Baby Got Books

The Literary Review’s Bad Sex short list has been announced. The awards honor an “unconvincing, perfunctory, embarrassing or redundant sex scene in an otherwise sound literary novel”. The list inlcudes Irvine Welsh, David Mitchell, Mark Haddon, Thomas Pynchon, et al. (see past winners here).

The Guardian has reviewed Dirty Blonde, Courtney Love’s autobiography/diary. Like the NYT, they liked it. They didn’t include it in their list of notable rock biographies of 2006, but they like it.

An Update: No sooner was this posted than the award was handed to Iain Holligshead who reflects on the dubious honor in The Telegraph.

In The New York Times, Liesl Schillinger counters Machiko’s negative review of Pynchon’s Against the Day:

…his funniest and arguably his most accessible novel, Thomas Pynchon doles out plenty of vertigo, just as he has for more than 40 years. But this time his fevered reveries and brilliant streams of words, his fantastical plots and encrypted references, are bound together by a clear message that others can unscramble without mental meltdown.

So who are you going to believe – Negative Nancy or that cute little girl from the Sound of Music?

The Globe and Mail has published The Globe 100, which is their top 100 books of 2006. Don’t be put off by poor formatting or the fact that the list begins with Marley and Me (Thanks to Elisabeth for the heads up).

The Guardian serves up the year’s best rock and roll biographies.

I’m locked away in a gloomy conference room in a place where it is warm and sunny (outside) so this will be brief.

The NYT has published their list of the 100 Notable Books of 2006.  I haven’t tallied my readings from the list yet.  I was relieved to see that I have read at least some (n>1) of them.
The Guardian has also published a list (sort of) of writers and critics favorites of 2006 – in three ? parts (Part 1 — The Second Part 1 and Part 2).

Author Jess Walter ( nominated for a National Book Award for his novel The Zero) has a great guest post on the Powell’s Book Blog that is perfect for a Friday meme. Walter has contributed a story to a anthology called The Empty Page: Fiction Inspired by Sonic Youth. He suggests some additional titles in the post that may not be making their way to the publisher anytime soon. For example the post is titled: Muskrat Love: Ficiton Inspired by Captain and Tenille. Other possibly not so hot titles, Ridin’ the Storm Out: Fiction inspired by REO Speedwagon and Flirtin’ with Disaster: Fiction inspired by Molly Hatchet. So how about it. What band-inspired anthology of fiction would you like to contribute to? Which would make you cringe? (see the comments on the original post for some ideas). Send your best/worst to the comments section. Here are a few of mine, in no particular order:

• Bringin’ on the Heartache: Fiction Inspired by the Songs of Def Leppard (Bad)
• Does Anyone Really Know What time it Is: Fiction Inspired by Chicago (Bad)
• Stories in A Coma: Fiction Inspired The Smiths (Could go either way)
• The Man Who Sold the World: Fiction Inspired by David Bowie (Spectacular)
• Feels Like the First Time: Fiction Inspired by Foreigner (So bad it’s good)
• Tied to the Hitchin’ Post: Fiction Inspired by the Allman Brothers (Awesome)

I’ll take the opportunity to also note that my (hypothetical) collection of humorous yet deeply poignant and personal short stories set in the Southern U.S. will be titled, “Martin Luther Zen” after the R.E.M. lyric in Begin the Begin. Post ideas along those lines in the comments as well.

Lastly: In other music & books news, The Sweet Juniper Blog took matters into its own hands after coming across one too many celebrity-written books for children. Check out their preview of the wonderful children’s book, A Horse Named Paul Revere by the Beastie Boys.

We’ve been working over time at BGB HQ to put together this list of things to do over the Thanksgiving holiday besides associating with your in-laws. We’ve cobbled together this outstanding collection of essays, interviews, podcasts, book-related craft projects, video clips, new blogs to check out, and other stupendous miscellany for your holiday enjoyment. You’ll be able to go hours without speaking to anyone. Just remember to break out that laptop early and often. Thank us later.

The NY Times has a nice piece on two new Allen Ginsburg books out in celebration of the 50th Anniversary of Howl. The article includes a picture of Ginsberg taken by William S. Burroughs.

