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One consequence of the disgrace of James Frey, who fabricated chunks of his memoir A Million Little Pieces, is that he has become unwelcome on book jackets. Frey enthused about I Am Not Myself These Days by Josh Kilmer-Purcell: “a wonderful book . . . a book I'll read again . . .” it said on the first edition — but not on the reprint. Nic Kelman, author of Girls, achieved a double whammy: endorsements from Frey and J. T. Leroy, the former teenage hustler revealed to have been an invented persona. Kelman said: “At this point, I still feel honoured to have my work praised by writers who have that kind of talent.”

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Product placement is never likely to catch on in fiction but it crops up from time to time. Fay Weldon wrote The Bulgari Connection with the backing of the jeweller. Now BMW is sponsoring a series of audiobooks with Random House. Authors of the 45-minute thrillers include Simon Kernick and Karin Slaughter, and each story features a different BMW model. A BMW marketing person explains: “The audio books take a traditional creative process and twist it into a unique offer for a forward-thinking audience.”

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Read-dating is the new fashion. How better to find out if someone is suitable than by talking about books? A Get London Reading campaign is holding three read-dating events in which people have three minutes to make an impression. They might be advised not to attempt to summarise Proust. The Wormholes bookshop in Yorkshire has staged similar events, as has Pazzo Books in Boston, Massachusetts.

NICHOLAS CLEE

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