a Leo, ’nuff said. (Friends, if you have a moment, click on the link and check out the authors’ names. I love life.)
Kathy Griffin (who I believe scored a 2 million dollar book deal?!?) says someone “gave” her L. Ron Hubbards’ Dianetics “as a joke.” Or not.
And Emily Deschanel (does anyone know who she is?) listens to new age, self help books on tape in the car. She says it’s embarrassing when the guy valet parking can hear the tape blasting, “You are so beautiful.” That’s funny, my self-help tape screams, “You fucking loser.” And the valet doesn’t give a shit.
I’ve been thinking about what books I’ve been embarrassed to be caught reading. Just today, at Urban Outfitters, I gravitated over to their highly merchy book table and picked up What’s Your Poo Telling You? And, like the last two times I picked it up, the page opened to a discussion on the difference between floaters and sinkers.
What crap are you reading?
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NOTE: Everywhere I’ve ever worked, there was no publishing house people would rather lose to or win from more than Knopf. I worked for a publisher who actually defaced a jacket with a ball point pen because she was so frustrated with the art director. “Well, what do you want?” the art director screamed back. “I want Knopf jackets!” the publisher yelled. “Can you make a Knopf jacket?”
“I passed on Prep by Curtis Sittenfeld.” another editor shares. Years later she approached Sittenfeld for a blurb on a debut novel and praised Prep in the letter. Sittenfeld wrote back saying she’d be glad to read the novel, but did the editor remember that she had turned down Prep? Ouch. P.S. She never got the endorsement.
And then there’s the horse. Everyone wished they had published The Biscuit. For two years, all editors said when asked what kind of books they want to publish was 
And last, our annual “The One That Got Away Award” goes to the editor who claimed he “turned down James Patterson’s first novel Along Came a Spider because it was so poorly, sketchily written even though it was pacey, as the Brits say. MISTAKE!” Hey, you don’t get the prize for nothing.
Media Alert: Tonight on the History Channel (9 P.M. EST) Linda Kasabian tells the story of the nine months leading up to the Manson murders. Kasabian stood guard outside Sharon Tate’s home while Manson and his followers committed mass murder. She became a witness for Vincent Bugliosi, the chief prosecutor in the case, and was granted immunity. It’s forty freakin’ years later. What the hell does she look like? And what can she possibly say? I’ve always wondered what Kasabian was thinking/doing as she waited in the car. Did she listen to the radio? Whistle?
I’m sure I was obsessed with the Manson murders in part because they happened on my birthday, August 9. It was 1969, the summer of Woodstock (I got a button with a guitar and a dove design), Neil Armstrong walked on the moon, and the Brady Bunch premiered. I was nine years old, wearing mix and match Danskins, glued to the tv.
Five years later, Bugliosi published his account of the murders and trial in Helter Skelter. This set off a feeding frenzy; I read The Godfather, Serpico, The Valachi Papers, and my favorite of all time, In Cold Blood. I’m not sure what attracted me, at fifteen, to these gruesome stories. I suspect it had something to do with trying to contemplate what I had decided was a godless world, where random violence rained down on innocent people. There was something sexual about it, too, though I didn’t know that then. Prurient and thrilling.These, too, were the first books I read that I could call page-turners. And that’s when I got hooked, in earnest, to reading.
The work has officially begun. I’m updating The Forest for the Trees for a 10th anniversary edition. Rereading it now, I can’t believe I had the chutzpah to write it at all. The only thing that explains it (besides my vast and passionate love of writers and their craft) is that I wrote the proposal and sold it when I was pregnant. I was turbo-charged by the hormones coursing through my body and I believed I could do anything. Case in point: I attempted to trompe-l’oeil a table. The entire time I was pregnant, I felt as if I had a huge generator strapped to my mid-section. There were mornings going to work when I felt as if my stride was the length of an entire block. Whatever cocktail of serotonin and estrogen that was — someone should bottle it.
When I was an editor, one of my first authors sent a birth announcement along with her first book. It read: It’s a Girl. Weight: 2 pounds, 1 ounce. Length: 8 1/2 inches.
Spent the last two days going over page proofs with a writer. One of my favorite moments in the publishing process is when you see the manuscript transformed into typeset pages. I’ve always had great respect for book designers and all the decisions that go into making a page.
Betsy Lerner 