The Times backs it up with a great article about Tennessee Williams written by director John Waters. I’ll cop to not knowing anything about Williams’ personal life prior to this article in which Waters credits Williams with saving his life – twice

The NYT also reviews the new book by Courtney Love called Dirty Blonde. They don’t hate it. How is that Courtney Love has never been in a John Waters movie?

KCRW podcasts an interview with Zadie Smith. KCRW may be the best radio station in the US. Which isn’t saying much, but still.

Boing Boing points the way to a Steve Allen interview with Jack Kerouac, who begins a reading of On the Road with “I wrote the book because we’re all gonna die.”

The Onion AV Club interviews Chuck Klosterman.

Lifehacker links to craft projects for that book that you’re not going to finish. May as well turn it into an iPod carrying case.

Bookninja has the scoop on the lost William Faulkner screenplay for a vampire movie. No, really.

Seen Reading has been nominated for the best new blog for the 2006 Canadian Blog Awards. Julie Wilson writes short vignettes about the people she spots reading on her daily commute.

McSweeney’s presents: Fragments from If I Did It! The Musical.

At Salon, Laura Miller says the new book Wizard of the Crow by Ngugi wa Thiong’o is “a cross between a Pynchon novel and “A Confederacy of Dunces,” reincarnated on African soil.” Wait. Who in the what now?

Lastly, I’d like to direct your attention to some outstanding Canadian blogs. These blogs each achieved their “outstanding” status by demonstrating the good taste to link to our site. A few weeks ago our post on a 1001 Books to Read Before You Die found its way to the great White North and onto these wonderful sites. (OK, I’m just sucking up now in the hopes that I can use them as character references when I finally decide to move to Vancouver). [editor's note: update on 11/24 - now with 50% more Canadians!] Please take the time to visit:

• My Tragic Right Hip
• Pickle Me This
• Where are the Keys
• Books, Etc.
• Chapati Kid
• Nik at Nite

Maybe they can tell us what happens on Thanksgiving in Canada (they do have one). They presumably don’t have a Macy’s Parade or Pilgrims, right?

[youtube]tiCmTn0s7oY[/youtube]

The LA Times has a suitably baffling review of Against the Day. Is it a positive or negative review?

In the NYT, Michiko is not vague in her dislike:

“Against the Day,” reads like the sort of imitation of a Thomas Pynchon novel that a dogged but ungainly fan of this author’s might have written on quaaludes. It is a humongous, bloated jigsaw puzzle of a story, pretentious without being provocative, elliptical without being illuminating, complicated without being rewardingly complex.

Suite Francaise by Irène Némirovsky is a mortal lock to top every year-end “best of” list. Unless, of course, the list was made by a cold, heartless bastard. Then maybe it will slip to #2.

If you don’t know the back story, here’s the BGB Digest version. Némirovsky was a Russian and a Jew. She and her husband fled Russia, with basically nothing, to escape the Bolsheviks. They found their way to France, where Némirovsky became a respected author. At the beginning pf World War II, neither Némirovsky nor her husband had become French citizens. Némirovsky began this book while France was occupied by Germany and it becoming clear what that might mean for her and her family.

Actually the book was to be a suite of five books. She completed the first two, which make up this novel, and her plans for the remainder would go unrealized. Némirovsky was shipped off to Auschwitz where she died very soon after. The book is followed by Némirovsky’s notes on what she wanted the novel to be, as well as her thoughts on the situation in France around her.

The second appendix to the novel includes surviving correspondence of Némirovsky and her family. These letters are heartbreaking. The letters include correspondence with Némirovsky’s publisher who, to his credit, was determined to maintain payment to her. He continued to do this in a climate where Jews were forbidden to work generally, but in publishing and writing especially. The letters begin with the family desperate to survive and to clarify their official position. Eventually the letters tell the story of Némirovsky’s capture and deportation through the letters of her husband who is frantic to reach her and send supplies, money, and love to her wherever she may be (he was initially older than the mandatory deportation age of foreign-born Jews). Later, the letters tell of the disappearance of Némirovsky’s husband and the machinations involved in caring for their children by others while the parents’ disposition in unknown. The letters show that Némirovsky’s publisher continued to send money to the children despite having no word from Némirovsky or her husband for several years.

Némirovsky’s papers, which are also included in this novel, remained with her children in France. For many years the children did not choose to read the papers, because it was too painful. It was enough to have them. Eventually one of Némirovsky’s duaghters began to figure out that the tiny writing on the worn pages was a novel in progress. The book was published, then translated, and finally published here almost 60 years after the end of the war. All of this is the foundation upon which this book rests. A blurb on the dust jacket notes that this may well be the first book of fiction written about World War II.

