Modern Love Breeds Book Deals

Published Feb 11 2008, 05:34 PM by Sharon Steel

We realized long ago that we were not alone in the fact that we loved to hate Modern Love, a New York Times Sunday Style column equal to a 1,700-word cringe-fest. In this week's New York Observer, Doree Shafrir expertly dissects the column and its uncanny ability to breed book deals.

“I read the Styles section religiously, but my eyes glaze over the Modern Love column,” said an editor at Random House. “I assume it’s going to be a woman getting over her divorce. But maybe that’s it, it’s like Sex and the City, it’s a stimulus-and-response thing. It speaks to people. It just pushes the right buttons. And somehow that’s validating, to know that other people are suffering, getting divorced, sleep with their colleagues. They’re unabashedly confessional and really voyeuristic. That’s pleasurable for people to read sometimes.”

Despite our unabashed obsession with crappy reality television, we don't find Modern Love very delicious or relatable. But perhaps we're deadened to it after having our buttons pushed by Gilmore Girls reruns and Gabriel Garcia Marquez.

Perhaps someone with access to BookScan could tell us how all the Love titles are doing now?

Filed Under: Lit Gossip, Major deals, NY Observer, NYT

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