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May 23, 2012 06:50 AM
Nonfiction’s ‘meta’ moment
Reviewing an anthology of “writings about the writings”
Metawritings: Toward a Theory of Nonfiction | Edited by Jill Talbot | University Of Iowa Press | 242 pages, $39.95
The word “meta” has become an inescapable part of the pop culture zeitgeist. In early May, the Boston Globe published a column by Ben Zimmer about the word’s seeming omnipresence. Zimmer also appeared on NPR to...
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May 14, 2012 03:00 PM
What it takes to win the White House
A review of Samuel L. Popkin’s The Candidate
The Candidate: What It Takes to Win—And Hold—The White House | By Samuel L. Popkin | Oxford University Press | 350 pages, $27.95
Academic political science and Washington policymaking once had a close relationship: during the Franklin Roosevelt and Kennedy administrations, for example. No longer. As Karl Rove writes as a blurb on this book, most contemporary political science...
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April 19, 2012 02:14 PM
The Authentic Mexican Cookoff
Gustavo Arellano, Rick Bayless, and the media’s quest for purity in ethnic cuisine
Taco USA: How Mexican Food Conquered America | By Gustavo Arellano | Scribner | 320 pages, $25.00
Recently popularized as a buzzword for genuineness, “authenticity” has a much longer history as a term used to commodify the “ethnic” and “exotic.” The use of the word is often imprecise, but usually has something to do with marketing a product...
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April 11, 2012 02:24 PM
Mike Wallace, Reluctant Newsman
A new biography of the late "60 Minutes" reporter reveals how he changed broadcasting while besting inner demons
Screenwriter and director Peter Rader’s first book, "Mike Wallace: A Life" was already slated for release on April 13 when Wallace died last weekend at age 93. Rader spoke to CJR about Wallace’s insecurities, the origins of his famed interview techniques, and the tragedy that spurred his journalism career. Rader’s answers have been condensed and edited.
Why did you...
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April 11, 2012 12:21 PM
Farm to Table
Tracie McMillan reports on the American way of eating
The American Way of Eating: Undercover at Walmart, Applebee’s, Farm Fields and the Dinner Table | By Tracie McMillan | Scribner | 336 pages, $25.00
Irritating. That’s the word that comes to mind when reflecting on Tracie McMillan’s The American Way of Eating: Undercover at Walmart, Applebee’s, Farm Fields and the Dinner Table.
Irritating because McMillan goes undercover in order...
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March 29, 2012 11:52 AM
Taking Tea with Ayn Rand
Gary Weiss explores Objectivism’s influence on contemporary politics
Ayn Rand Nation: The Hidden Struggle for America’s Soul | By Gary Weiss | St Martin’s Press | 304 pages, $24.99
Ayn Rand, the GOP’s crotchety, misanthropic little immigrant grandmother, is hot again. Her books are selling well; her works are animating the ideas of certain Republican congressmen. Even Brad Pitt and Oliver Stone said they were interested in making...
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March 7, 2012 03:29 PM
How Vladimir Putin Came to Power
Masha Gessen takes a hard look at the Russian president
The Man Without A Face: The Unlikely Rise of Vladimir Putin | by Masha Gessen | Riverhead | 304 pages, $27.95
In June 2005 Vladimir Putin hosted a group of American businessmen in St. Petersburg. He was attracted by a 124-diamond Super Bowl ring belonging to New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft and asked to try it on. “I could...
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February 29, 2012 01:46 PM
Revisiting Henry Luce’s “American Century”
Andrew Bacevich and others examine the influential essay
The Short American Century: A Postmortem | Edited by Andrew J. Bacevich | Harvard University Press | 296 pages, $25.95
In 1904, Canadian prime minister
Continue readingWilfredWilfrid Laurier declared that “The 20th Century Will Be the Century of Canada.”* In January 1940, a writer in Japan asserted that the century needed to be characterized by Japanese dominance. Whatever the defects... -
February 8, 2012 03:14 PM
Remembering the Golden Age of Book Publishing
A review of Richard Seaver’s The Tender Hour of Twilight
The Tender Hour of Twilight | By Richard Seaver | Farrar, Straus, and Giroux | 480 pages, $35.00
An engaging memoir about the history of the publishing industry sounds about as plausible as a successful magazine about plumbing; people normally just want to read the books that get published, not the vulgar details of how these books made their way...
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February 2, 2012 03:48 PM
The Literary Roots of the Gay Revolution
Reviewing Christopher Bram’s Eminent Outlaws: The Gay Writers Who Changed America
Eminent Outlaws: The Gay Writers Who Changed America | By Christopher Bram | Twelve Books | 371 pages, $27.99
In April of 2011, the pollster Nate Silver of The New York Times observed that four polls in eight months found majority support in the United States for same-sex marriage. Prior to 2010, Silver wrote, just one survey had...
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December 7, 2011 11:48 AM
Hell Yes to Hell No
New book flags ways US targets dissent
Hell No: Your Right to Dissent in 21st-Century America | By Michael Ratner & Margaret Ratner Kunstler | The New Press | 176 pages, $17.95
A number of twentieth-century legal decisions helped establish the US as having one of the freest press systems on earth. In 1925, the US Supreme Court ruled that the First Amendment protects citizens not only...
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November 29, 2011 01:17 PM
Q&A: News for All the People Co-Author Juan González
The Daily News columnist talks about race and the media
Juan González is a staff columnist for New York’s Daily News, a two-time winner of the George Polk Award for commentary, co-host of Democracy Now!, and former president of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists, where he was inducted into its Hall of Fame. With Joseph Torres, he is the co-author of News for All the People: The Epic Story...
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November 3, 2011 01:13 PM
A Cook’s Tour with Molly Ivins
A recipe-laden memoir of the columnist’s life and times
Stirring It Up with Molly Ivins: A Memoir with Recipes | By Ellen Sweets | University of Texas Press | 288 pages, $29.95
Molly Ivins was many things; columnist, civil libertarian, “professional Texan.” But she also had a reputation as a fabulous cook and legendary hostess. It’s this side of the writer that friend and fellow foodie Ellen Sweets attempts...
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October 26, 2011 02:25 PM
Notes from Underground
The posthumous memoir of an alternative press pioneer
My Odyssey through the Underground Press | By Michael Kindman | Michigan State University Press | 256 pages, $39.95
We’ve come to expect certain elements from memoirs of 1960s counterculture: weed, LSD, sexual experimentation, communes, Beatles references, and so on and so forth. Michael “Mica” Kindman’s autobiography My Odyssey Through the Underground Press delivers on all of it, but with...
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Desks
The Audit Business
- Sorkin’s Glass-Steagall straw man Of course its repeal contributed, directly and indirectly, to the financial crisis
- Audit notes: Buffett on newspapers, Times-Picayune, SEC lets Lehman go A vow to invest in newspapers and protect them from interference
The Observatory Science
- Reparative journalism Reporter sinks a controversial paper on “ex-gay” therapy
- The western frontier KQED Quest, Pacific Standard keep their eyes on the other coast
Campaign Desk Politics & Policy
- Herald’s Caputo dives deep on diverging polls Do other news organizations undermine their credibility when they don’t do the same?
- Many stations don’t factcheck super PAC ads: survey Conference highlights difference in attitudes between industry, watchdog groups
Behind the News The Media
Blog
The Kicker last updated: Fri 11:09 AM
- David Simon, creator of The Wire and Treme, on the Times-Picayune cuts
- The Times-Picayune cuts staff and print runs
- Broadcasters sue to keep political ad buy data offline
- The Pulitzer Prize luncheon, storified
- A game of telephone fools the Times