The first book in the Suite, Storm in June, takes place in the days leading up to the invasion of France by Germany. It is a gripping account of the lives of people from all walks of life as they prepare to flee ahead of the Nazi army. Némirovsky provides some insight into the French mindset, which proves to be more nuanced than the “rifle-dropping surrender monkey” brush that they are often painted with.

The second book, Dolce, continues the story into the German occupation and partitioning of France. I’ll admit that I had to dash over to WikiPedia for a refresher course on the Vichy France government. The second book features some of the same characters that appeared in the first. Némirovsky even manages to create a sympathetic portrait of some of the occupying Germans, no mean feat considering that we already know her story.

Némirovsky’s notes tell us that the third book, to be called Captivity, would have followed two of the characters from the second book to German prisons. The story arc of the fourth and fifth books, she allowed, would be unknowable until history revealed its plan.

Némirovsky wrote with a keen eye for everyday life. She tells herself in the surviving notes: “Reread Tolstoy. Inimitable descriptions but not historical, Insist on that…. try to create as much as possible…that will interest people in 1952 or 2052.” That’s the thing that shines through in this book. Némirovsky sems to have presciently known that given the subject matter the book must be written for future geneations. She admonishes herself in her notes for the novel:

Have no illusions: this is not for now. So mustn’t hold back, must strike back with a vengeance wherever I want.

And she does. This is a remarkable book, both for its unwavering fictional account and its heartbreaking non-fiction elements. I recommend it very highly. So far the book is atop the Amazon Editors’ Best of 2006 list. It is also at the top of MetaCritic’s Best of 2006 (scroll down), as well as their highest-rated book ever. Look for that trend to continue. On the success of this book, Némirovsky’s first book, David Golder, is schedules to be republished in 2007. From Amazon:

Praise for the first edition of David Golder:
“The work of a woman who has the strength of one of the masters like Balzac or Dostoyevsky”
–New York Times, 1930

Apparently the National Book Awards were handed out this past week while we were distracted by the U2/R.E.M. controversy and Pynchon Fever (Catch It!)™. The fiction award was given to Richard Powers for his novel The Echo Maker. The non-fiction award was given to The Worst Hard Time: The Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Great American Dust Bowl the by Timothy Egan, which is about the Great American Dust Bowl (note: this book does not feature Rose of Sharon nor any other Joads). Other awards were handed out for some other stuff as well.

OK. Back to the Pynchon. I came across this appreciation of Pynchon today in The Guardian:

Pynchon came as a revelation. I was 20 when I worked my way through The Crying of Lot 49, V and Gravity’s Rainbow. The workload was punishing: I think a single week was dedicated to Pynchon (meaning a one-off lecture followed by a tutorial). But that tutorial was followed by a longer discussion in the nearby pub, where our enthusiastically bearded tutor was joined by a proselytising postgrad and a lecturer who specialised in the post-war British novel. The three put up a convincing case for Thomas Pynchon as the greatest novelist of his generation. Not that they needed to try too hard.

I highlight this section of the article so that I can contrast with my own experience. The author of the above piece had this learning experience at the University of Edinburgh. My own story comes from my undergrad years at a mid-sized institution widely known in the U.S. as the “University of Edinburgh of the South.” Anyway. One of the two literature courses that I took the last semester of my senior year (American Literature 1945- ) consisted of four students. Three of them are contributors to this blog (Elvismith, Weezie, and myself). The fourth student was a Burl Ives looking guy who was an eastern religion major or some such. (He constantly wanted to throw out hypotheses such as, “Do you think that Heller was trying to symbolize the Janist philosophy of the afterlife in this passage?” Our Professor: “No.”)

Our Professor was especially fond of three very specific literary buzz phrases: (1) the prevailing zeitgeist, (2) moral bankruptcy, and (3) castrated Christ figure. She could work those phrases into any discussion. I think she especially wanted to irritate the Burl Ives Buddha-boy. Our final exam consisted of essay questions on Catch-22, The Invisible Man, and Pynchon’s V. On the way to the exam, the non-Burl Ives students in the class resolved that we would each use each of the Prof’s catch phrases in an essay, in a single sentence. Comparing notes later, we each succeeded in our objective. Added bonus: each of us had accomplished the feat in a separate question. High fives!

