Dueling Tucker Carlson books to hit shelves

Get ready for dueling Tucker Carlson books.

Sources tell Media Ink that a smackdown is gearing up on the controversial Fox talk show host, commissioned by Little Brown, just as Carlson’s latest book, “The Long Slide,” prepares to hit the shelves.

Vanessa Mobley, an executive editor at Little Brown — who has published best-selling authors ranging from Ronan Farrow’s “Catch and Kill” to Wesley Lowery’s “They Can’t Kill Us All” — has in the recent months quietly signed a book on Carlson slated to be released next year.

The book’s author is Jason Zengerle, a political writer whose contributions have included a New York Times magazine cover titled “Fort Trump: the War on Congress,” about the former former president’s battle with the legislative branch over his impeachment.

Zengerle, a writer at large for the New York Times Magazine and a political correspondent for GQ, won the Newhouse School of Journalism’s Toner Prize for excellence in political reporting in 2019 — tied to his writing about the trickle-down effect of the Trump presidency on the House Intelligence Committee when it was headed by Rep. Devin Nunes, one of Trump’s biggest boosters.

Neither Zengerle nor Little Brown’s Mobley returned calls for comment, but a source close to the situation confirmed that a book is in the works and that it will not hit until sometime next year. Reps for Carlson and Fox did not get back to us at the time of writing.

Carlson’s book, meanwhile, is slated to hit next month via the Threshold imprint of Simon & Schuster, where the host of “Tucker Carlson Tonight” has been a top-selling author in the past.

“The Long Slide” will be a collection of his writing before he became one the highest-rated talk shows on cable TV and a highly controversial Trump booster who is reviled by the left. CNN’s Brian Stelter, who wrote a book critical of Fox, labeled Carlson a “conspiracy monger” for everything from his election fraud allegations to his claims about COVID-19.

The S&S book, announced only last month, is billed as “a collection of nostalgic writings that underscore America’s long slide from innocence to orthodoxy.”

The publisher said that in the new book, “Tucker delivers a few of his favorite pieces — annotated with new commentary and insight — to memorialize the tolerance and diversity of thought that the media used to celebrate instead of punish.”