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Being sexy and beautiful can be a burden to a famous Hollywood starlet. What better way to counter-balance that than by showing your brainy side by writing a book? Unfortunately, not all books penned by stars are as deliciously salacious, humorous and shocking as Jenna Jameson’s How to Make Love Like a Porn Star. Or as wildly successful. We’ve compiled a list of celebrity authors who have tried their hand at writing, from children’s books to the fictional memoir, to the super-brainy math book.

nicole richie \The Truth About Diamonds by Nicole Richie

This “novel” written by the former ex-best friend of Paris Hilton follows the story of rich socialite Chloe Parker, the adopted daughter of a rock musician, through her ill-fated friendship with a rich heiress, love affair with drugs, brief stint in re-hab, a reality show, and once fat DJ boyfriend. But don’t be fooled, this isn’t an autobiography. To further make that point, Nicole Richie wrote herself in as the narrator and best friend of Chloe Parker. It’s no surprise this book was trashed by the critics. It’s a miracle she found a publisher at all - Nicole Richie isn’t exactly known for her intellectual insights.

Kylie Minogue The Showgirl Princess by Kylie Minogue

Celebrities sure love the children’s books. Kylie Minogue has authored a semi-autobiographical picture book about her rise to stardom. It’s self-centered, self-indulgent fluff aimed at girls six and over, with a positive message about believing in yourself and the importance of friendship and teamwork. The illustrations are really weird, and I seriously doubt this book would’ve found a publisher had it not been written by Minogue, but I guess it does help to have friends in high places.

Naomi Campbell writes a bookSwan by Naomi Campbell

Even with the help of a ghost-writer this novel about a super-famous super-model cannot be redeemed. One critic had this to say about Swan:

“Readers are immersed in the internal world of modeling: the fashion designers, bookers, agencies, hair stylists, and photographers. Despite the insider perspective provided by Campbell-herself a supermodel-the narrative is somewhat disjointed, making the various stories difficult to follow. Not an essential purchase.”

Pam Anderson dishesStarstruck by Pamela Anderson

After dabbling in film-making the voluptuous Baywatch babe decided to try her hand at book writing. Starstruck follows Star Wood Leigh, a drop-dead gorgeous woman and her jealous rocker husband, whom she married after a bender in which he wakes up tied to the bed of a hotel room. Here we see yet another example of the narcissistic, self-obsessive celebrity dishing about their private lives in the guise of fiction. Pam Anderson has done nothing to disguise this story about her tumultuous relationship with Tommy Lee except for changing the names. Subtle? Not.

Paulina Poriskova

A Model Summer by Paulina Porizkova

This is the only well-reviewed book on the list, and surprisingly it was written by another super-model, sans the aide of a ghost-writer. My only gripe with this book is that it is also semi-autobiographical, to Porizkovas’s credit though it is well-written, and insightful. This novel takes the reader backstage of the catwalk, and gives us a glimpse of life as human mannequin from the perspective of a fifteen year-old accidental super-model.

Danica Mckellar math whiz Math Doesn’t Suck by Danica McKellar

They say write what you know, as has been clearly illustrated by the afore mentioned “authors”, but who would’ve known that little Winnie Cooper of the Wonder Years was a certified Math whiz? Danica is a summa cum laude graduate of UCLA with a degree in mathematics. She also co-authored a mathematical proof known as the Chayes-McKellar-Winn Theorom, which I’m sure is a fascinating read. She wrote Math Doesn’t Suck as a way to inspire girls to stop feeling intimidated by the subject and the book has received very good reviews.

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From the publishers of ‘leaving nothing to the imagination’ comes this classy tome:

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Parents - Having a hard time finding good abstinence literature to teach your kids with? Well we can see why! If the books on this list are any indication, then you may want to consider biting the bullet & teaching them yourself:



7. Everything You Need to Know About Viriginity.

By Michael A. Sommers and Annie Leah Sommers.

“Especially for guys, one’s virginity used to be an issue shamefully left in the closet, but recently, a handful of groups supporting teenage abstinence have made “coming out” as a virgin much easier.”

GAP: Yeesh, talk about appropriating someone else’s terminology. But seriously, its hard enough to get kids to read anything, let alone a book about doing nothing!

Astrocastro: This book is perfect for the pimply-faced, be-spectacled, completely un-layable teenager.



6. Staying Pure

By Stephen Perry Moore.

