Paperback writer . . .
Bravo’s Andy Cohen will be feted tonight on the launch of the paperback edition of his 2012 memoir, “Most Talkative: Stories From The Front Lines of Pop Culture.”
Cohen, who hosts Bravo’s “Watch What Happens Live,” has partnered with Gilt MAN and Gilt City to celebrate the book’s release exclusively through a series of events unfolding over the next few days.
Tonight, for instance, Gilt MAN will host a dinner for Cohen, at Maysville (West 26th), to celebrate their partnership. Cohen curated a sale of spring apparel for Gilt MAN (suits, dress shirts and ties) and, as part of the sale, Gilt MAN is offering its members the opportunity to purchase signed copies of “Most Talkative.”
Cohen was shot for an exclusive editorial, which will be featured on both Gilt MAN and Gilt City, with select items from the shoot available for purchase as part of the sale, both of which launch tomorrow at noon (gilt.com/andycohen).
The Gilt MAN sale will be live for 36 hours, ending this Friday, while The Gilt City sale will be live for seven days, ending April 10.
Cohen is also a guest curator for Gilt City and participated in an exclusive Q&A that will be featured on the Gilt MAN blog. Oh, and he’ll also embark on a book tour for the paperback edition of “Most Talkative” (apps.facebook.com/aboutmosttalkative/exclusives has details).
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A couple of new Discovery shows will be premiering in the next few weeks. You’ll hear more about them once the network holds its upfront later this week, but here’s the skinny on two of these new series.
“Backyard Oil,” premiering Tuesday, April 23, is set in the hills of south central Kentucky, and follows several people as they either rake in the dough — thanks to the recent oil boom (close to $100 a barrel) — or try to find that road paved with (crude) gold.
Among the show’s cast members are mogul Jimmy Reliford and his sidekick, Mad Dog; Coomer, who pulls in $300,000 a month after striking oil in his backyard; a “bearded hillbilly” (their words, not mine) named Rascal; and the father-son Page duo who, apparently, bicker about everything.
“The Big Brain Theory: Pure Genius,” hosted by Kal Penn (of “Harold & Kumar” fame), will premiere May 1 (10 p.m.) in its bid to find “the next great technological mind that could change the future,” according to Discovery.
Each week on the show, 10 contestants will be presented with a “seemingly impossible” engineering challenge, as in the series premiere, where the contestants are tasked with finding a solution to stop a set of explosives from detonating — but the explosives are strapped to the backs of two pick-up trucks hurtling toward each other at an extremely high speed. The ultimate winner will earn $50,000 and a one-year contract to work at WET, a water-based design environments company (they designed the nine-acre lake at the Bellagio in Las Vegas). WET CEO Mark Fuller is a judge on the series.
Other challenges over the course of the season will include building a portable bunker that is fireproof — and can be deployed in five minutes — and constructing a robot capable of competing in three different athletic events.
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Last, but not least:
* Byron Pitts has joined ABC News as a New York-based anchor/chief national correspondent. He spent 15 years at CBS News . . . The third-season premiere of “Game of Thrones” averaged 4.4 million viewers Sunday night on HBO — up 13 percent from last season’s premiere (3.9 million) . . . John Norris is the new supervising producer of Fuse News, based in NYC . . . The fifth season of “Breaking Bad” arrives on DVD/Blu-ray June 4 — about a month before the final season kicks off on AMC.