The publicity department at HarperSanFrancisco has informed us that one of the imprint’s more popular authors, Paulo Coelho, is about to have one of his pithy lines on the side of Starbucks cups. I’d bother looking into just which of his Carlos Castaneda/Joseph Campbell ripoffs international bestsellers the coffee vendors will be quoting from, but, as you may know, I have a long history of not caring about him or the endless complaints about how Americans just don’t get how great he is. Coelho isn’t so great. Big deal, he’s on a paper cup—he never got his picture on bubble gum cards, did he? Have you ever seen Coelho’s picture on a bubble gum card? Hmm? How can you say someone is great who’s never had his picture on a bubble gum card?
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