Astrocastro: A story about a teenage girl who gets dumped by her boyfriend because she won’t put out - lot’s of Christian inspirational stuff about the power of self-respect. These are teenagers we’re talking about, right? Nothing like sending the message to teens that sex equals filth.

GAP: Sadly, yes.




5. I Wish I Had Waited

by Sylvia Willis Lett

Astrocastro: Repent sinners! This book tells you all about why you should’ve kept it in your pants, and how to prevent it from happening again: for starters we suggest keeping this book on your nightstand.
GAP: Coulda, woulda, shoulda.




4. Sex Has A Price Tag & Sex Still Has A Price Tag

by Pam Stenzel.

Astrocastro: The book doesn’t specify exactly what that price is(although I’m sure you can get a few estimates by looking at the back pages of your local weekly newspaper).  Just another attempt to scare the horny right out of you. Who knew that teen sex could be so brutal?

GAP: Stenzel goes the extra mile and publishes this in both a “faith based” and a “public school” version! This really has info-mercial written all over it……….




3. Gift Wrapped by God: Secret Answers to the Question Why Wait?

by Linda Dillow

“Women who have maintained their sexual purity often ask, “Is it really that important for me to wait until I get married?” Meanwhile, single women who have been sexually active mourn the loss of their innocence, wishing they could somehow start again.”

Astrocastro: I hope this gift comes with a receipt.

GAP: Awww….gift wrapped by god :)
Ewww…….gift wrapped by god ;(




2.Not Tonight, Mr. Right

by Kate Taylor.

GAP: This book is actually for grown ups and is ok - we just really liked the title.

Astrocastro: or, 101 ways to tell him you’re on your period.




1. Tie!

“Time for a Pure Revolution” & “Come Clean” by Doug Herman.

An excerpt from “Time For a Pure Revolution”:

“In the cool evenings God and Adam walked together. They talked together. We can only guess what intimate conversations occurred between them”

Astrocastro: We can only guess what the hell this author is talking about. Seriously, is he trying to confuse us out of having sex?  And why is God getting all intimate with Adam?  Is it to Come Clean?

Grant: Come Clean?! Oh come on!

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Digg Me!

Call it a slow day at the office, but I wondered out loud today how our four Presidential and Vice Presidential candidates are doing on google - which is to say, how much is being written about them and to what extent are people searching for them. Before I knew it, I was off gathering some crude ‘data’ just to see what, if any, trends emerged.

Candidate Related Content

My first question was how much information is out there about each candidate? How is it spread out across formats? To answer these two questions, I simply performed different types of searches in Google for each of the candidates/search terms and recorded the raw number of results in the table below.

So here are the raw #’s for search hits in Google:

Search

Term

Web Search News Search** Blog Search Image Search
“Barack Obama” 83,700,000 321,451 3,882,154 8,250,000
“John McCain” 64,300,000 343,804 2,928,493 4,410,000
“Joe Biden”* 35,900,000 75,719 509,411 567,400
“Sarah Palin” 172,000,000 184,334 487,247 4,870,000
Notes: All terms searched in Google between 3:20-3:50PM PST 10/09/2008
*Combined Total of Searches using “Joe Biden” & “Joseph Biden”
**News from last 30 days

So what does this all mean? Not much of course. However, I do think that one can safely say that there is a certain degree of Palin-mania taking place. Considering that she has only been on the national scene for a very short period, it is quite remarkable that she has earned more overall web search hits than the two presidential candidates combined.

Another possible trend: no one wants to see Joe Biden’s picture.

Most Searched Candidates

As for how popular searches are, click the graphic below to see how the candidates rate in search popularity. Once again, I think you will find that Palin-mania is real - and please, feel free to play with the numbers and inputs on this google page - I would love to hear your results!

Digg Me!

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Dave Clapper is a fellow Seattleite and the founding editor of SmokeLong Quarterly, a published magazine of flash fiction stories that take less than 10 minutes to read (or the time it takes one to finsih a cigarette). His blog which you can find on blogspot discusses other similar publications as well as SmokeLong quarterly. Apparently SmokeLong Quarterly, according to Dave’s blog, is picking up a lot of great reviews. They now have 3 years worth of publications! I’m going to have to see if I can find this magazine somewhere around town. I’m really digging the artwork he has up on the SmokeLong Quarterly website, it’s really cool. It’s great to see other people in Seattle working their way through the writing world. Keep it up Dave!

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