Earlier this week, the ancient and long-cherished concept of the unitary book took a blow directly in the spine.

I couldn't be more thrilled.

The event I'm referencing was a Simon & Schuster announcement that they will start selling individual e-chapters to Dr. Memhet Oz's "You" series of health...

Madoff masks and vampire costumes are simply innocuous compared to the frightening stuff that's out there, every day of the year.

Today I'm scared by:

• The fact that 80% of the jobs lost in the Great Recession were held by men. We haven't even begun to contemplate the psychological...

In July 1971, Coca-Cola debuted a commercial that remains famous in the fizz of marketing history. Shot on a hill outside Rome, the spot -- featuring a diverse group of winsome, cleaned-up hippies singing a pop song with a folky vibe -- was a phenomenon.

The spot was a...

I'm sure I'll be accused of having Twitter on the brain, but listening to and reading the obituaries for Irving Penn put me in mind of that 140-character cultural and media phenomenon.

Huh? Well, a common thread in these celebrations of the master is Penn's impatience with the extraneous, what...

The following also appeared today in the Barnes & Noble Review.

Despite the continentally-correct judgment of the Olympicrats in Copenhagen, Chicago is an Olympian city when it comes to literature and the arts. And what better time than now to remind us? Here's a sampling...

Seventy years of great photography and intimidating recipes have collapsed as fast as a badly constructed boysenberry soufflé. Yesterday, Conde Nast announced it was yanking Gourmet off the stove.

It was a needless death in our food-mad culture. The Food Channel sizzles. The gladiatorial combat of Iron Chef rivets....

Living in New York City is the ultimate urban trade-off; an ongoing pas de deux between a dream and no closet space. Other than those who are Goldman-lined, we surrender space and privacy, we pay nutty rents for some tiny turf in exchange for an ineffable combination of manic intensity,...

The anniversary forensics into the lasting implications of Woodstock were completed this weekend, with one critical oversight.

There was no commentary about the utter absence of baby boomer support for health care reform. The generation that sought to spread peace and love throughout society seems completely disinterested in spreading mammographies...

Neither President Obama, Congress nor the advocates of health care reform have made a compelling, practical and easily-digested case for how anyone can find enough savings in the system to extend coverage and reduce inflation, without sacrificing the level of care that many people are satisfied with.

They claim they...

Tomorrow is the start of New York City's "Summer Streets Program" - where some of our arteries will be temporarily un-clogged, and handed over to pedestrians. As part of that event, a bunch of companies who are running successful bike-sharing programs in cities around the world - or...

During the presidential campaign - and continuing thereon after - President Obama lumped me and all $250,000-plus households into the same category. A category he called "the wealthy." (Without, by the way, ever describing the specific logic or genesis of that magical threshold, which sometimes dropped to $200,000.)

Raising taxes...

After listening to Sonia Sotomayor handle the crowd of white boys, you may want to gain some insight into the streets - and a sense of the place - where her Latina wisdom was formed. Hence, my reading list.

You'll note that some of the books were written before she...

Want to be David Brooks? Interested in a profitable career as a sought-after pundit, a card-carrying member of the Commentariat, a best-selling bloviator? It's easier than you could possibly imagine. Just follow my free columnist-in-a box plan; today's lesson is based on David's assembly-line column on "Dignity" that appeared...

When I learned that the HuffPo was planning a special New York City edition, my first reaction was that the last thing we need is more New York City voices thrusting their uninvited opinions upon us.

Bring us some new industry - particularly those that don't involve gift-wrapping financial...

Here's what Eric Dash of the "New York Times: wrote this week about the payment that Geithner permitted Goldman Sachs to make, thus liberating themselves from the cold and clammy hand of TARP:

"None of the banks' executives crowed publicly, but some of their employees celebrated Tuesday night. At...

Am I the only one who is repulsed by the New York State Lottery selling a $5 Mother's Day ticket?

It's not so much the fact that it's a sloppily inept marketing idea, unless your objective is to end up in a Jay Leno monologue:

"And did you see...

He probably hasn't considered it, but President Obama needs Amy Poehler to make government functionaries our next secular saviors. In her new sitcom Parks and Recreation she plays Leslie Knofe, a starry-eyed bureaucrat who, in the opening episode, earnestly proclaims that the conversion of an empty lot into...

Maureen Dowd devotes her entire column today to a frontal assault on Twitter, a screed badly disguised as an interview with their founders.

Is it mere envy, the green-eyed monster that's one of her go-to Shakespearean shout-outs?

It's a likely conclusion. After all, Twitter is exploding and its generous...

You've no doubt seen the Apple ads. Big, full page splashes that trumpet the number of iPhone applications that have been downloaded -- over 500 million, they represent.

The phone nests in the center of the page, and it's surrounded by call-outs that recite the range of sexy applications.

I'm watching Chesley Sullenberger and his crew on "Sixty Minutes" and I'm thinking that the five of them represent everything that our society is losing.

I'm thinking that their national deification, warranted as it is, also tells us about a deep loss at the center of our soul.

When we...