Now go back and read The Guardian guy’s college experience. This is why I don’t write for The Guardian.

Like Nerdly’s Comet, Thomas Pynchon is coming back with a new novel after 10 years. Against the Day is being released with little to no advance marketing, an Amazon Book Description written by the reclusive author himself (supposedly), and a (nearly) complete black out on reviews before the official release date. The Guardian has the skinny.

In other, more serious news: it’s pitted brother against brother, neighbor against neighbor, friend against friend. It’s the Slate article, R.E.M. vs. U2: Who was the best rock band of the ’80s? There has been, almost literally, no end to the angst ridden missives, notes of recrimination, charges and accusations, and verbal hand wringing/gnashing of teeth appearing in my in-box over this one. Oh, the humanity!

Speaking of 80s music, it’s been a while since we’ve had a Friday video. I think that I have one that fits the mood (and the title of this post)…
[youtube]T-bIjKPlQ9k[/youtube]

Neal Pollock talks about the Golden Testicle competition. There is a brief back story, in case you were wondering why. Coffee shoots out of my nose every time I read this. Govern yourself accordingly.

In the New Yorker, Ian Frazier speaks to the real issues facing our Nation:

Right now, it’s costing me forty-five dollars to fill up my 4Runner, which is about two novels. Tough decisions are going to have to be made…We go through a couple of dozen novels in a year without even noticing. I hate to say it, but this can’t go on.

And lastly, from The Onion:

Some of us have made plans to meet up at the Center for Southern Literature on December 4 to see Richard Ford read from his latest, The Lay of the Land. On December 7th, also at CSL, the authors of the apparently fantastic non-fiction book, The Race Beat, will be reading . Here’s a quick update on other literary happenings in the ATL – mark your calendars:

The 15th Annual Book Festival at the Marcus Jewish Community Center in going on now through the 20th of November. I’m kicking myself for missing the discussion of Suite Francaise this past weekend that featured the translator (and others). I didn’t know!

This Friday, John Edwards will be reading from his new book Home at the Carter Center. (Here’s how long ago the 2004 election was – I was asking myself why that old NPR guy was reading at the Carter Center. Um, that would be Bob Edwards. How quickly we (or I) forget.)

On December 6th, Elizabeth Kolbert will read from her climate change book, Field Notes From a Catastrophe: Man, Nature, and Climate Change. This one is in the garden at the Atlanta History Center. Not sure that outdoors in December is the best plan, but no one asks me.

December 8th, at 11:30 AM on a Friday, Jimmy himself will be at the Carter Center signing his new book, Palestine. Why 11:30 AM? On a Friday?

Looking ahead, ESPN sportscaster Jeremy Schaap will be reading at the Atlanta History Center (indoors) on February 13 from his new book, Triumph: The Untold Story of Jesse Owens and Hitler’s Olympics.

Walter Isaacson follows up his enormous Benjamin Franklin book with an enormous Einstein book. Reading at the Atlanta History Center on April 18.

E-mail me (see Contact Us link) any events that I may have missed. I’ll try to update upcoming events semi-regularly. I hate finding out cool events after they happen.

If you’re like me, you might be a little over-protective of your books. An example: I wouldn’t let BGB Contributor, Shaft, borrow my copy of The Tender Bar. It was signed after all. He is a good friend and a fairly responsible, productive member of society. I knew he was good for bringing it back. We swap CDs and DVDs back and forth all the time with no problems. That wasn’t the issue. What if he dropped it in a tub of mayonaise (like he does)? What if the dog got to it? What if…?

In 1991, my copy of The First Man in Rome, an enormous brand new hard cover, rode on the top of my car for a few blocks until it fell off on a busy street in downtown Orlando. By the time I got to it, the cover was gone and it had tread marks all over the pages. Luckily I had thought to remove the dust jacket before bringing it inside for lunch. I was able to cover the book and restore some of its former dignity, but I’m afraid I never recovered. I still have that book.

It should be no wonder that I react badly when the few volumes that I do loan out never find their way back home. I hate the idea of defacing a book by gluing a bookplate inside the front cover. If I could bring myself to do it though, I might go for something like this to get the message across.

