Lifestyle

(Video: Jennifer Miller’s “The Year of the Gadfly” book trailer)

So this is odd: Brian Williams, Christiane Amanpour and former Secretary of State James Baker in a YouTube video promoting a new coming-of-age novel.

Jennifer Miller (Diana Levine) Huh? Turns out that it’s a book trailer, the latest marketing tool for writers struggling for a foothold in the shrinking publishing business.

Jennifer Miller, author of “Year of the Gadfly,” spent a year getting VIPs to read the opening lines of her story. She then e-mailed the finished product “to every single journalist we knew.”

(What, based on the assumption that journalists can’t resist writing about other journalists? Grrr — we fell for it, didn’t we?)

(Jason Kempin/Getty Images)

• Buzz Aldrin dining with what looked like a multi-generational array of relatives at Proof in Penn Quarter Tuesday night. The second man on the moon, a frequent visitor to D.C., is back again this week for the International Space Development Conference.

(Charlie Neibergall/AP)

“It’s the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life. Harder than training for the Olympics. Harder than graduating from college. . . I’ve been tempted, I’ve had plenty of opportunities.”





— Lolo Jones, the model-gorgeous U.S. hurdler, on her decision to stay a virgin until marriage, in a new interview for HBO’s “Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel” — which is, yes, the reason everyone was suddenly Googling the 29-year-old Olympic hopeful this week.

Read more at the Heavy Medal 2012 blog: Hurdler Lolo Jones: Virginity has been harder than training for London Olympics, 5/23/12

Nancy Reagan in 2009. (Karen Bleier/Getty Images ) • Nancy Reagan is slowly recuperating from a fall at home that left her with several broken ribs. The former first lady, 90, who makes only rare public appearances these days, had been expected at the Reagan Library in Simi Valley, Calif., Tuesday night for a speech by Rep. Paul Ryan, but had to cancel because her of injury, which happened about six weeks ago, her rep told AP.

• Also badly banged up: Actor Michael McKean , best known for “Spinal Tap” and other comedies, who was hit by a car in Manhattan Tuesday afternoon. His rep told reporters he suffered a broken leg.

Follieri with Hathaway in happier times. (Will Ragozzino/Getty Images) • Remember Anne Hathaway’s skeezy ex-boyfriend, the one convicted of wire fraud and money laundering? Raffaello Follieri, who once passed himself off as the Vatican’s real-estate rep (he was not), is due to be released from prison after nearly four years this week — and will then be deported to his native Italy, reports the New York Post. His rep says he’ll join the family development company back home.

Read earlier: From posh to pokey: the downward spiral of Raffaello Follieri, 7/2/08

From big night to big house: When Follieri was honored in Washington, 7/22/08

Dr. Ross Fletcher, left, performs with his son Jim Fletcher, reclining, and Scott Shepherd in Elevator Repair Service’s production of "Gatz." (Photo courtesy of Dr. Ross Fletcher.)

A federal bureaucrat slips away from the office a couple of days a week for an exotic out-of-town moonlighting gig — but don’t worry, no scandal here.

Because by all accounts, Ross Fletcher has been getting the job done — not only on his day shift as chief of staff for Washington’s Veterans Affairs Medical Center but onstage as well. For the past six years, the cardiologist has appeared off-Broadway and in theaters around the world in “Gatz,” a critically acclaimed, eight-hour adaptation of “The Great Gatsby.”

Despite having no acting experience, Fletcher was cast in the groundbreaking production — the script does not cut a single word of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel — for a simple reason: