(SH) - I'm a veteran observer of the bestseller list, so you'd think by now I wouldn't be so shocked at what books people buy. Still, noticing recently that the new Paris Hilton book had hit The New York Times top 10, I had to do a double take.
The only thing more stunning than the fact that the Hilton hotel heiress and reality TV star had risked chipping her manicure to tap out an entire book was the fact that thousands of people were buying it.
Having thrown the volume in a drawer with little more than a glance, I pulled it out for a more careful look: Was there something I had missed?
"Confessions of an Heiress: A Tongue-in-Chic Peek Behind the Pose" (Fireside, $22), is chock-full of classy photos of Hilton. (I particularly love the whipmistress outfit she's wearing on page 16). Between photo spreads, she offers deeply philosophical advice on how to act like an heiress.
For instance: "Never be too easy. If you're too easy, a guy knows he has you." And: "Never, ever wake up before ten; never go to bed before three. Normal hours are for normal people. You never want to be normal. Anyone can be normal. How boring. I'm yawning."
I must say, I was drawn to that last tidbit (Note to boss: See you when I roll out of bed). But sometimes in this job you have to ask the tough questions: Who on earth was snapping up these books as if they were free crab cakes at a society banquet?
I decided to head to the local bookstore, the Tattered Cover, to find out. I would stake out a spot near the shelf where the book was displayed, and when someone picked it up, I would pounce.
I walked into the bustling store, hopes high - only to encounter my first problem: Where was the darn book?
Suddenly, I felt like a kid in a drugstore looking for condoms, but too embarrassed to ask for them.
I swallowed hard and made my move. A few, excruciatingly humiliating minutes later, the clerk led me to a shelf labeled "Biography."
Sure enough, there was Hilton, right where you'd expect - next to books about other important people, such as Benjamin Franklin, Katherine Graham and Ulysses S. Grant. This, of course, only makes sense when you compare Hilton's contributions to the betterment of humankind ("I'm partial to the smoky-eye-and-light- lip look") to theirs.
I sat in a comfy green chair and hid my intentions as cleverly as a pheasant hunter peering through the bulrushes. Casually leafing through Hilton's book, I secretly kept my eyes peeled for prey.
Meanwhile, the more I read of Hilton's wardrobe tips, the more my hopes sank. No offense to the store's clientele, but I began to realize this wasn't exactly Hilton's target market.
"Show off your navel and belly," she writes.
"If you wear jeans, wear them really, really low-waisted."
"Dress supersexy when you don't have a boyfriend, or if you want to make your boyfriend jealous."
Looking up at the customers wandering by, I wondered: Do Eddie Bauer windbreakers and suede clogs count as supersexy?
Still, I soldiered on. In fact, I stayed for what seemed like hours - but then, time tends to stand still when you're reading intriguing prose like "Here is one of my major secrets revealed: I have curly hair."
OK, here's where I admit a major secret of my own. I can't be totally certain some society maven or flashy fashionista didn't come tripping in on her 5-inch Manolo Blahnik heels and pluck the book off the shelf right under my nose. It seems I fell asleep at some point during my little investigative outing.
Did I mention the comfy green chair?
You might think that would be the end of the story.
But I wasn't about to quit now. I surfed the Internet for Paris Hilton fan club sites, where I found that her admirers aren't as clueless as you might think (i.e. "I like pairs(sic) Hilton she a cool ... girl and i would love to hang out with her").
I phoned the book's publicist, who detailed the kinds of people who show up at Hilton's book signings.
"In general, I would say there are a lot of teenage girls entranced with her, that's huge," she said, "(there's) a lot of men of all ages, some extremely intelligent, quite taken with her, old people, young people, kids with their moms, 20-somethings who like her fashion sense and that kind of thing."
"Men of all ages?" I ask with suspicion. She caught my tone and immediately went on the defensive.
"They look pretty normal. They're dressed in suits and Polo shirts."
"But, isn't it kind of creepy that older men are obsessed with her?" I pushed.
"It's not as creepy as other things," she said. "I think it's fairly OK actually, in the line of creepiness."
I can't say I was totally assuaged by that argument. But the woman had a point: A person could do worse things than ogle Hilton in her whipmistress outfit (they could, for example, ogle her in the backless number with only strands of wispy blue gauze standing between her and the night air).
In the end, I had to change my mind about the book. After all, who am I to say that something has no merit when so many people of all ages - and, dare I say, fetishes? - obviously adore it.
From now on, I'm going to quit being so judgmental. I'm going to focus on more weighty questions of life - just like my new role model, Ms. Hilton.
"Of course I live in fear of pimples," she writes on page 49. "Who doesn't?"
By PATTI THORN Scripps Howard News Service
Shopping for grown ups