The NYT's decision to have someone other than a legal journalist review Stephen Breyer's book was good and correct nytimes.com/2024/03/27/boo…

On Adam Phillips, when to give up (and when not to), and the “simplifying violence” done by “the fascist state of mind.”

nytimes.com/2024/03/20/boo…

I love reading Scialabba, and I loved reading this essay on him and his critical approach.
commonwealmagazine.org/george-scialab…

“Violence, whether in word or in deed, overwhelms. It crushes ambivalence — after all, that’s exactly what violence is supposed to do.”—Jennifer Szalai⁩ nytimes.com/2024/01/21/boo…

Wrote about a new biography of Frantz Fanon, the power and peril of ‘rhetorical extremity,’ and how even his own ambivalence toward violence was inevitably overshadowed by his exaltation of it.

'Trofimov describes a bustling promenade in one paragraph and bodies being pulled out of the rubble in the next': ⁦Jennifer Szalai⁩ reviews the haunting, deeply reported new book on the Ukraine war, 'Our Enemies Will Vanish,' by ⁦Yaroslav Trofimov⁩ nytimes.com/2024/01/10/boo…

“Musk has turned X into an experiment in whether ‘the best source of truth’ means anything without a foundation of trust to support it.” Jennifer Szalai on a spate of new books about misinformation and what the proposed solutions tend to overlook. nyti.ms/3vwflRc

Incredible. Koons and his team insist on reviewing an essay on him before it runs, the Brooklyn Rail allows it, Koons’s studio demands they kill it, saying it defames him (it’s in fact positive!), and the editors roll over. By Colin Moynihan
nytimes.com/2023/12/17/art…

Reporting on evangelicalism’s rightward turn, Tim Alberta meets “Americans who piously declare their fealty to Jesus” while acting “as though their highest calling is to own the libs.” Jennifer Szalai reviews “The Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory.” nyti.ms/46OnuOc

Writing about “art monsters” felt “risky,” says Lauren Elkin — a nimble and attentive critic who nevertheless seems reluctant in her fascinating and frustrating new book to go far enough.
nytimes.com/2023/11/29/boo…

Calling Lynne Truss
abcnews.go.com/US/pence-told-…

Months and months of reading and nominating and debating and reading some more and then voting. The Book Review’s 10 Best Books of 2023 (non paywall gift link): nytimes.com/2023/11/28/boo…

Javier Milei, the far-right economist who just won Argentina’s election, named one of his five cloned mastiffs after Milton Friedman.

Milton Friedman liked to say there's no such thing as a free lunch, but I reviewed a big new biography of him, and there's such a thing as a free link:

nytimes.com/2023/11/15/boo…