Anyone who says you can't judge a book by its cover doesn't read. You're telling us you don't know just by looking at it that the book at right, the one displaying Fred Thompson's giant mug in front of some blue construction paper, ended up being "given away or trashed"?

Also very telling about a book is its title, and a bad one can mean ruin. Today, in perhaps a too-in-depth article, the Wall Street Journal discusses a specific type of terrible name: the very timely one full of bold claims. As soon as Fred Thompson dropped out of the race for president, The Fred Factor tanked. Then there's the case of Why the Real Estate Boom Will Not Bust — And How You Can Profit From It, by David Lereah. Guess how that one's doing. And sooner or later, either Why the Democrats Will Win in 2008: The Road to an Obama White House or A Bound Man: Why We Are Excited About Obama and Why He Can't Win will have to come crashing down the sales charts.

Our question is how they got there in the first place? Why are writers publishing entire books about of-the-moment ideas with shelf lives instead of submitting their work to high-minded quarterly journals and culture magazines, who exist solely to report great, timely ideas? Oh, that's right, we forgot: because banks are shitting the bed every night while print publications frantically try to figure out "this Interweb." Oh well! Everyone start blogging about love; that'll never get old.