Books

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.…

Would right-wingers like a larger presence in mainstream news and entertainment media, or would they rather grumble about the MSM’s liberal bias while patronizing conservative media outlets? To American Prospect blogger Paul Waldman, it’s clear that the second is correct. Waldman’s peg for his Wednesday post was a National Review piece by editor and publisher Adam Bellow on the need for a…

NPR sells itself as a voice of civility, an oasis away from the haters and the shouters. But many NPR stations run the show “Marketplace” from American Public Media. On Wednesday night, host Kai Ryssdal interviewed author Zac Bissonette, author of the book Good Advice From Bad People. Ryssdal raised eyebrows with this declaration: “Alright, we will start with a guy for whom I personally…

This week's list of New York Times best-selling books proves as  usual that the Times doesn't review conservative best-sellers. The nonfiction list was topped by "Things That Matter," a collection of columns by Charles Krauthammer and then by "Killing Jesus" by Bill O'Reilly and Martin Dugard. The children's middle-grade list is led by Rush Limbaugh's "Rush Revere and the Brave Pilgrims." There…

Pot, kettle: New York Times book critic Michiko Kakutani reviewed Tuesday a new biography by Zev Chafets of Fox News president Roger Ailes under the headline, "A Soft-Focus Look at Fox's Tough-Talking Tough Guy." Kakutani faulted the book for relying on familiar stories and, of course, for Fox News's conservatie viewpoint: "There is little cogent analysis in these pages about how Fox News…

New York Times reporter and Obama biographer Jodi Kantor caught up with Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor's book tour in Chicago for Monday's edition in "Sotomayor, a Star on the Book-Tour Circuit, Sees a New Niche for a Justice." Kantor promoted the liberal justice as a kind of folk hero "dispensing homespun wisdom." At her Wednesday night book talk here, Justice Sonia Sotomayor glided…