What is Emma Thompson reading?

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The real question, I suppose, is what is Kate Walker reading? That’s the character played by Emma Thompson in the new film ‘Last Chance Harvey,’ which co-stars Dustin Hoffman as Harvey. The plot is this: Harvey, an unpleasant guy who has just missed his plane (and that’s the least of his problems), sees Thompson in an airport bar. He snarkily comments on her condition -- sitting alone, with ‘a trashy novel and a glass of chardonnay’ -- and this cute meet becomes ‘Before Sunrise’ for the mature set.

So my question, having not seen the film, is what is she reading? It surely looks like a real book in the photo above. Although her hand obscures the text, it appears that the cover reads ‘Anita Harman.’

A book’s movie appearance can bring it bountiful attention. Remember the rush to purchase ‘Love Letters of Great Men’ after it cropped up in 2008’s ‘Sex and the City’ movie? There was one catch -- there was no such book (until publisher Macmillan decided they might as well print one). Closer to home, L.A. writer Antoine Wilson found his novel ‘The Interloper’ making appearances in not one but two TV shows: ‘Rules of Engagement’ and ‘30 Rock.’ While I’m not sure what it did for sales, the TV connection did bring people to his website.

An Amazon search for ‘Anita Harman’ turns up a lot of nothing -- either as author or title. It appears that this is a ‘Sex and the City’-style fake book, not a real one. But maybe I’ve got the words wrong. Maybe they talk more about the book in the film -- it does seem to play a fairly large part in the scene, in setting up who Emma Thompson’s Kate is.

I wonder what this ‘Anita Harman’ is all about. It’s not a homophone, is it?

-- Carolyn Kellogg