Newmark's Door

Further in pursuit of instant gratification . . .

. . . "Amazon.com Introduces Same-Day Delivery" (New York Times, 10/15). But just a few cities for now.

Best book blurbs. Ever.

I was cleaning out a closet the other day and I came across my high school copy of Slaughterhouse Five. I liked the book--there are two great scenes in the book, among my favorites in fiction--but what I really liked were the two review quotes on the cover. Because of them, for a few months, I badly wanted to be a novelist.

Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. has written one of the major novels of the year . . . haunting . . . irresistible reading . . . poignant and hilarious, threaded with compassion and, behind everything, the cataract of a thundering moral statement . . . work of art.  --Boston Globe.

Splendid art and simplicity . . . nerve-racking control . . . a funny book at which you are not permitted to laugh, a sad book without tears, a tale told in a slaughterhouse.  --Life Magazine.

"[T]he cataract of a thundering moral statement . . ." Lord, at age 16 I loved the sound of that.

I still do.

Another fine P. J. O'Rourke piece

P. J. reviews a new book about Pete Seeger. He notes that Mr. Seeger is ". . .  a modest, unassuming, cheerful, and kind-natured man." And then P. J. asks:

Thus is raised a momentous question, maybe the most momentous question of the modern era: How is it that legions of modest, unassuming, cheerful, and kind-natured people pledge their troth to political systems that burn continents and bury innocents by the hundred million? 

Excellent question. 

Ayn Rand has been in the news a lot lately . . .

. . . but this is getting ridiculous. Just about one week's worth of miscellaneous browsing and I hit upon five different discussions:

"Why Ayn Rand is Hot Again: The unconservative Ayn Rand and her relationship to the American right".

"Howard Roark in New Delhi".

"Mrs. Logic: Ayn Rand never got into an argument she couldn’t win. Except, perhaps, with herself." (New York irony!)

"Wesley Mouch Award".

And, of course, the essential "Ayn Rand Power Dressing".

"Lincoln Off His Pedestal"

He's even more admirable off than on. James M. McPherson reviews three recent books on Lincoln and one on Mary Todd (NY Review of Books, 9/24).

Related: Justice Clarence Thomas speaks about Lincoln.

"The Best Novels You’ve Never Read"

"Sixty-one critics reveal their favorite underrated book of the past ten years."

"How To Become a Management Guru in Five Easy Steps"

Exaggerated, mean . . . and funny. (Slate's "The Big Money," 8/17.)

"Lehman Dies, Manchester United Survives; Thoughts on Why"

A review of a couple of new books (Simon Kennedy at Bloomburg, Aug. 5).

"The top ten most pirated eBooks of 2009"

"Don’t look at this list if you want to believe that the Internet is feeding a hunger for a deeper kind of learning."

Welcome to academia, Eric

Eric Falkerstein hears what some in academia have been told: our work is both obvious and wrong.

Eric doesn't say whether he got the most fun version of this criticism: when the same reviewer argues your paper is both.