Books

The New York Times Sunday Book Review featured former book editor Sam Tanenhaus talking about several news political tomes under the rubric “Why Populism Now?” And when we say “talking about,” we mean using the books as a pretext to slime Republicans as demographically doomed, out-of-touch racists. Also: Libertarians give you cancer.

Every year the New York Times tries to ruin the summer movie season with the pair of fun-deprived, politically correct movie critics Manohla Dargis and A.O. Scott, who solemnly count up and analyze female characters on screen before declaring the portrayals sexist and the numbers insufficient. The bean-counting joylessness has expanded to another artistic field, with theatre critics Laura Collins…

No one can imagine that the terms "Islam" and "filthy religion" would be associated with each other in the pages of The New York Times. But in the Sunday Book Review, an article on Tom Bissell's history of the apostles of Jesus Christ began with this stunning turn from poet Christian Wiman: "Nietzsche believed that if only a Dostoyevsky had been among the apostles who followed Jesus, someone who…

Call it Harry Potter & the Goblet of Grievance.  J.K. Rowling has run afoul of the Indian indignation industry. According to Huffington Post, the author is in heap-big trouble for not being sufficiently sensitive to the diversity within the “Native American wizarding community.” 

The New York Times often uses its book review to make liberal political statements under the cover of criticism, whether by praising books by liberals that bash conservatives, or eviscerating books by conservatives that attack the left. Sunday brought the first kind, summed up by this online teaser: "Dark Money argues that the Koch brothers and a small number of allied plutocrats have essentially…

Primates of Park Avenue is a new memoir by Wednesday Martin that purports to examine and explain the preposterously well-off women of the Upper East Side of Manhattan, much like Jane Goodall studied chimpanzees. Martin's prominent pre-publication essay in the New York Times mocked those "poor little rich women" for betraying feminism by being "dependent and comparatively disempowered." Times…

In case the adulatory media coverage of Hillary Clinton isn’t enough, there are the adoring Hillary Clinton children’s books. In August, Simon and Schuster will release Hillary Rodham Clinton: Dreams Taking Flight, a picture book for grade-schoolers. The book is written by Kathleen Krull and is the story of Hillary Clinton’s childhood, her dreams of becoming an astronaut, her education, her…

Janet Maslin has been reviewing movies and books for The New York Times for several decades, and up until now she has faithfully towed the newspaper's line on abortion. Then she slipped. In a book review about a Chinese abortionist, she noted that once the "fetus" was born, "she has no right to take its life anymore."

Ayman Mohyeldin has suggested that Chris Kyle, the real "American Sniper," was a "racist" whose military missions were nothing less than "killing sprees."  With opinions like that, you might imagine Mohyeldin to be some unhinged bloviator from the bowels of the anti-American far left. Or, an NBC foreign correspondent [who formerly worked for Al Jazeera] who regularly reports on events in the…

Lena Dunham is blissfully untroubled by self-awareness. It’s a quality that might be endearing in someone less repulsive. But in a recent interview with Grantland’s Bill Simmons it comes off as the obnoxiousness of a spoiled brat. Take, for instance, when the 28-year-old, who’s currently flogging her memoir (even Obama had the decency to wait until his early 30s), and much of who’s work in “…

It’s easily guessed that no one at the New York Times would welcome a book titled “The Assassination of Barack Obama.” But the Times is in love with a book titled “The Assassination of Margaret Thatcher.” This book of short stories by British author Hilary Mantel graced the cover of Sunday’s book review, but mysteriously, that review by Terry Castle didn’t discuss the short story on killing…

Paul Bedard of the Washington Examiner has been dogging the compilers of the formerly prestigious New York Times best-seller list for trying to deny best-seller status to conservative authors. First it was Dinesh D’Souza’s book America. Now it’s David Limbaugh’s latest book Jesus on Trial. He reports the Times crew has “banished conservative legal author David Limbaugh’s latest, Jesus on Trial,…

Try this quiz on your conservative friends. Which so-called Republican offered a gooey blurb on the cover of the biography of liberal pro-abortion Texas gubernatorial candidate Wendy Davis? A certain morning host on MSNBC thinks she has an "inspirational" story to tell.

With his approval numbers sinking to 39 percent a week ago, according to the Gallup tracking poll, President Obama isn't alone in having a bad summer. So isHollywood. Entertainment Weekly calls gross receipts for what should have been a blockbuster July 4-6 weekend "downright terrifying." Writes EW, "Not only were grosses down 45 percent from last year's holiday, according to Boxofficemojo.…