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From the looks of her credits, Dallas author Jenny Block has written for danged near every publication in town -- though, surely, nothing she's done thus far will attract the attention sure to accompany the June publication of her book Open: Love, Sex, and Life in an Open Marriage. It began as this 2006 piece, subtitled "It began with a threesome. And became her key to happily ever after." And from there, well, came the book, which thus far has gotten decent advance notice with a few caveats; notes Publishers Weekly, "Readers are likely to be challenged and provoked by this book's insights into the surprising fluidities in fidelity and sexuality, but might find its repetitive, slightly glib delivery better suited for a magazine article than a book-length manifesto." And, look, it's not every day we get to use the word "polyamorous." --Robert Wilonsky

Tonight, Chelsea Handler, the star of E!’s Chelsea Lately, takes on two Dallas venues with her stand-up-slash-book tour, during which she's pimping Are You There Vodka? It’s Me, Chelsea. I got a call from the no-holds-barred comic and heard about her obsession with the small and fat, her passion for responsible audiences and, most important, how to get a fine pair of upper arms.

It was a loud conversation, and I laughed out loud more than once -- which I really wasn’t expecting from a phoner during her to-and-fro. The brassy hostess put me in a good mood, and, unfortunately, made me want to fatten up my niece with secret treats. Proceed with caution. --Merritt Martin

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In 1972, Candy Barr wrote her own biography.

Forthcoming on July 25 is Ted Schwarz's book Candy Barr: The Small-Town Texas Runaway Who Became a Darling of the Mob and the Queen of Las Vegas Burlesque, which may be the longest title this side of Fiona Apple's second album. Kirkus Reviews, in a subscription-only early review, isn't impressed with the telling of Edna-born Juanita Slusher's tale, which, of course, included an infamous stint as the featured attraction at Abe Weinstein's Colony Club on Commerce Street. Notes the magazine:

The endless litany of kidnappings, murder attempts, conspiracies, drug arrests, prison and rape after rape is hard to stomach and, after a while, hard to completely believe. Readers may raise eyebrows over the author's unquestioning acceptance of Barr's muddled, often half-remembered saga; they surely will wonder about his characterization of her as a brilliant artist.

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Marjane Satrapi

On Friday night, I attended a lecture delivered by Marjane Satrapi, author of the comic books Persepolis and co-director of the 2007 Oscar-nominated film of the same name -- the English-language version of which opened locally on Friday as well. Satrapi, who spoke at University of Texas at Dallas, looks uncannily like the drawn version of herself, especially when she raises her eyebrows and shrugs, which she did often during the hourlong speech.

Satrapi didn’t speak extensively about her childhood as chronicled in the book and movie -- a tale of leaving Iran, then returning and leaving again in the wake of the Islamic Revolution. She focused instead on the politics of drawing, the Iraq War and the cigarette break she looked forward to taking before she signed books after the talk. Though the Satrapi team declined an interview request from Unfair Park -- we would later learn that, nobly, she wanted to focus on the audience and not the media -- after the jump are a few highlights from her talk. Because, if nothing else it’s always nice to hang with smart people. And Satrapi is one of the brightest we’ve encountered.

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Mark Graham

Will Clarke

Good news, as the encroaching idiocracy may still be a ways off. Nonetheless, how does a professional writer stay positive -- and sell books -- in what’s been a fairly depressing reading landscape? Local novelist Will Clarke makes the rounds at Dallas book clubs. “The most heartening thing is coming to book clubs and talking to people who love books,” he said last night at The Village Apartments, during an intimate chat with about a dozen club members who’d just read his second novel, The Worthy. “You hear about how Americans don’t read anymore, that we’re all dumb. But that’s not true.”

Of course, the book clubs that have emerged across the country in recent years have become crucial venues for the languishing publishing industry, which Clarke demystified with his characteristically self-deprecating humor. “Being an author is a lot like selling Amway,” he said, “And I typically am really good at selling Amway.”

