Book Reviews

Book Review Round-Up

Posted 11.23.2009 | Books


Miss some of the weekend's book reviews? We're back again to catch you up with a book review round-up of the newest in fine literature and in... well,...

Eating Animals: Caring Is Not A Zero-Sum Game

Laurie David | Posted 11.23.2009 | Books


Laurie David

One of the many problems with Michiko Kakutani's lame and flamboyantly irrational New York Times review of Eating Animals is that it suggests her own irrelevancy.

Palin Goes Rogue On The Facts

Progressive Book Club | Max Blumenthal | Posted 11.20.2009 | Books


Max Blumenthal Progressive Book Club/Media Matters for America review In August 2008, when then-senator and presidential candidate Hillary Clinton sa...

The Irregulars: An Engaging Bio of Roald Dahl During the War That Flags When the War Ends

Alex Remington | Posted 11.19.2009 | Books


Alex Remington

Jennet Conant's recent book The Irregulars is the perfect Washington summer read: it's a breezy society tale about British spying on America before and during World War II.

Sparks Specializes in Sad Songs

Jackie K. Cooper | Posted 11.18.2009 | Books


Jackie K. Cooper

There are moments in this story that are so affecting that you have to stop reading until you can see the pages through your tears. Is this contrived? Is this manipulative? Maybe it is, but it is also the true heart of the story.

My Father's Paradise: A Memoir About a Lost Jewish World

Alex Remington | Posted 11.18.2009 | Books


Alex Remington

I recently read Ariel Sabar's memoir My Father's Paradise: A Son's Search for His Jewish Past in Kurdish Iraq, which was published last year. It begi...

Book Bloggers Rock!

Fauzia Burke | Posted 11.17.2009 | Books


Fauzia Burke

With newspapers and magazines folding left and right, book coverage has been severely impacted. Luckily, book bloggers have come to the rescue, often without the credit they deserve.

Jason Linkins

Dueling Palin Reviews Equals Zero For Readers

HuffingtonPost.com | Jason Linkins | Posted 11.17.2009 | Media


I don't really see much point to newspapers running dueling reviews of a single book -- it's sort of feckless, isn't it? Well, shucks! if you didn't ...

Malcolm Gladwell and the Case For Endless Self-Googling

David Quigg | Posted 11.16.2009 | Books


David Quigg

I piled cringe upon cringe Friday -- first because I read Steven Pinker's vivisection of Malcolm Gladwell's new collection, second because of what I found when I Googled a flub Pinker wielded against Gladwell.

Energy Bookshelf: Ten More Worth Your Time Than Super Freaky Crap

A. Siegel | Posted 11.17.2009 | Green


A. Siegel

The authors of Superfreakonomics super(freaky)star status means that they and their travesty of a book will get attention despite its non-truthful truthiness and misleading mediocrity on climate-change.

Malcolm Gladwell's "What The Dog Saw": Great Writing, Suspect Science

The New York Times | STEVEN PINKER | Posted 11.13.2009 | Books


Fortunately for "What the Dog Saw," the essay format is a better showcase for Gladwell's talents, because the constraints of length and editors yield ...

Nathan Rabin's "The Big Rewind" Needed a Little Re-Edit

Alex Remington | Posted 11.13.2009 | Books


Alex Remington

Emotional honesty is a lot harder to take seriouslywhen you constantly undercut it by using the same hoary one-liners and jokes from Mr. Show.

Going Rogue by Sarah Palin: A Review (Sort-of)

Daniel Krotz | Posted 11.20.2009 | Books


Daniel Krotz

Is Going Rogue a good book? Who knows? Who cares? Generally speaking, books by politicians of any ideological persuasion have the shelf life of a grape.

Philip Roth's "The Humbling": Axler's Theater

The New York Review of Books | Elaine Blair | Posted 11.20.2009 | Books


Axler's Theater Elaine Blair The New York Review of Books "The Humbling" by Philip Roth. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 140 pp., $22.00 One of the ...

My Review of Sarah Palin's New Book Going Rogue Without Actually Having Read It

Beth Armogida | Posted 11.11.2009 | Comedy


Beth Armogida

If anything, Going Rogue shows how a woman from a small town in Alaska can go from burning books to writing them.

Washington Times Shake-Ups Connected To New President's Book Review?

Politico | Michael Calderone | Posted 11.09.2009 | Books


Given today's big management changes and still-unanswered questions about whether executive editor John Solomon will stay at the paper, there are a lo...

A Sneak Peek At New Books

Posted 11.09.2009 | Books


This week, the book review round-up includes some reviews from insider journals Publishers Weekly, Kirkus and Booklist, which often get the scoop on n...

Andre Agassi's "Open": Meth, Bitterness, And Bad Hair (VIDEO)

The Huffington Post | Jessie Kunhardt | Posted 11.09.2009 | Books


Andre Agassi's new memoir, Open, out today, has been causing a stir because of major revelations in the book -- that Agassi used crystal meth regular...

STRIP & REBIND: Why Publicists Love the Word "No"

Cassie Ammerman | Posted 11.09.2009 | Books


Cassie Ammerman

There is a word that publicists love almost as much as "yes." And it's "no." Seems counterintuitive, right? But it's true. There is little I love more than a solid "no."

ISO My Twitter Persona

Sarah Schmelling | Posted 11.07.2009 | Books


Sarah Schmelling

I'd just had an event at a popular L.A. bookstore. I saw old friends, answered great questions, sold a good amount of books. But that next morning I realized: I hadn't tweeted it.

Confronting Words: Poetry Reviews

Carol Muske-Dukes | Posted 11.06.2009 | Books


Carol Muske-Dukes

The three books reviewed here are by women writers who confront the world in uncompromised fashion.

The Mass Production of Mental Illness and What To Do About It

Anis Shivani | Posted 11.05.2009 | Books


Anis Shivani

Dr. Richard P. Bentall, professor and practitioner of clinical psychology in Britain, exposes the highly dubious nature of reigning presumptions about the causes and treatment of mental illness.

The Help: Kathryn Stockett's Controversial Hit

The Huffington Post | Jessie Kunhardt | Posted 11.05.2009 | Books


First-time author Kathryn Stockett's recent book, The Help, has risen quickly through the bestseller lists despite Stockett being previously unknown a...

The Novice: A Book Review

Peter Clothier | Posted 11.04.2009 | Living


Peter Clothier

At loose ends and casting about for some kind of meaning to his life, he breaks away from family and home, and describes his discovery and embrace of Buddhism.

Al Gore's Our Choice: Progressive Book Club Review

Progressive Book Club | Bill McKibben | Posted 11.03.2009 | Books


Bill McKibben Progressive Book Club Our Choice: A Plan to Solve the Climate Crisis By Al Gore Rodale, 2009 There's been a certain amount of debate ...