Review this
: David Hajdu writes a review of Art Spiegelman’s In the Shadow of No Towers that pretty much goes nowhere, except for this shocking comparison:
In content and theme, ”Maus” and ”In the Shadow of No Towers” share some ground. Each of the books deals with a relatively ordinary man, a Spiegelman of one time and place, confronting mass murder (on vastly different scale and a wholly distinct nature, of course) and an arrogant, power-hungry regime (again, on a far different level).
So here we have The New York Times drawing parallels between Hitler’s regime and Bush’s.
That’s shocking. I hope it’s just shockingly sloppy. But I wonder.
(I review this unbook here.)
: More fun from the NY Times book review:
In a negative review of pompous Princetonian Cornel West’s Democracy Matters, Caleb Crain writes this:
Then there are West’s eccentricities of tone. For the ”soul murder” of American youth, West blames cocaine, Ecstasy, oral sex and –Weblogs. He writes, somewhat cryptically, that ”Since 9/11 we have experienced the niggerization of America.”
Weblogs are murdering the soul of American youth. Wow. It that because we are addictive or just because we like puncturing that self-important bag of tepid wind, West?
Then again, we could use this as our new marketing slogan: Weblogs: as much fun as cocaine, Ecstasy, and oral sex!
: One more bit of NYT book review fun: Ana Marie Cox, the Wonkette, reviews the new chick-lit novel by Al Gore’s daughter, Kristen Gore. She didn’t like it.
