Leon Wieseltier, The New Republic‘s answer to a question no one asked, files a Washington Diarist column this week in which he touches on The New Yorker‘s Barry Blitt-drawn Barack Obama cover as well as buyouts in the newspaper industry. He also has a thing or two to say about the youth. Mostly, Read More
Buzz Bissinger is the author of the Texas high-school football book Friday Night Lights and Prayer for the City, which is about Philadelphia under former Mayor Ed Rendell. Mr. Bissinger also wrote the Vanity Fair article on which the movie Shattered Glass was based. He is 53 years old, with a wide, almost froglike face Read More
An incendiary essay by New Republic literary editor Leon Wieseltier about Martin Amis’ recent essay collection on 9/11 and the evils of Islamism ran on the cover of the New York Times Book Review last weekend. The review was an evisceration, built on Mr. Wieseltier’s contention that Mr. Amis aestheticizes politics and tragedy for his Read More
Hath Not a Jew Ears? New Republic literary editor Leon Wieseltier attempts to answer to a question you’ve probably never asked yourself: Can A Jew Enjoy The Sound Of Church Bells? (Spoiler Alert: yes.)
Cos Célèbre: Ta-Nehisi Coates examines entertainer-turned-activist Bill Cosby’s brand of post-Civil Rights empowerment philosophy in The Atlantic. "From Birmingham Read More
Barry Gewen, one of the editors on the staff of The New York Times Book Review, has written a fierce little post on the NYTBR‘s Paper Cuts blog, in which he calls out the famously severe New Republic literary editor Leon Wieseltier for calling Malcolm Gladwell an "idiot" in a recent column.
"Wieseltier has Read More
Many, many intellectuals are now being called on to perform a backflip on Iraq. Alas, few have attempted it, and few of those have pulled it off with any grace. I mean the mea culpa for supporting the Iraq war. After all, how seriously should any writer be taken who hasn’t come to terms publicly Read More
I caught Ali Abunimah, the Palestinian/American activist and author of a new book calling for a single Arab and Jewish state in Palestine, at Columbia the other night. Abunimah made a few interesting points:
1. Having been to Northern Ireland, Abunimah reports that the two sides hate each other “deeply” but live with each Read More
“I’m struck when I observe the Jewish community in the United States, especially in New York,” said Tony Judt last Saturday, Oct. 7, sitting cross-legged in his Washington Square Park apartment, “that it’s a community which is the most successful, the wealthiest, the most well-integrated, the most influential, the most safe Jewish community in the Read More
“I made a dumb mistake, and I’m very sorry I did it. I took the blogosphere’s bait, and I stooped to the level of these people who were commenting on my pieces, and I shouldn’t have,” Lee Siegel said. “And I’m especially sorry that I embarrassed a magazine that was nourishing me as an intellectual, Read More
Can’t anybody just savor a metaphor anymore? This past weekend, John Leonard wrote a scathing takedown of Dale Peck’s volume of collected criticism, Hatchet Jobs , for The New York Times Book Review . In the piece, Mr. Leonard variously referred to Mr. Peck as a “hot dog,” a “vampire bat” and an “East German Read More