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Till I came across this interview with Evan Brian Doyle, published today on Animation Insider, I had no idea a kid attending the Science and Engineering at the Yvonne A. Ewell Townview Magnet Center was a published author. "It's weird," he says. "I'm the only published author in my class." Which is, um, yeah, weird. And the book? It's titled Evan Brain! Adventures of a Delusional Kid Superhero, which Evan co-wrote and illustrated (with his mom) and keeps getting compared to ... this can't be right ... Calvin and Hobbes? That we'll have to see for ourselves, but the book's been out since October, and, from the looks of the Web site, the family's looking to build an empire outta Evan -- from greeting cards to magnets to T-shirts. I am falling so behind. --Robert Wilonsky

Hermes Nye

From the nostalgia section comes this excerpt from and review of Hermes Nye's long-lost 1958 novel Fortune is a Woman, posted today to The Neglected Books Page. Nye's among those once-upon-a-time famous Dallas folks whose name has slipped into history's margins: The Chicago native spent most of his life in Dallas, where the lawyer accrued his fame as both writer and folkie -- releasing, as a matter of fact, five albums on the immortal Folkways label (with such titles as Ballads of the Civil War and Texas Folk Songs) while appearing on other compilations. A few words about his place in Dallas' folk-music past can be found in James Ward Lee's Adventures With a Texas Humanist.

Nye penned two books about Dallas: the novel Fortune is a Woman ("the explosive story of a struggling young lawyer and the girl who got in his way") and, in 1972, the autobiographical Sweet Beast, I Have Gone Prowling: A Novel of Dallas, which you'll still find on the Half-Price Books shelves on occasion. You'll find a little about the latter here (including Nye's feelings for his adopted home town: "I love it now as one loves a beautiful, dangerous and wayward woman, as much for her faults as for her virtues"). Though I'd love to find a copy of his 1965 book How to be a folksinger;: How to sing and present folksongs; or, The folksinger's guide; or, Eggs I have laid, which is among the best titles in the history of words. --Robert Wilonsky

Got our copy of Aspire Higher: Winning On and Off the Court with Determination, Discipline & Decisions -- otherwise known as Dallas Mavericks coach Avery Johnson's inspirational self-help tome, which comes complete with an eight-page forward from ... Jerry Jones? O...K. Don't wanna spoil the ending, but this is the last paragraph of Avery's book, co-written with the editor of Men's Fitness: "Your house is designed to last. It is not designed to be inferior. It is designed to be an example. Your house is a showcase and -- like you -- it is designed to be a champion. Now build it." I suddenly feel the urge to watch some HGTV.

Our book came with a note inside: Johnson will be speaking from and signing Aspire Higher April 1 at 5 p.m. at the Barnes & Noble Booksellers on Northwest Highway -- though you can start picking up your "event tickets" March 31, beginning at 9 a.m. Johnson will, of course, welcome any and all questions about how not to motivate your team to finish a big game and how to coach porous defense and pedestrian offense. Just no shouting, please. --Robert Wilonsky

As teased here a while back, Dallas Mavs coach Avery Johnson spoke with Texas Monthly editor Evan Smith for this month's ish, online today as a preview piece courtesy, well, Evan Smith. Guess we somehow missed that Johnson had a book forthcoming in 12 days: It's titled Aspire Higher -- words to live by, twice a day. What's it about? "Aspire Higher is the essential game plan for reaching your goals. Johnson begins by outlining what it takes to get to the top: determination and discipline provide the foundation that allows you to make the right decisions, on the basketball court or in the boardroom." When I first read that, I thought it said "bedroom." --Robert Wilonsky

It's one thing for Van Halen to postpone its show tonight at the American Airlines Center. But now we get word from Sara Edmonds, the events coordinator at Borders Books' Preston Royal location, that the former Mrs. Eddie Van Halen, Valerie Bertinelli, has also bailed on her appearance originally scheduled for 5 p.m. tonight. Happened about an hour ago, Edmonds tells Unfair Park, "because her flight was canceled, and they can't get another one." Riiiight. Must be the, ahem, snowstorm headed our way? Nonetheless, Edmonds says, "They will reschedule, we just don't know the date yet." --Robert Wilonsky

