Turbulent! Turgid! Tempestuous!

I have a tendency to go through phases, and currently I am in a Jean Shepherd phase.

Nowdays people know Shepherd primarily for the film A Christmas Story, which was based on his "semi-autobiographical stories." His genius was as a late night DJ. He was one of those guys who could grab the mike and go. Some of his broadcasts were completely improvised and others were scrupulously planned and rehearsed, the beauty being that, unless he was doing a bit that he'd done before, there's really no way to tell which is which.

Here is a huge archive of his broadcasts. Hit the "random" button and go for a ride. If you've never heard him before, give him about ten minutes -- that's how long it takes you to get hooked.

Somewhere in the '50s, Shepherd became irritated by the way the publishing industry was tracking bestselling books. At the time they added book requests to actual sales, presumably so that a book that is about to be released and is having good advance press can have a leg up on the charts. Shepherd thought this was absurd, because it was theoretically possible for the bestseller list to have a non-existent books on it.

So he decided to prove it.

He came up with a non-existent book, with a non-existent author. The non-existent author had a fake bio and the non-existent book had a plot outline. The listening audience was told what was happening, why he was doing it, and then given their marching orders: walk into bookstores and ask for this book. They did, by the thousands. Publishing insiders who were in on the gag fed the buzz. People pretended to have read it at cocktail parties. Book reports on it were turned in to unsuspecting teachers. Fake reviews appeared in newspapers. On the basis of what the book seemed to be about, the Archdiocese of Boston had it put on their proscribed list.

And after less than two months, I, Libertine by Frederick R. Ewing was on the bestseller list.

Once the hoax was exposed, there was still enough notoriety around the book that one day over lunch Shepherd, publisher Ian Ballantine and author Theodore Sturgeon decided to put the book out for real. The book is now a notoriously rare item, and is unlikely to ever be republished (of course, as soon as I post this, a reprint will be announced), but here is (of all things) the audiobook version.