Intern Alexis goes spelunking into the depths of this week's Times Book Review and, in turn, comes up with a big basket of Rachel Donadio. One has to wonder if Donadio has actually taken to washing editor Sam Tanenhaus' dirty bed linens, just to ensure her weekly shout-outs in the Up Front section. Meanwhile, Ralph Nader gives Bruce Springsteen a run for his letter-writing money, forcing Richard Posner to take a time-out in the naughty corner for his news media abortion/essay. All this, plus the frightening thought of The Collected Emails of Dave Eggers, after the jump.

Letters

Almost as exciting as when Bruce Springsteen wrote a letter to the editor a few weeks ago was Ralph Nader joyfully smacking Tanenhaus bum this week. He consumer-advocates all up in the Review, stating that In the Book Review, readers expect books to be reviewed. He recalls reading Richard A. Posner s July 31st essay on news media, which he describes as, an essay that should have been published elsewhere in the Times. In the Book Review section, it seemed like a bait and switch — unbecoming for a federal judge of Posner s prowess.

It's just further proof that the NYTBR has become dumping ground for articles and essays that used to find a home in Arts & Ideas (RIP sigh tear). But don t bite the hand that feeds you, so to speak! The title of the August 7th review of Elin McCoy s biography of wino Robert M. Parker Jr. (The Emperor of Wine), is The Ralph Nader of Wine. (Nader should be grateful - this is the most positive publicity he s gotten since he ruined the Presidential election! Ba-zing!)

Oh, Rachel Donadio

Why don t we just start calling the New York Times Book Review the New York Rachel Donadio Book Review? This is Donadio s second Up Front shout-out in the past two months. What gives? Teachers pet, much? In any case, for the most part, her long-ass essay on email archiving (or lack thereof) is b-to-the-oring, and not to the very interesting. Here s a breakdown: publishing houses are not saving author email correspondences, and most authors except for Salman Rushdie are not either. The New Yorker empties its server every few months, David Remnick thinks this is all a bit silly and just a bunch of book chat and Zadie Smith, curiously enough, has a Yahoo email account!

So, Rachel: We know you were talking to Zadie Smith, and that she s famous, so that s cool, but you don t have to publish everything she says. And we quote: I have a normal Yahoo account that saves e-mails instantly, but not to the hard drive. I ve e-mailed Yahoo and asked how you can save all your own e-mails onto one disk or whatever, but I get no reply. Can you talk more about this, Zadie? Please? No? Good — save it for the Yahoo help desk, woman.

Then there was this nugget of wisdom from uber-book agent, Andrew Wylie: I could certainly see Dave Eggers collected e-mail correspondence appearing in 10 volumes in the course of the next 40 years, and I think it would be absolutely riveting. If this riveting book actually becomes a book sometime in the next 40 years, and it s all your fault, Rachel Donadio, we will never forgive you.

Edmund Wilson: An American Critic
Reviewed by Colm Toibin

Generally speaking, we found Colm Toibin s review of the Lewis M. Dabney s biography of Edmund Wilson to be rather enjoyable. Especially this part: "Do we need to know, for example, that after his return from the Soviet Union, Wilson and a woman named Louise had sex for 36 hours, the ex getting better and better, until he was spanking her with a hairbrush,' which she explained, would always bind us together ? Haha! Yes! Yes we DID need to know that! However, we found the following bit strange: Toibin writes, There is, in much of Wilson's early work, a wonderful chameleon quality. He can become Henry James, take on his style and attitudes with perfect pitch. This is curious, since Toibin s last novel, The Master, is told entirely in Henry James voice, with perfect pitch, as many reviewers have said. So basically, Toibin is comparing himself, consciously or not, to Edmund Wilson. We think someone needs a good hairbrush-spanking.