Sense and Nonsense

"Rules of Civility," by Amor Towles

Ah, my summer reading ended with a bang.  Here's a new book that I'd gladly put up with the best books I read this year: Rules of Civility, by Amor Towles.

This debut novel captures life in New York City in the late 1930s.  Everything is right on the mark -- perfect settings, witty repartee, sharp lingo.  

Here's Amazon's commentary as it put this book among its best for August, 2011: "Set during the hazy, enchanting, and martini-filled world of New York City circa 1938, Rules of Civility follows three friends--Katey, Eve, and Tinker--from their chance meeting at a jazz club on New Year's Eve through a year of enlightening and occasionally tragic adventures. Tinker orbits in the world of the wealthy; Katey and Eve stretch their few dollars out each evening on the town. While all three are complex characters, Katey is the story's shining star. She is a fully realized heroine, unique in her strong sense of self amidst her life's continual fluctuations. Towles' writing also paints an inviting picture of New York City, without forgetting its sharp edges. Reminiscent of Fitzgerald, Rules of Civility is full of delicious sentences you can sit back and savor (most appropriately with a martini or two)."    ★★★★★

Books, Books, Books!

It's been three weeks since I've posted about any books.  Big mistake.  Now, there are too many books to report on.  So, no reports.  Just a list.  Make of it what you will.

 

Bed, by David Whitehouse.   A humorous, dark novel about a morbidly obese young man, so fat a crane is needed to lift him from his bed.   ★★★☆☆

Easily Amused, by Karen McQuestion.  Poorly written fluff; light as a feather.  Skip.   ★☆☆☆☆

The Girl with the Sturgeon Tatoo, by Lars Arffssen.  A clever parody of the Stig Larssen trilogy. Funny for a while, but the joke fades quickly.    ★★☆☆☆

Coming Up for Air, by Patti Callahan Henry.  A woman solves a mystery about her recently deceased mother, and in the process finds her own heart. ★★★☆☆

Q: A Novel, by Evan Mandery.  A man encounters himself, time-traveling from the future.  The future self comes with warnings.  A swell idea, poorly executed.  ★☆☆☆☆

Iron House, by John Hart.  A bloody thriller by a masterful writer.  A man sets out to find his brother, from whom he was a separated as a boy when both lived in an orphanage.  Wow.  ★★★★★

Solar, by Ian McEwan.  A novel about a Nobel Prize-winning scientist whose career and private life are a mess.  It's not worth going into more detail than that because the book, too, is a total mess -- a surprisingly poor piece of work by the estimable British author.  ★☆☆☆☆

Close Your Eyes, by Amanda Eyre Ward.  A woman confronts the truth about the murder of her mother years earlier, supposedly at the hands of her father.  ★★★☆☆

The Violets of March, by Sarah Jio.  A divorcee visiting her aunt on Bainbridge Island, Washington, finds a diary dating to 1943 that reveals potentially life-changing secrets.  ★★★★☆

Safe Haven, by Nicholas Sparks.  A mysterious young woman appears in a small North Carolina town and gradually gets drawn into a relationship with a widowed store owner and his two young children.  It turns out that her life is in danger from a figure in her past.  ★★★★☆

House of Holes, by Nicholson Baker. Funny, fanciful porn.  A wild literary ride into a land of erotic fantasies.  Totally strange.  See the New York TImes review.  ★★☆☆☆

Cowardice in the White House

Yesterday, the White House announced that it had ordered the Environmental Protection Agency to abandon a proposed rule that would have significantly reduced emissions of smog-causing chemicals.  See here. The story here is that President Obama once again caved in to Republicans and the business community, who together were crying about having to restrict pollution to protect public health.  Why would Obama give in to them?  They won't give him any credit for doing so, and he simply alienates environmentalists and liberals who helped put him in office.  Why the cowardice?  Why the constant capitulation?  What happened to this presidency? 

What a gross disappointment. 

Scourge of the Deanlets

This morning's Wall Street Journal carries a review of a new book about the problem of administrative bloat in American colleges and universities. The author of The Fall of the Faculty is Benjamin Ginsberg, a distinguished political scientist at Johns Hopkins University.  

From the review:

In his lacerating "The Fall of the Faculty," Mr. Ginsberg argues that universities have degenerated into poorly managed pseudo-corporations controlled by bureaucrats so far removed from research and teaching that they have barely any idea what these activities involve. He attacks virtually everyone—from overpaid presidents and provosts down through development officers, communications specialists and human-resource staffers—but he reserves his most bitter scorn for the midlevel "associate deans" and "assistant deans" who often have the most direct control over the faculty. Mr. Ginsberg refers to them as "deanlets," but at my institution they are often called "ass. deans."

From 1975 to 2005, the costs of attending an American university tripled. During that period, faculty-to-student ratios stayed relatively constant, but administrator-to-student ratios ballooned. The number of administrators increased by 85%, and the number of staffers rose by 240%. Administrative salaries shot up as well. Today, 81 university presidents are paid more than half a million dollars a year, and 12 earn more than a million.

Ginsberg has put his finger on a serious problem in American colleges and universities. 

Mea Culpa

Be sure to see Paul Rudnick's highly entertaining imagining of yet another public "apology" by a politician, news of whose indiscretions has gone viral.  Here's the first paragraph of Rudnick's "Shouts and Murmurs" piece in this week's New Yorker magazine.  Be sure to read it all here. 

As the senior alderman of the East Chemply, Pennsylvania, Town Board of Overseers, I, Walter K. Heblinger, would like to apologize to my constituents, and most especially to my family and my beloved wife, Kirsten, for sexting a nude photograph of myself to various citizens, and I would particularly like to apologize for circling my genitals, in the photograph, with red lipstick and adding vibrating exclamation points, thunderbolts, and the word “Yowza!” I would also like to apologize to my mother, Sylvia Heblinger, of Tassament, New Hampshire, for allowing her full-length oil portrait to appear directly over my nude left shoulder, and for permitting an unknown hacker to Photo-shop horns onto her forehead, along with a dialogue balloon reading, “Give it to me now."

Read it all here.

Obviously

Brian McFadden's comic "The Strip" from last Sunday's New York Times:

(click cartoon to expand)