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First Lynda La Plante attacks novels written by celebrities.
"Publishers, stop spending your millions on this tripe," she said at the Specsavers Crime Thriller Awards earlier this month, singling out Katie Price for special opprobrium.
"She's a terrible thing for young girls who just want pink welly boots." Now Martin Amis has joined in the attack on Jordan.
There's only one thing worse than a mob baying for blood. And that's a high-minded mob baying for blood, as we witnessed on last week's Question Time featuring Nick Griffin.
Amis told an audience at the Hay Festival at Kings Place in London earlier this week: "She has no waist ... an interesting face ... but all we are really worshipping is two bags of silicone."
He has now been accused of misogyny, which seems a bit harsh, if not downright absurd, as he was only stating the obvious.
To their credit, the two bags of silicone have maintained a dignified silence.
What is extraordinary is that Amis should care so much about Katie Price.
In fact, he seems to be the one who is worshipping her as he reveals that his next novella, State of England, will feature a character called "Threnody" who bears some of her traits. The rest of us just read her, but Mart sees fit to immortalise her in prose.
No doubt he is hoping her commercial success will rub off on him. The irony of this whole debate is that Amis himself was a prime beneficiary of our celebrity culture: he might not have got his first novel, The Rachel Papers, published as young as he did (aged 24) if he hadn't been the son of a certain Kingsley Amis.
There is no denying that Amis writes superior prose - he writes his own novels, goddammit.
But even so, part of me, though it may be heretical to say so, would rather read what Katie Price - or her ghostwriter - has to say about Amis than vice versa.
And why can't publishers spend their money how they want? Surely the market gets what it deserves. If there are millions out there who want to read tripe, let them do so.
Where is the next Virigina Woolf going to come from, asks La Plante? Publishers need to make a profit to subsidise the Virginia Woolfs of this world, who won't sell more than a few thousand.
Thank heavens for Katie, I say. If it weren't for her, the publishing industry would be in an even more dire state than it is. And we wouldn't be reading a new novel by Mr Amis.
French favourite for priapic prose
It's that time of year when the Literary Review invites nominations for its annual Bad Sex Prize for the worst description of a carnal scene in a novel.
For me there is only one winner this year: Jonathan Littell's The Kindly Ones, an epic historical novel about SS officer Max Aue.
In many respects it is remarkable but I was suspicious of some of the more kindly reviews: the author completely loses the plot around page 900 (did the reviewers get that far?).
Our hero, who has incest with his sister, has a third eye in his forehead which he compares to "a gaping vagina".
So far, so silly. During the denouement he sodomises himself on a tree branch. The sexual depravity goes on and on.
Oh yes, and the novel won France's most prestigious literary award, the Prix Goncourt. Surely it's a shoo-in for the Bad Sex.
Big Ears puts his spell on Dame Helen
Dame Helen Mirren is a fan of broadcaster Andrew Marr. "Aren't those ears great?" she says. "I just wanted to grab them. He's like some fabulous animal. And so smart. Maybe I'll have a night of passion with Andrew Marr."
I agree with Dame Helen. Not about a night of passion but about the ears.
They are great but they are proving quite a distraction on his new BBC2 series, The Making of Modern Britain, which started this week.
As he bounds around on screen, arms flailing, you can't help but be mesmerised by what he calls his "red satellite dishes".
Astonishingly, the Facebook group "Andrew Marr is a God (with crazy bat ears)" only has 76 members and only one fan has joined since 9 August 2007.
Is Dame Helen's approbation tantamount to the proverbial kiss of death?
Dinner parties are still alive and kicking
So much for the much-vaunted death of the dinner party. When you read something is going out of fashion, you know it is due for a comeback.
The other day I went to one for no fewer than 50 people in Queen's Park and it was a splendid occasion.
However, the host made the amusing blunder of not having our names on the tables so we had to wait ages to be seated.
Big (chaotic) dinner parties are the new thing, believe me.
