{"id":1087,"date":"2009-09-05T13:02:00","date_gmt":"2009-09-05T20:02:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/culturecrash\/2009\/09\/the-gimmick-book.html"},"modified":"2009-09-05T13:02:00","modified_gmt":"2009-09-05T20:02:00","slug":"the-gimmick-book","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/culturecrash\/2009\/09\/the-gimmick-book.html","title":{"rendered":"The Gimmick Book"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/2.bp.blogspot.com\/_yrL6yfubw8g\/SqLTsFJRkuI\/AAAAAAAAAYY\/x3pasexSi7s\/s1600-h\/guinea-pig-diaries.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/2.bp.blogspot.com\/_yrL6yfubw8g\/SqLTsFJRkuI\/AAAAAAAAAYY\/x3pasexSi7s\/s320\/guinea-pig-diaries.jpg\" border=\"0\" alt=\"\"><\/a>EAGER to meet fitness guru richard simmons? what about reliving eighth grade? nostalgic for your high school prom? how &#8217;bout driving across country powered only by dirty fry oil? <\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>my answer to all of these questions is a resounding NO, but to some authors more successful than yours truly, these stunts and others have resulted in new books, some of them big hits. <a href=\"http:\/\/www.latimes.com\/entertainment\/news\/arts\/la-et-gimmick-books5-2009sep05,0,4104835.story\">HERE<\/a> is my LA Times piece on <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ajjacobs.com\/content\/home.asp\">a.j. jacobs<\/a>, self-help skeptic beth lisick and several others who&#8217;ve put out high-concert gimmick books. they&#8217;re like the bastard spawn of george plimpton&#8217;s &#8220;paper lion.&#8221;<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>in the piece i speak to jacobs, whose voice sounds a lot like arnold horshack&#8217;s, iowa prof robin hemley, whose book &#8220;do over!&#8221; takes a middle-aged father back to some painful early experiences, and veteran publishing observer sara nelson. why here? why now?<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>(<a href=\"http:\/\/www.courier-journal.com\/article\/20090920\/FEATURES\/909200301\/1042\/Does%20TV%20overcover%20funerals\/Participatory-journalist\">HERE<\/a> is a new story i wrote for the louisville paper on jacobs himself.)<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>now excuse me while i return the igloo where i have chosen to spent all of 2009&#8230;<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Photo credit: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ajjacobs.com\/content\/home.asp\">ajjacobs.com<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>EAGER to meet fitness guru richard simmons? what about reliving eighth grade? nostalgic for your high school prom? how &#8217;bout driving across country powered only by dirty fry oil? my answer to all of these questions is a resounding NO, but to some authors more successful than yours truly, these stunts and others have resulted [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[470,469,35,305,471],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1087","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-a-j-jacobs","7":"category-beth-lisick","8":"category-books","9":"category-george-plimpton","10":"category-robin-hemley","11":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/culturecrash\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1087","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/culturecrash\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/culturecrash\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/culturecrash\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/culturecrash\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1087"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/culturecrash\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1087\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/culturecrash\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1087"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/culturecrash\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1087"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/culturecrash\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1087"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}