The numbers are in: James Frey's Bright Shiny Morning, published by the flagship imprint of HarperCollins on May 13, sold 14,343 copies in its first week, putting it at No. 9 on the New York Times best-seller list. (It should be noted BookScan only tracks 70 percent of total sales.)

We hear HarperCollins is pleased.

Liar. Whiner. Very bad writer. James Frey has been called a lot of things, but no one can call the guy impolite.

At an appearance to promote his new book, Bright Shiny Morning, in San Francisco on Friday, Mr. Frey was met by the forces of Down with Frey, an organization whose aims are pretty self-explanatory. But, here's the thing: Mr. Frey seemed to like them. On his Amazon promotional blog, Omnivoracious Mr. Frey wrote that he'd "met a guy who had started a protest group called Down With Frey. I chatted with him for a couple minutes, and he was a nice, smart guy."  read more »

Some time before it became crystal clear that, despite all laws of nature, James Frey’s Bright Shiny Morning would be an unqualified hit, there was a moment when agents and editors wondered if the man who’d agreed to publish it might have reason to worry for his job. Back in September, Harper publisher Jonathan Burnham had stunned colleagues and rivals by forking over a seven-figure advance for the privilege of putting out Mr.  read more »

Janet Maslin loved Bright Shiny Morning. The teaser text on the New York Times books portal is "James Frey stepped up to the plate and hit one out of the park with his new book." Ms. Maslin's review, published today, is not only an unequivocal rave, but a tribute to Mr. Frey's choppy trademark style: "His publisher called it a dazzling tour de force.  read more »]]> Media James Frey Janet Maslin Mon, 12 May 2008 10:59:37 -0400 Leon Neyfakh 69056 at http://www.observer.com http://www.observer.com/2008/lineup-may-7-2008

Leon Neyfakh wonders who'll replace departing Random House CEO Peter Olson. "Regardless of whom Bertelsmann CEO Hartmut Ostrowski and his 15-person supervisory board appoint to replace Mr. Olson, it is all but certain that Random House will undergo some radical changes." Plus: James Frey.  read more »

Editors at MSNBC.com removed and retracted a story about James Frey last Thursday afternoon after receiving some angry phone calls from members of Mr. Frey’s publicity team. In the story “Frey Still Having Trouble Keeping Facts Straight,” which ran in the Scoop gossip column, reporter Courtney Hazlett suggested that Mr. Frey, the disgraced memoirist whose debut novel will be published by HarperCollins next Tuesday, had been caught in a fresh tangle of lies.

First, Ms. Hazlett questioned a story about meeting Norman Mailer that Mr.  read more »

Dina Lohan will be honored as a "Top Mom"--no, really!--on Long Island by an organization called Mingling Moms, alongside Rae Stern (Howard Stern's mom), Betty Seinfeld (Jerry's mom), and Shelley Stevens Herschlag (Natalie Portman's mom). Check back here tomorrow for lots more ... [P6]  read more »

If you remember this year's White House Correspondent's Dinner, you weren't there. Felix Gillette, John Koblin, and Choire Sicha flood the zone in D.C..

Janet Silver is moving from Houghton Mifflin to Nan Talese's imprint at Doubleday. Leon Neyfakh checks in with with Ms. Talese who says, "I called Janet and she sent us a list of the authors she had worked with and the ones who’d said they wanted to come with her, if not immediately then eventually." That list may include Philip Roth and Jonathan Safran Foer. Plus: Islam observers on Wieseltier's Amis review; James Frey's PR Dream Team; Spitzer's bio; Nabokov's unfinished novel.  read more »

James Frey’s novel Bright Shiny Morning is coming out in two weeks, which means the publicity department at HarperCollins is in the thick of what has to be an unusually challenging public-relations campaign.

With director of publicity Tina Andreadis in charge, the team has done a knockout job so far. The biggest coup is the softball profile of Mr. Frey that will appear in this month’s Vanity Fair, which paints Mr. Frey as a wounded victim of market forces.  read more »

According to city records, fabulist James Frey has a fabulous new unit to add to his three-bedroom apartment at 505 Greenwich Street. This month, Mr.  read more »