When I got to the SoHo loft where friends of Bridie Clark (center) were throwing a party to celebrate the publication of her first novel, Because She Can, I quickly realized this wasn’t going to be a typical book party. After a quick look around, during which I’m reasonably certain the half-dozen photographers on hand caught me every time I raised my martini glass or shrimp cocktail to my lips, I wound up at the fringe of the crowd with the PW Daily crew, wondering if we knew anybody in the room beside Clark’s editor and publicist. Turns out most of the partygoers were friends from the author’s Harvard days; I found myself chatting with Meredith Kopit, the publisher of 02138, and we traded notes about how much traffic we get every time Gawker pokes fun at us. Then I ran into fellow bookblogger Bethanne Patrick, whose The Reading Writer is about to be added to the Publisher’s Weekly website, and the two of us gave Laura Goldberg of the foodblog VittlesVamp some reading recommendations for an upcoming transatlantic flight.
Clark and I chatted briefly about Maureen Dowd‘s attempt to alert NYT readers to the dangers of chick lit. “It’s just a snobby point of view,” Clark said. “While I appreciate great literature, I also appreciate that books can be pure entertainment, lighthearted fun. And that’s not something readers or authors of chick lit books need to apologize for.”