The more likely scenario is that I would then become obsessed with bookplates, and the no-goodnik book thieves would remain oblivious to their crimes. The Confessions of a Bookplate Junkie blog gives some idea of what book plate addiction looks like (link via Librarian.net). Won’t someone think of the children!

I read Gary Shteyngart’s The Russian Debutante’s Handbook at the recommendation of a trusted book advisor. While I liked it, I wasn’t as crazy about it as the recommender. It was readily apparent that Shteyngart had talent to burn though, so I was eager to read his second novel, Absurdistan. I was not prepared to be thoroughly dazzled (with some qualifications), however.

Shteyngart’s novel is, as the title suggests, an absurdist view of the Former Soviet Union. His anti-hero, Misha Vainberg, is Russian but years for the west. Misha is the son of a Russian oligarch crime boss and whose mother died when he was young. In an attempt to make Making his papa proud, Misha comes to the US to be circumcised in Brooklyn at 18 (such a mitzvah!) and to attend Accidental College. Did I mention that Misha is also morbidly obese. Between the descriptions of Misha’s disgusting eating habits, the not too funny references to “Accidental” College, and really bad rap like:

My Name is Vainberg
I like ho’s
Sniff ‘em out
Wid my Hebrew nose

I was considering abandoning the book about 30 pages in. I’m glad that I stuck with it. I have a friend who bailed on the book and can not be talked into continuing. Govern yourself accordingly.

After falling in love with a Puerto Rican stripper, Misha travels back to Russia for a visit. Misha’s father is killed, and his visa back to the US is denied when it comes to light that his father was responsible for the death of an Oklahoma businessman. Then he loses his girlfriend. Thus is Misha’s world turned upside down and the absurdity begins. Believe me, right now, somewhere, there is a lonely grad student working on a master’s thesis comparing Misha to Yossarian.

Kicking off the absuridity, a villain in the book is a (very) thinly disguised version of Shteyngart himself, Jerry Shteynfarb. Shteynfarb is a former classmate of Misha’s from Accidental, who later steals Misha’s girlfriend. Here’s Misha’s description of Shteynfarb:

Let me give you an idea of this Jerry Shteynfarb…a perfectly Americanized Russian emigre (he came to the States as a seven year old) who managed to use his dubious Russian credentials…After graduation, he made good on his threat to write a novel…the Russian Arriviste’s Hand Job or something…Americans naturally lapped it up.

But back to that adult circumcision. Needless to say, it doesn’t go well at the hands of drunken Hasids. Misha had not been circumcised as a child, his mother fearing the attention it might draw to their religion in Soviet Russia (Think Borat). Already ambivalent about his religion, Misha is now openly antagonistic to those who are outwardly Jewish. Of course, Misha is constantly the subject of antagonism because he himself is outwardly Jewish.

The crises of Misha’s identity are interesting enough, but the book hits its stride when Misha travels to Absurdsvanï (Absurdistan). Misha decides to travel to Absurdistan, because he hears that he can obtain a Belgian passport on the black market there. Surely the US will allow entry to a simple Belgian businessman, right?

Once in Absurdistan, things get…absurd. A civil war is about to erupt between two factions of the Eastern Orthodox church whose main point of contention is the direction that the footrest thing-y on the Eastern Orthodox cross slants. In the meantime, a third, secular, branch has begun bombing the capital, which they control, in an effort to get on CNN. All of the machinations are an attempt to keep Halliburton, and subsidiary KBR, working on their pipeline. The representations of Halliburton (pronounced Golly Burton! by the locals) is worth the price of admission alone. Misha is pulled into various intrigues as any and all are familiar with his father, the oligarch.

Without giving too much away, Misha soon finds himself living among the Mountain Jews of Davidovo, a village near the border with Absurdistan. Here Misha comes to grips with his religion, as illustrated by a nifty piece of simple typography that says volumes. From Davidovo, Misha plots his triumphant return to NYC. I won’t throw out any spoilers that’ll ruin the ending. Let’s just say that this book is also in the Russian tradition.

I’m a big fan of this book, even though it took me five months to get around to posting about it. It is a solid piece of absurd satire. I think that comparisons to Catch-22 are not far off the mark. I’d recommend it if that sort of thing appeals to you. If you do decide to pick it up and you find yourself wanting to throw it out the window early on, do stick with it.

