“We’ve heard it before — Americans don’t like to read, they just want to ogle celebrities and watch shows about houses on TV. So how about a book that allows the reader to ogle celebrities and their homes to bring them back to reading?” asks Alana Semuels in The Los Angeles Times today. “That’s just what Michael Gross has provided in ‘Unreal Estate.’…It can sometimes read like real estate porn, with paragraphs of jaw-dropping details about a type of extravagance that might have been scorned even by the very wealthy on the Titanic. But he also leaves the reader with a sense of history….Gross’ attention to detail about humans and their homes should make you want to pick up ‘Unreal Estate,” which might be best described as what would happen if Us Weekly and Architectural Digest had a love child that was much smarter than either. The book provides a panorama of what was going on inside some of the most frivolous, gated houses on a hill that have ever existed.” Unreal Estate is also featured in The Daily Truffle’s holiday gift book guide and after a week’s absence, came back onto the Book Soup Bestseller list today at #6.