Reading About Reading: Big Cat Edition
This week in her always fascinating look at The New York Times Book Review, Intern Alexis responds to the letters, recalls her Parisian girlhood, and gets excited about a Barbara Ehrenreich's son. Oh, and did we mention she wants to eat Christopher Hitchens? Read on...
In this week s peek inside the twisted axons and dendrites of Sam Tanenhaus & co. s brains, the editors explain the new, post-Redesign, text-on-the-cover phenomenon. Frankly, we like the big, large-print-edition-style font, because we re blind. But as for the it s a matter of feel response to the question What, then, goes into the decision to highlight a piece of writing by beginning it on the cover? well, we re not buying that so much. More like the designers are lazy and know that everyone just reads the NYTBR for Laura Miller, anyway, so let s just put her on the cover.
We don t usually like making fun of the lay-folk who write letters to the editor and live for laying the smackdown on the fancy big city editors and writers, but Rik Scarce from Saratoga Springs, N.Y. writes in giving his ten cents on Virginia Postrel s essay, The Book of Jobs, claiming that Internet bloggers, college professors may derive pleasure from their jobs, though more likely it comes from the interactions they have with co-workers rather than from the work itself, and we have to give our two cents back to him. As an Internet blogger of sorts, we have to say, um, co-workers? If by co-workers, Rik, you mean, a king-sized pack of raspberry-flavored Creme Savers, a half-empty bottle of scotch that we stole from our parents house three weeks ago, and this big cat, well, then yes.
French Women Don t Get Fat
By Mireille Guiliano
In her review of Mireille Guiliano s stab at why Americans are fat pigs and French women are all skinny gazelles, Vogue senior writer Julia Reed discusses some core insecurities among American women. She writes, The real milestones for many of us remain our first Chanel suit, our first sip of Petrus or Chateau d Yquiem, our first time at la Grenouille or La Tour d Argent. Yes, I remember getting my first Chanel suit. The day was a brisk one and I had just returned from an afternoon stroll down the Boulevard St. Germain when Claudine, our maid at the time, entered the parlour and told me to hurry up to my room because Mummy had a surprise waiting for me in a box What?!? Perhaps in an attempt to cozy up to us peons, after seriously alienating most of us with all the Chanel and Tour d Argent talk, Reed goes on to admit: I actually found myself resolving to learn to eat with all five senses or at least to try to turn off All My Children during lunch breaks. Ohhh, soap operas - the people s candy - how quaint! Please don t talk down to us, Vogue. We watch Passions and we would never turn it off during lunch.
Pride of Carthage: A Novel of Hannibal
By David Anthony Durham
Reviewed by Ben Ehrenreich
Tucked into the bowls of this week s NYTBR is a review by none other than Ben Ehrenreich, the hunky son of Nickle and Dimed author, Barbara Ehrenreich. He appropriately reviews a novel about Hannibal, as his book The Suitors drops next year, a novel about Penelope's suitors. Remember this name folks, cause the buzz on the street points to a literary wunderkind-in-training. Did we mention that he s hunky? In other famous parents news, Elaine Showalter, the mother of Stella/The State-member Michael Showalter, is quoted in Rachel Donadio s essay, The Old College Try." It s true! It s true! We Google-searched her!
Love, Poverty, and War: Journeys and Essays
By Christopher Hitchens
We liked when Colm Toibin called Hitchens on being an arrogant, culturally-insensitive baby bitch, but what we loved most, though, were the heaving, meaty, bags that Andre Carrilho etched under Hitchens eyes. Mmm we just want to pour some A-1 on those puppies and eat them right up.
