I wasn’t the only one struck by Alex Kuczynski‘s swipe at book reviewers for allegedly not being “tall and gorgeous” yesterday; our pal Bella Stander*, who rightly describes herself as “the tallest woman at the National Book Critics Circle meetings,” had her own caustic comments about Kuczynski’s NYTBR article, calling it “a book report (and a catty one at that), not a book review.” To us, Stander emailed a few possibilities for our all-star roster of cutie critics, citing Louis Bayard for his “gorgeous blue eyes,” along with Rebecca Skloot and James Marcus (whose physique Amazonia readers will recall was favorably compared by his coworkers to that of the smolderingly good-looking Paul Auster).
Other lit-crit hotties proposed by ‘Cat readers included NBCC head John Freeman and frequent WaPo contributor Elizabeth Hand. Also, Roger Sutton at Horn Book, while remaining modest with respect to his hotness, reminded us that “there’s still 6’4″ of me to reckon with.” Hey, I’m 6’4″, too! We can totally bookend Bella at the next NBCC reception!
*Full disclosure: Sarah and I have both spoken at Stander’s marketing workshops for authors.