I know there has been just a "wee bit" of media about James Frey and A MILLION LITTLE PIECES this week hence I lace the title of this blog with its own tone of hyperbole as I feel like I am spending the week with James Frey. I am starting to feel like I know James Frey. Full disclosure here: I once passed James Frey in a hallway at Penguin Putnam when I was there for a meeting. I hope he does not remember it and write about me.

I am not going to rehash the news, but here are my thoughts:

1) What does it say that a memoir that clearly was moving and emotionally packed required any fiction? Do we readers need "more" than the truth to make a memoir work?

2) For Frey's appearance on Larry King --- and the well-timed Oprah call during this broadcast --- may I extol the merits of media training. There is nothing like having a crisis and then practicing measured responses to every potential question. Like any moment of that night was spontaneous. Especially the love fest between King and Oprah. You have to love media in America today. All we needed was a score under it and credits. Amazing. It was a busy week behind the scenes. That alone could be a book.

3) I want to thank the people at The Smoking Gun. They perked up January, created amazing buzz at publishing watercoolers and made book discussion --- news!

4) There are a lot of people on the web who think that they are funny and clever. And a moment like this is a good one for them to impersonate the story with a clever headline (A Million Little Lies is an example). Now many of these people are not funny. As my business partner, Jesse Kornbluth said, "This is the oldest problem with the Internet --- people who can't write (but who THINK they're funny). We saw a lot of them this week. I am waiting for the graphic guys to get on the bandwagon. Often they are funny.

5) I wonder --- were there more words written and spoken about the book than are in the book?

6) For the record, if I write my memoir and find a need to embellish, I will not be in jail or down and out. I instead will be able to sing on key. I will not bite my nails. I also will play more than one instrument, speak a few languages fluently and exercise for an hour a day. Hey, I spent 17 years at a fashion magazine. I was trained to think to spin it better.

7) It's been fun talking to people who are discovering the book for the first time. This proves that a book that has sold 1.8 million copies, has been number one on the NYT paperback list for weeks and has been featured on Oprah STILL is not known by everyone.

8) I have had friends calling and e-mailing me to tell me about this story since they know I have a book site. They say, "Did you hear about the guy who wrote this book and it may not be true?" This amuses me. It's like I have not seen the cover of every paper or the front screen of AOL. It even made the news channel in our elevator. And in every place Frey's name and the title of the book have been spelled right!

9) The Book Report Network has been having its own special Frey moment these past months. Google "Million Little Pieces Discussion Guide." Our site ReadingGroupGuides.com has the top two search returns. This has us beating Amazon, Oprah and Random House. For the record, the same thing happens with "Million Little Pieces Reading Group Guide." This makes me very happy. Think of all the people who will discover ReadingGroupGuides.com after doing this. This makes me more happy.

10) I am betting this sells a lot of books. Seriously. This is America.

Over the holidays I did some reading outside my comfort zone --- and enjoyed it. Like many of you there are certain genres that I read that are "typical." For me, these include suspense/thriller, mystery, women's fiction and biography.

I decided that over the holiday I wanted to stretch my reading boundaries a bit forging what I guess was a pre-New Year's resolution. So I read CONFESSIONS OF A WALL STREET ANALYST by Dan Reingold, which was my companion between wrapping, baking and the other seemingly endless holiday tasks that I worked through pre-Christmas. I found myself looking forward to reading this book each morning (I would sneak in a few pages in bed before I hit the ground running) and each night before I fell asleep (a couple of times I fell asleep with the book in hand and the light on...marveling I kept my place!).

Reality check here: I confess to being fairly ignorant to the comings and goings of Wall Street. I have friends who are analysts and others who are on the banking side. I have friends who work at Morgan Stanley and other brokerage firms. I have friends who have taken their Internet companies public. All this said, I never understood the Street until I read this book. Reingold was a telecom analyst --- actually the top-ranked telecom analyst (and in the book you will see what this means) --- during the heyday of the telecom market in the late '90s and early '00s. His stories about Worldcom, the Bells and AT&T clarified so much of what went on during those years. Reingold's niece, Jennifer, penned the pages, and here's what I loved. When I had a question, I usually would turn the page and it would be answered. The book reads like a novel --- seriously. And from the way the story unfolded I feel a lot more knowledgable about how the market moves and just how it blipped in those years. Friends who I saw over the holidays all heard about this one. I passed galley along to my dad on Christmas Eve. It's in stores on February 7th.

Once we got to North Carolina I read and enjoyed GOT THE LOOK by James Grippando, a suspense/thriller author who I had not previously read, as well as ISOLATION WARD by Joshua Spanogle, who we will be spotlighting as a debut suspense thriller author later this month. Quick note on the latter: Crichton fans will love this one. Then I moved onto THE TEMPLAR LEGACY by Steve Berry, which is in stores February 21st. I have been a fan of Steve's since his first book, and thus was eager to see how he handled the templar material. Again he did not disappoint me. I found myself caught up in both the storyline and delving into the templars. We have a feature on this starting next week. Please do not confuse this book with THE LAST TEMPLAR by Raymond Khoury. They are both excellent --- and very different --- books on this theme. I highly suggest you read both of them.

Then I moved onto a book that Seale Ballenger, a publishing colleague who never steers me wrong, raved about when we were at lunch, called THE SPACE BETWEEN US by Thrity Umbrigar. I started it on the car ride home and got out of the car still reading. For those of you who liked two of my 2005 favorites, SNOWFLOWER and THE SECRET FAN and THE KITE RUNNER, you will want to read THE SPACE BETWEEN US, which is in stores on Tuesday. The setting is contemporary India; the story is about the balance between class and gender as told through the eyes of two women, whose relationship is employer and maid. I was swept away reading it.

Now I am reading THE VANISHING POINT by Mary Sharratt, a historical fiction book that pubs in June. Again this is a genre that I typically do not explore. I am about one quarter of the way into and and really enjoying it. Her writing is much like that of Philippa Gregory. I look forward to a weekend in front of the fire finishing it. I can see myself stretching my reading wings more this year. Happy reading for 2006!