Here's a snippet of Rachel Fershleiser's interview (her answer):
I talk a lot about this metaphor of broccoli and chocolate cake — it’s hokey but it’s important to me. Basically, I don’t think we need to convince people to read because they should, because it’s good for them. I don’t think reading a book is inherently healthier or nobler that watching a TV show or movie, especially a crappy book vs. a brilliant tv show. I also don’t subscribe to the “every time you watch The Jersey Shore, God kills a poet” school of pop culture. I read books because I enjoy the shit out of them. A great novel isn’t a wheat grass shot — it’s an ice cream sundae with whipped cream and hot fudge.
As someone who, um, owns two copies (ordered an extra by mistake) of Snooki's A Shore Thing, I say, rock on! A ranting aside - A Shore Thing was written by Valerie Frankel who, oddly, didn't get a mention in the recent New York Times article on ghostwriters, and that same article, while I'm mentioning it, talked about the Kardashians' forthcoming novel but not about the book shown in the photo of Kourtney, Kardashian Konfidential, which I was actually reading last November and brought to LA with me even though it's pretty big, and is actually a fun book. If that one's "ghostwritten" (much of it features lists of things like their favorite designers and foods and stories about their family) then I'm all for gossipy, scrapbook type books like this. I think the judgy-ness, wherever it comes from (and trust me, I have plenty of it within my own family), is stupid. Who cares what someone who's not you is reading? I actually wrote the Times a letter to the editor, going back to my teenage roots; they didn't publish it, but I thought that article not only barely said anything, it was disingenuous in its premise that people don't think these books are ghostwritten and that they'd care mightily if it were more open. It's not a secret; I literally learned that Valerie Frankel wrote A Shore Thing after I'd gotten the book and...read the acknowledgments.
Party is June 15, 6-10 pm at Brooklyn Winery, 213 N. 8th Street (where we held the 2010 Cupcakes Take the Cake anniversary party), Williamsburg, Brooklyn (right near the L to Bedford). Buy your tickets ($10) here.