[
](http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B000A0F6O0/ref=amb_center-4_10060921_35/102-1160785-5416147)The fifty or so friends and family on my Christmas card list this past year got signed copies of Daniel Wallace’s O Great Rosenfeld!, which tells the story of a hapless prehistoric tribe.
Daniel describes it as a kid’s book for adults. Being a crass Hollywood type, I say it’s [Quest for Fire](http://imdb.com/title/tt0082484/maindetails) meets [The Office](http://imdb.com/title/tt0290978/maindetails).
Either way, it’s very funny.
[Daniel](http://www.danielwallace.org/), you may recall, wrote Big Fish: A Novel of Mythic Proportions, which became the film of the same title (though not subtitle). My adaptation of his novel was the first screenplay he ever read. He liked the format so much he became a screenwriter himself. (He’s also a witty illustrator, which benefits Rosenfeld greatly.)
As of last Christmas, O Great Rosenfeld! hadn’t yet been officially published, so Daniel and I did a special press run, with numbered copies. Friends who got the book would always ask me where they buy it for their friends, but Daniel was always a little evasive on the answer. He said something unusual was happening with it, and that he’d tell me when he could.
It turns out, Amazon bought the book as part of its new Amazon Shorts project.
Most of the stuff available on Amazon Shorts is bonus material from top authors: essays, short stories, deleted chapters. Think of them as the literary equivalent of DVD extras. Everything on Amazon Shorts is delivered electronically, and best of all, it only costs 49 cents. (Of that, the writer gets a very significant portion, since there’s no printing or storage costs.)
Daniel’s O Great Rosenfeld! is divided into two parts, so it costs a whopping 98 cents to find out what ever becomes of “Our Esteemed Leader, Rosenfeld, and His Tribe of 33 and 1/2 Followers” as they strive to protect Sally, the most beautiful woman in their tribe. It’s money very well spent.
And if you’d like Daniel to sign it, he probably will. He’s a friendly guy.
Good news for those readers frustrated by the all-too-frequent outages at this site: we’re moving to a new server, which will hopefully not flake out as often. If it does, I’ll change service providers. Again. Sigh.
Matthew McGrory, who played Karl the Giant in Big Fish, died Tuesday in Los Angeles. He was 32.
This past weekend, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory opened to strong reviews and a hefty $56.2 million at the box office. I’m happy, of course, but that good news was eclipsed by even better news: the birth of my daughter on Monday.