Washington Post Book Editor Skewers Publisher's Weekly for Choosing E.L. James as Person of the Year

Posted on December 4, 2012

The Washington Post's fiction editor Ron Charles made a hilarious video poking fun at Publishers Weekly's controversial decision to name E.L. James as its Publishing Person of the Year. James is the author of the racy bestselling Fifty Shades of Grey trilogy. At first, Charles (in his persona as the Totally Hip Book Reviewer) thinks that PW has named legendary mystery author P.D. James as the Person of the Year. Then his assistant corrects him, and he has to stop the video to read the books. When he returns, he skewers PW for its choice while enacting out several of the more notorious scenes in the book. Here's a choice zinger: [Publisher's Weekly] "managed to look past the skin deep issues of originality, significance or quality and see what matters: cold hard cash. No shades of grey here." Take a look: