Blogs Buzz About Author Under Fire

With millions of sites floating through the blogosphere, who really has time to peek at even a fraction of them ... especially if you'd like to keep your job. So Blogophile reads them for you with a weekly roundup of the buzz on must-read blogs. Blogophile, which appears new each Wednesday, is written by CBSNews.com's Melissa P. McNamara. Got a good story? Please e-mail it to her at Blogophile.

James Frey-ed?

Surely you're a little tired of reading about James Frey's controversy over his book "A Million Little Pieces," right? I was nearing my limit of Frey banter – especially after I read a critique of how he sipped his coffee on tv – but did you know he wanted his book to be a novel in the first place? If he had been successful, we could have avoided this little memoir debate in the first place.

HelenChen293 makes that point. "The fact that he started selling the book as a novel tells me he knew what he was doing," she writes. "And after receiving one rejection letter after the other, when he finally was able to find someone willing to publish his book, he was ready to bend over a little. So he did…I understand James' awkward situation."

Frey has staying power among bloggers (perhaps because of his Oprah association?); He was among the most searched topics in the blogosphere Jan. 15, according to technorati.com.

Candyland uses the opening to blog with some suggestions for alternative Oprah book club choices. She writes:. "…If Oprah's going to choose someone to make an example of, to tell a story that millions of average white American women will read, to make someone a millionaire, please make it someone we know. Let's hear the story of a middle class mother of three…who found a way to pull herself out of the hell of addiction. Let's here about the auto mechanic…who lost his wife and kids and is on the edge of losing his shop because he "donates" his paychecks to the casino."

Political Calling Card

With the Alito Supreme Court confirmation hearings over, what's a political blogger to do? Track down Wesley Clark's cell phone records, of course!

Last week, liberal blogger John Aravosis announced on AMERICAblog: "AMERICAblog just bought General Wesley Clark's cell phone records Clark's cell phone records for one hundred calls made over three days in November 2005, no questions asked." He obtained the records for $89.95 and posted the slightly redacted list to the site. Why? He writes, "We wanted to see if it was possible to buy the phone records of someone high profile in order to prove that this is a problem with serious national security implications, and frankly, we didn't want to pick a Republican since we thought such a choice would be perceived as partisan or mean-spirited, and that is not our intent for exposing this. "

Never mind bloggers, the story caught the media's eye, including the CBS Evening News, which reported on it … which then attracted more bloggers weighing in with advice.

A blogger at Talk About Corruption writes with some…er, handy…advice for budding politicians out there. "While having malfeasance exposed is not necessarily a prosecutable matter, it is often embarrassing for your political leaders. Don't worry about what the phone company told you, they will hand over all your records in a blink."

Blogger Dan Gillmore has another suggestion. "Maybe we should get together and buy all the available records of members of Congress," he writes. "Maybe that would get them to pay attention."

You've come a long way, baby

Why should blogging adults have all the fun? One of the most popular sites Monday according to Blogpulse, has been Blogging Baby. The site features posts on everything from "when are your kids old enough to talk about racism?" to "what to do when grandma loves her granddogs more than grandkids."

Babies themselves are making it on to blogs before they can speak, thanks to some technologically savvy (and not so privacy-sensitive) parents. Rather than a traditional wordy blog, some new -- and not so new -- parents are blogging with photos, suggesting grandparents nationwide may no longer need to ask the age old question: "When are you sending me the pictures?" The sites often include links to baby's friends, baby photos, and a biography.

Google Blogging

It was only a matter of time till there were blogs devoted entirely to Google. One of this week's fourth most cited blogs on Blogpulse was a Prejudice Map of the world. It was created using the Google search engine with the terms "(named residents) are known for" in the search box.