Maureen Callahan

As I've said before, unless you are a queer, non-binary amputee dwarf from Palestine, the chances that you're going to get a book deal are slim to none.

Slim to none.

I mean, or you're Oprah and you spy like another person's work and you think that looks like a moneymaker if I slap my name on it and make myself the co-author and then I'll toddle over to Gail's show over on CBS Mornings and take all the credit.

You know what I mean?

There's a real rot and none of us are crazy for being like, where are the good books?

Where are the good books?

And I'm going to talk about two books right now that are driving me up the effing wall and are getting...

Okay, first, I don't know if you guys have heard about this, but anybody who reads the New York Times or The Economist definitely has.

There is a woman named Belle Burden, and she has a memoir out.

And I am telling you, the only reason she got this book deal, let alone the coverage she is getting, is because she is the daughter of Babe Paley.

Granddaughter, excuse me, granddaughter of, thanks Marlena, of Babe Paley, who, you know, was a huge socialite, one of Truman Capote's swans, married to Bill Paley, head of CBS News.

You know, it's all an incestuous circle, okay?

Here's Bell's story, which she originally wrote as a modern love for the New York Times, okay?

That quick edit is because I just had a mini sneezing fit.

And Marlena said, you're allergic to the bullshit.

She's so right.

Okay.

Bell Burden is also a descendant of the Vanderbilts.

Okay.

She went to Harvard.