For the first time that I can remember an issue of "The New York Review of Books" carries a full page color (it's the US spelling I know) advertisement for a book by an Australian author. Tim Flannery's book The Weather Makers gets the full treatment with quotes from Peter Singer, "The Washington Post", David Suzuki, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Bill Bryson and Tony Blair, amongst others. A while back we mentioned that the US edition would differ from the UK version in that a quote from Tony Blair would be added in place of the one by Bill Bryson that adorns the one available here.
Well, not according to the ad in the NYRofB it won't. Tony Blair has been relegated to the bench and in his place we have Jared Diamond with: "At last, here is a clear and readable account of one of the most controversial issues facing everyone in the world today." Diamond, of course, is the author of Guns, Germs and Steel and Collapse, both of which you really should read.
The interesting thing about all this relates to the current feeling towards Tony Blair in US publishing circles. Maybe he's on the nose as much in the USA as he is in the UK now. You can just about hear the "wheeee" noise being made as the chances of a big advance for his future memoirs plummets earthwards.