Speaking of Russians, Shteyngart was part of NPR’s You Must Read This reading series this past summer. His favorite book is Fathers and Sons by Ivan Turgenev. Now you know. This is the second in what will hopefully soon be a series of posts on three books by modern (post 1800’s) Russians that I’ve recently read.

Another book of interest in the 1001 oeuvre is near and dear to my heart. Robert Dimery’s (Editor) 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die does a fairly straightforward job of indicating what the book is about. The list of albums has been helpfully posted online. You’ll need to read the book to find out why these 1001 records are culturally significant. I’ve been sitting on this list for a few weeks, padding my stats with some great albums that I would have missed otherwise.

If you’d like to measure your accomplishments against the list, I’ve taken the list (as posted) and made a spreadsheet that will tally your results. Just put a “1″ in the column next to each album that you’ve heard (not simply heard of), and your score will be waiting for you when you get to the bottom. I did pretty well on this one, scoring 351. Post your results in the comments section and/or any obvious omissions/grave lapses in judgment.

If you missed it. Be sure to check out our post on 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die.

Atlantans, Richard Ford will be reading from his new book, The Lay of the Land, at the Center for Southern Literature on December 4th.  Let’s try to swing a group outing.  Reserve your spot now.

Very Short List profiles Ilf and Petrov’s American Road Trip, a 1938 travelogue by two Russian satarists writing for Pravda. The pair only beat Borat to the punch by 60 years. The site features a brief summary, educational pie chart, and sample chapter.

According to the blog Edward Champion’s Return of the Reluctant, the death of William Styron brought forth the first glimmer of praise for fiction from the NYT BooK Review’s Michiko Kakutani since February. That’s eight months if you’re keeping score at home. Here’s a short one act play that I’ve written to honor this achievement.

SCENE – Stage lights come up to reveal three children sitting around a suburban kitchen table. The first child is cautiously holding a copy of Dave Eggers new novel, What is the What.
Janet Maslin: I don’t want to review it. (grimacing) You review it.

Passes novel to William Grimes
William Grimes: I don’t want to review it. You review it.

Passes book back to Janet Maslin

Janet Maslin: I know, (she brightens) let’s get Michiko to try it.

William Grimes: (Looking unconvinced) She won’t like. She hates everything.

William Grimes passes the book to Machiko Kakutani. Michiko picks up the book, reads it, and writes a rave review.

Janet Maslin: (looking on in amazement) She likes it! Hey, Michiko!

(Curtain).

I’m not sure if this counts though. What is the What is a fictionalized account of a true story. Kakutani surprisingly seems to miss the point on this. She says, “the book is flawed by an odd decision on Mr. Eggers’s part to fictionalize Mr. Deng’s story — a curious choice, especially in the wake of the uproar over James Frey’s fictionalized memoir earlier this year.”

Huge difference. James Frey sold his story as the truth. Eggers is telling people up front, hey, some of this has been made up for dramatic purposes. He has done a pretty decent job of explaining why he made that decision elsewhere. Anyway, otherwise it is a stellar review. For Dave Eggers no less. Who’d a thunk it.

This week the Guardian’s Digested Read tackles That Extra Half Inch by Victoria Beckham (Married to Beckham Spice).  It begins:

I have no qualifications to write this book; that’s why I’ve got someone else to do it for me. But let me share my insights anyway.

The Digested Read is quickly becoming my favorite weekly feature.  I have no idea what the title has to do with anything.
In other news, an American has won France’s highest literary award, The Goncourt Prize. Jonathan Littell wrote his first novel, the 900+ page Les Bienveillantes, in French as an homage to his favorite authors Stendhal and Flaubert.  The book is  narrated by an SS Officer and was the subject of a huge bidding war by US publishers.  This guy has a better grip on his copy of 501 French Verbs than I ever did.

I have election fatigue so bad I may never wake up.  Seriously.  End already.  There’s a part of me that believes that’s the plan of The Man – to wear us down. Where’s the anger?  Where is this slacker generation’s protest music?  The best I can come up with on short notice (and it is very angry) is Mr. Marshall Mathers song from the 2004 election.

[youtube]8E_lPrlk3t8[/youtube]

If you want to take the high road (isn’t that how we found ourselves where we are?), please read Michael Kinsley’s lengthy political book review and treatise on intellectual dishonesty from Sunday’s NYT Boook Review.