Mark Graham

In more Plano-based author news: Kerry Max Cook -- the innocent man imprisoned for 16 years for a horrific crime he didn't commit -- has been nominated for the Mystery Writers of America's prestigious Edgar Award, for his book Chasing Justice: My Story of Freeing Myself After Two Decades on Death Row for a Crime I Didn't Commit. Cook, who was profiled for the paper version of Unfair Park in 1999 by our new editor Mark Donald, is in great company in the Best Fact Crime category; among those nominated is Vincent Bugliosi for his mammoth book Reclaiming History: The Assassination of President John F. Kennedy, about which we wrote last year. Nominated in the Best Novel category: some nobody named Michael Chabon. --Robert Wilonsky

In early December, we mentioned the then-impending publication of Robert Rummel-Hudson's book Schuyler's Monster: A Father's Journey with His Wordless Daughter. Since then, the University of Texas at Arlington architecture communication coordinator has been popping up in plenty of places -- as has his daughter Schuyler, who's finding the words, slowly but surely, with which to tell her own remarkable story.

Over the weekend, Robert, his wife Julie and Schuyler were featured on American Public Media's Weekend America: The story can be read and heard here, and Rummel-Hudson has outtakes from the interview at his own tremendous Web site, Fighting Monsters with Rubber Swords. Also featured on the site: the book's three-and-a-half-star review in the latest issue of -- no, really -- People. For those who'd like to celebrate the book with the Plano-based writer, he'll be signing copies of his astounding tome at the Barnes & Noble on Cooper in Arlington this Saturday, beginning at 2 p.m., followed by appearances in Houston, Austin and San Antonio with more to come, no doubt. --Robert Wilonsky

A postcard of downtown Dallas, circa 1944

eBay's littered with vintage Dallas postcards, most going for a few bucks. There's also a Web site dedicated to postcards depicting Dallas as it looked in the early 1900s -- from the race track at Fair Park to the original 1901 Carnegie Library at the corner of Harwood and Commerce streets.

Now, some 140 of the hand-tinted postcards have been collected in a single book: Greetings from Dallas, a rather nifty pictorial history just out from Atglen, Pennsylvania-based Schiffer Publishing. Funny thing is, it wasn't compiled by a local, but a Maryland woman named Mary L. Martin, who runs "the nation's largest postcard show" every November in York, Pennsylvania. And proceeds from the sales of the book, she says, will go toward children's charities. --Robert Wilonsky

Back in May '06, Andrea Grimes covered for Unfair Park the ExxonMobil protest outside the shareholders meeting at the Morton H. Meyerson Symphony Center.

Yesterday best-selling author David Sirota was pre-selling his forthcoming book The Uprising: An Unauthorized Tour of the Populist Revolt Scaring Wall Street and Washington over on The Huffington Post. And, he wrote, some of his new tome is set in Dallas -- as in, "Among other places, my travels took me to ... Dallas to join shareholder activists planning resolutions at the ExxonMobil stockholder meeting." So I e-mailed Sirota to ask him just how much of the shindig wound up in the book.

As it turns out, Grimes had company: David Sirota, who covered the protest for his forthcoming book.

Turns out, out of 10 chapters, the May 31, 2006, meeting at the Morton H. Meyerson Symphony Center takes up an entire chapter all by its lonesome. During a phone conversation with Unfair Park, Sirota says he actually spent a couple of days in Dallas with the shareholder activists who were pushing for resolutions limiting greenhouse gas emissions, and what he saw during his trip was "substantial" enough to merit a chapter. "It is actually one of my favorite chapters in the whole book," Sirota says.

And it didn't hurt that he wound up accidentally chatting up ExxonMobil Corporation's chairman and CEO, Wichita Falls native son Rex Tillerson.

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Two weeks ago I linked to the heartbreaking Clayton Holmes profile, penned for ESPN.com's Page 2 by Jeff Pearlman, who's the author of two sports books (about the '86 New York Mets and Barry Bonds). As Pearlman noted in the article, he uncovered Holmes' story while working on a book about the Dallas Cowboys, due for release within the year. So I asked him what the book was about, how it was coming and when it was due for release. This is his response:

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