Far be it from me to defend Nan Talese, but here is what she said about the issue of whether the book was presented to her initially as fiction:

“When the manuscript of A Million Little Pieces was received by us at Doubleday, it was received as nonfiction, as a memoir,” said Ms. Talese by phone. “Throughout the whole process of publication, it had always been a memoir, and for the first year and a half it was on sale, it was always a memoir with no disputation. It was never once discussed as fiction by me or anyone in my office.”

So one of them is lying and I tend to believe Nan before I believe Jimmy boy.

Look, the guy wanted to be a Writer, he wanted to kick Eggars, Burroughs, et al. in the pants. He wanted to be the 21st century Henry Miller. He didn't write the book to be inspirational or to be the poster boy for kicking addiction by "just holding on". All that crap came later when Oprah chose the book for her club. SHE saw it as inspirational and redemptive. He was a fool to let her take him under her wing. That attention allowed a lot more people who felt his story was shady a bigger platform to discuss it. It was only a matter of time before someone dug deeper and exposed his lies.

I thought he did a lousy job of defending his book. He capitulated to everything Oprah said. He may have stared or glared a few times, but he didn't provide an articulate defense of his book. His publisher did a much better job of stating her case. James sat there most of the time like a bump on a log.

In regards to him not being there when "Lilly" died, he said it was because he was "taking care of business" in North Carolina (whatever that means). It wasn't because he was in prison for 3 minutes or 3 days. He told Oprah he lied about being in prison. He wasn't in prison, period, when "Lilly" committed suicide.

As much as they would like him to be, he just doesn't care what the sports writers and pundits say. I find it humorous that people who don't know anything about alpine skiing are so verklempt about all of this. Maybe if they'd followed the sport their undies wouldn't be in such a bunch about Bode's attitude and performance (or lack, thereof). Good grief, a little Googling of interviews with Bode would have told them everything they'd need to know about him.

Not to start a grammar war, but Anonymous, if you're going to go all GrammarCop on someone's ass you should make sure that you're actually correct. "Me and my friend were ..." is not correct grammar.

I just returned from a trip to Whole Foods and yes I'm still trying to recover from the sticker shock. But, from late April to October I switch to the local farmer's market. If you are concerned about prices, look for a local market. I can get organic eggs from pastured chickens from several farmers for $2.50 a dozen. Sure that's double the supermarket, but they're so much more tasty. Same thing with meats, we have several farms in our part of the state that have pastured-raised animals and you can buy pretty much any type of meat for less than what you'd pay at Whole Foods. Better yet, see if you have Community Supported Agrigulture in your area. We sign up for a produce share, where we get a box full of great produce every week for 20 weeks directly from the farmer. All you have to do is pick it up once a week from a distribution site (typically someone's house). There are web sites where you can get lists of CSAs and Farmer's Markets all over the country.

Eating organic/natural doesn't have to cost an arm and leg, you just have to be willing to spend a little time finding your sources. I know families where 2 parents work and have kids and are stressed as hell who do this, so it's not impossible.

Wow, if having children makes you a better person, why is the world such a mess? I mean most of the people in power are parents, after all. ROTFL. With a topic like this, the crackpots are bound to come out of the woodwork, I guess.

When I met my future husband, I was about 50/50 for children and my hubby absolutely didn't want them. I made a decision that I wanted him more than I needed to have a child. I love kids, but I don't regret not having one. My hubby and I take a lot of crap from some of the parents we know about how our weekends are our own, we get to sleep through the night, we have it easy, blah blah blah. Sometimes they almost get to me, make me feel selfish or guilty, but then I snap out of it. Some of them don't seem particuarly happy and I think it's just easy for them to vent their frustration at us, I don't know what the deal is. But, I also know parents who are blissfully happy. Becoming a parent, like many have said, is a complete crapshoot. Maybe that's why Piper is only at 30%. Maybe she's not ready to step into the void.

Hey LizT, al and the other dude are actually good for a laugh. If you go by their logic, Britney Spears is a superior human being to Condaleeza Rice or Virginia Woolf or Rosa Parks.