Love it or hate it, the list is the perfect starting point for a conversation. As reliable as Christmas itself--fraught with anxiety and yet still packing a walloping dose of hope?-- around this time of year, every web site you can imagine serves up the year-end list. Last year, my OS… Read full post »

It's a given that Oprah is a mighty force. Yesterday, she featured an author  who wrote a memoir 10 years ago, and that same book today is #85 on Amazon. Kathryn Harrison's The Kiss is going strong.

Oprah's new season's been on for several weeks now and I keep waiting… Read full post »

Fall 2009 big books are just around the corner. But before I start thinking about the newest William Boyd, Margaret Atwood, John Irving, or David Mitchell--Dan Brown who?--I want to look back on the books I read between June and last night. There were common themes in many of these titles,… Read full post »

Interesting how vehement she was in 1998 for airing & punishing pecadillos, and how vehemently she puports to care for "the good of the country" now by opposing torture prosecutions.

 "Do you respect the president?" The real question is, "Do you think he has any respect for us?"...I think h… Read full post »

This week's episode of Damages, the legal thriller on FX, broke with a sledgehammer the fourth wall between show and viewers with its product endorsement for the Cadillac Escalade, right in the heart of the story.

In one of two blatant scenes, a side-character is in a car showroom being… Read full post »

 Some people get very annoyed by end of the year or best of  lists that pop up in December. If you're one of those people, close this post now and back away. I get very excited when I see the first lists appear, and a lot of my reading suggestions for… Read full post »

I used to haphazardly scribble the names of books I'd heard about on scraps of paper, mostly #10 envelopes or occasionally in the tiny margins of a checkbook register. As expected, those fragments, filled with good ideas and only scant information, would never make it to my desk. I tried to… Read full post »

Good news for the culture war

I just read a heartening analysis of voters by Timothy Egan for the NYT. He ventured down into the dark convervative terrain of Colorado Springs to find out how voters there are perceiving the election. Long story short, many trueblood Republicans will vote on economic… Read full post »

Bill Maher was on The View today talking about his upcoming theatrical release of Religulous this Friday--I already have a date with Mr. U for dinner and this movie if it's playing in town--and they of course asked Bill about his impression of Sarah Palin. His reaction is what you would… Read full post »

1. That opening with the five reality hosts standing up there with nothing to say but, "We've got nothing to say," was awful. Terrible. In fact, the whole show dragged tonight, the timing one or two beats awry (I was going to say "off" but thought better of it). I know… Read full post »

Yesterday's Oprah featured a stunningly thin and fit Gwenyth Paltrow, who had recently lost twenty pounds and yet eschews dieting of any kind, claiming that even thinking about dieting causes her to gain five pounds.

But after a bit of prodding and (conveniently) a packaged video piece, it was… Read full post »

Excerpt

Interviewer: What is your vision?
Answer: Less taxes and more war.
Interviewer: Where should be bomb next?
Answer: Iran, baby!

But this story doesn't end with the obnoxious  interview.

No, indeed. The interviewee, Denver attorney and Republican delegate Gabriel Nathan Schwar… Read full post »

This is my favorite image from among the buttons we saw when we went downtown on Monday night. There were so many truly bad t-shirts and other assorted junk for sale, as it should be. We live in the suburbs and so we took the lightrail, which is… Read full post »

Did you see that New Yorker article earlier this summer about the advent of children's libraries, children's lit criticism, literary infighting, and more? It's worth a look if you like such things.

Part of the article reminded me of being nine, when I was in fourth grade, living for a year… Read full post »