NY/NZ's Continued Continuing Coverage of Marisha Pessl

A few items over at Gawker today noted yet another New York Times article on Marissha Pessl. On the strength of the photo accompanying Dinitia Smith's piece, Gawker editors deemed Pessl merely "book hot":














but upgraded her to "TV hot" after seeing the official Viking publicity shot, below:












I followed this recantation -- and related bitchy comments --with bated breath, thinking all the while:
1. Was I trying not to like Special Topics because she's, y'know, so gorgeous and young and everything? (Um, not the first time that occurred to me. Gee, I am a meanie sometimes. Another review of her book is up here.) Also,
2. You know what would be fun? A literary version of HotOrNot.com! Marisha Pessl, as it turns out, is not the only writer to suffer from photos of wildly varying levels of flattery on the webbynets.

Jonathan Franzen: Hot?



















Or not?






















Nicole Krauss: Hot?



















Or not?













Benjamin Kunkel: Hot?



















Or not?













David Foster Wallace: Hot?

















Or not?























A. M. Homes: Hot?



















Or not?









Related: Jhumpa Lahiri and Zadie Smith -- always, always hot. Dammit. (I am a meanie sometimes, X 2. Although, let the record show, I was tempted to include Stephanie Klein in this roundup and did not.)

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