Who: Author of Feeding the Monster and Hard News; contributing editor at Vanity Fair.

House: Adams.

Hometown: Newton, Massachusetts.

Current Residence: Manhattan.

Spotlight: If the current state of the Sox has you feeling down, at least there’s Seth Mnookin’s Feeding the Monster, a backstage look at the how and why of the Red Sox’s 2004 ascent to victory. And Mnookin’s credibility allowed him to log some serious time backstage. After a Vanity Fair piece in which he chronicled the Sox’s World Series win with insight and you-are-there wholeheartedness, the team authorities were so taken with Mnookin that they permitted him unfettered access to players and owners alike, complete with “a desk at Fenway and an electronic passkey that opened almost every door in the park,” to write his book—without asking for editorial control. It’s understandable that Mnookin inspired this sort of confidence. He’s a writer who’s concerned enough with issues of accuracy to undertake a book exploring the Jayson Blair catastrophe (Hard News) and who’s written with sincerity about his past heroin addiction. Even when discussing his own status as a Sox fan, in a recent New York Times interview, Mnookin makes sure he’s giving an honest account: “Actually, to be considered a ‘big fan’ of the Sox, you’ve got to be the kind of person who schedules your annual vacation so you can watch the team play in South Florida. I’m not quite that kind of fan.”

Hitting It Out of the Park: Feeding the Monster first appeared at #8 on the New York Times best seller list (expect no less from Red Sox Nation); one review, in the St. Petersburg Times, declared it to be “more interesting than The Da Vinci Code.” High praise indeed.

Love That Dirty Water: Via his Feeding the Monster spinoff blog, Mnookin offers fellow Red Sox obsessees zealous, up-to-the-minute commentary on the season (posts at one in the morning or later are not out of the question)—and, lately, some much-needed empathy. After the Sox’s recent series against the Yankees, which even by Boston standards was unusually painful, Mnookin commiserated—“I stayed up until 1:30, too”—and urged the fans to pick themselves back up: “Don’t listen to…any sports radio…it’ll only make you depressed, or mad, or both. Take a walk. Treat yourself to a nice lunch. Find something to be thankful for — the weather, or the lobster roll at Legal, or your family, or your dog. If you don’t live in New York, be thankful for that.”

Told: Mnookin called James Frey out before it was cool to call James Frey out, sizing up the ex-F.O.O.’s (Friend Of Oprah) best-selling tale of woe, A Million Little Pieces, as “pretentious, self-important and indulgent.” To take away the sting a bit, Mnookin conceded that, well, it wasn’t “a horrible book.” And this was back when everyone thought A Million Little Pieces was all true. (An article penned after the James Frey fallout shows Mnookin was going easy on the guy in the earlier piece.)

Good Genes: Mnookin family reunions could double as book signings. Mnookin’s mother, Wendy, is an award-winning poet (and Radcliffe grad to boot). He gives his mom props on his homepage, declaring her poetry to be “better than my books”. Meanwhile, cousin Curtis Sittenfeld, the author of Prep, recently became the second Mnookin family member to spend quality time on the New York Times bestseller list.

It happens to the best of us: Asked in an interview to cite the “worst correction you’ve ever had,” Mnookin told the following cringe-worthy story from his early days at the Palm Beach Post: “I had what I think was my first front page story about a sculpture that was being moved down from Canada and the municipal wrangling that was going on about it… The story had gone through a spellchecker and since it was about a sculpture from Canada there were all these French Canadian words. The entire article was gibberish. Every single name—not just the name of the sculpture, but the name of the place it was coming from and everything—was just tuned into gibberish.” Oh, spellcheck, you really do always come threw.

*Inside the List [The New York Times]
*Behind the scenes with Beantown's beloved sluggers and hurlers. [Washington Post Book World]
*Regret the Interview: A Conversation with Seth Mnookin [www.regrettheerror.com]
*The End of My World As I Knew It: A New Year’s Reflection On My Life After Heroin [www.slate.com]
*Harvard and heroin [www.salon.com]