New York Review

"Ill Fares the Land" is a remarkably compelling book made all the more so by the remarkable circumstances surrounding its composition. Its author, British-born Tony Judt, is our preeminent historian of postwar Europe, a scholar of remarkable breadth and erudition and one of the West's foremost and most outspoken public intellectuals. Educated at Cambridge and at the École Normale Supérieure in Paris and currently university professor and head of the Remarque Institute of European Studies at New York University, Judt is by conviction a man of the left, though a formidable independence of mind seems to have rendered him impervious to orthodoxy.

Higher Gossip John Updike Alfred A. Knopf: 502 pp., $40 Life Sentences: Literary Judgments and Accounts William H. Gass Alfred A. Knopf: 350 pp., $28.95 Partway through "Higher Gossip," the seventh and final collection of reviews and occasional pieces by the late John Updike, I began to understand the problem I've always had with the author's work. It's pleasant enough - congenial, intelligent, fluidly written - but only rarely is it great. As to why this is, "Higher Gossip" offers an unintended answer by revealing not so much the range of Updike's interests as the chatty conventionality of his ideas.

Higher Gossip John Updike Alfred A. Knopf: 502 pp., $40 Life Sentences: Literary Judgments and Accounts William H. Gass Alfred A. Knopf: 350 pp., $28.95 Partway through "Higher Gossip," the seventh and final collection of reviews and occasional pieces by the late John Updike, I began to understand the problem I've always had with the author's work. It's pleasant enough - congenial, intelligent, fluidly written - but only rarely is it great. As to why this is, "Higher Gossip" offers an unintended answer by revealing not so much the range of Updike's interests as the chatty conventionality of his ideas.

Psychiatrists say two recent book reviews by Dr. Marcia Angell, the former editor of the New England Journal of Medicine and a Harvard lecturer, are inaccurate and misinformed. The debate was set off when Angell, whose training is in internal medicine and pathology, wrote two book reviews in the New York Review of Books on June 23 and July 14. She reviewed several books that are critical of various aspects of psychiatric diagnosis and treatment and also evaluated work on the rewriting of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders that is schedule for publication in 2013.

Psychiatrists say two recent book reviews by Dr. Marcia Angell, the former editor of the New England Journal of Medicine and a Harvard lecturer, are inaccurate and misinformed. The debate was set off when Angell, whose training is in internal medicine and pathology, wrote two book reviews in the New York Review of Books on June 23 and July 14. She reviewed several books that are critical of various aspects of psychiatric diagnosis and treatment and also evaluated work on the rewriting of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders that is schedule for publication in 2013.

I have an idea to boost the Book Review's pitiful readership figures. Why not devote the Review's back page to Companionship-ego-sex want ads a la the New York Review of Books? Los Angeles cognoscente can easily outstrip New York's in their narcissism--and we all know the singles/marrieds' scene is desperate here. Why not have a go at this? There may be only five ads to begin with, but this could become such an attraction that you won't even have to hide the Book Review. ANN McNALLEY Anza

While "Unattainable Earth" may not be among the best of Czeslaw Milosz's work, it is taken seriously nevertheless by critics other than your reviewer, Tom Phillips (Book Review, May 25), because of what Milosz has accomplished over a lifetime and not because of any "atmosphere of overindulgence" created by the New York Review of Books. The work of someone of the stature of Milosz, despite its occasional slenderness, could have been made and published in any atmosphere. R. E. NOWICKI Publisher, San Francisco Review of Books

"An unmakeable, even embarrassing last gasp." That's the assessment of Orson Welles' screenplay "The Big Brass Ring" that Steve Hochman grandly attributes to "Welles scholars and Hollywood power brokers alike" ("Down to Brass Tacks," Jan. 24). Here is another opinion, from the best of the many good reviews the screenplay received when it was published in book form: "The screenplay . . . is purest Welles. He is clearly at the top of his glittering form, which was as deeply literary as it was visual."

Danielle Trussoni is the latest author to sidle up to the dessert cart for a slice of the Dan Brown pie. What Brown ("The Da Vinci Code," etc.) has done with demons, Catholic and Masonic secret societies, symbols and long-buried scandals, Trussoni aims to do with the evil spawn of rebel angels who once mated with humans. These hybrid beings are 7 feet tall and lack belly buttons; some have wings. But they manage to live among us undetected, save for a semi-Catholic secret society of "angelologists" who keeps tabs on them.

Nights were the worst. In September 2008, Tony Judt was diagnosed with ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig's disease, a neurodegenerative condition that attacks first the arms and legs, then the breathing and speech of its victims. By December, Judt had lost the use of his hands; in March 2009, he was confined to a wheelchair and by May he needed a mask with tubes pumping air to stimulate his diaphragm to help him breathe. But the excruciating solitude and insomnia made his nights unbearable.

Nights were the worst. In September 2008, Tony Judt was diagnosed with ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig's disease, a neurodegenerative condition that attacks first the arms and legs, then the breathing and speech of its victims. By December, Judt had lost the use of his hands; in March 2009, he was confined to a wheelchair and by May he needed a mask with tubes pumping air to stimulate his diaphragm to help him breathe. But the excruciating solitude and insomnia made his nights unbearable.

"Ill Fares the Land" is a remarkably compelling book made all the more so by the remarkable circumstances surrounding its composition. Its author, British-born Tony Judt, is our preeminent historian of postwar Europe, a scholar of remarkable breadth and erudition and one of the West's foremost and most outspoken public intellectuals. Educated at Cambridge and at the École Normale Supérieure in Paris and currently university professor and head of the Remarque Institute of European Studies at New York University, Judt is by conviction a man of the left, though a formidable independence of mind seems to have rendered him impervious to orthodoxy.

Danielle Trussoni is the latest author to sidle up to the dessert cart for a slice of the Dan Brown pie. What Brown ("The Da Vinci Code," etc.) has done with demons, Catholic and Masonic secret societies, symbols and long-buried scandals, Trussoni aims to do with the evil spawn of rebel angels who once mated with humans. These hybrid beings are 7 feet tall and lack belly buttons; some have wings. But they manage to live among us undetected, save for a semi-Catholic secret society of "angelologists" who keeps tabs on them.

A few months ago, a reader sent me an edition of Anthony Trollope's "The Claverings" printed in the United States in 1866. It weighs a pound and has about 210,000 words and 210 glossy pages, with an eight-point typeface. Even though I always choose Trollope for enjoyment over any other author, I couldn't read it. Maybe I needed to have spent years scouring the Bible to be able to track small print in two columns, or, for that matter, to keep a heavy book from falling into the bathtub. But I have been spoiled by the paperback, one of the great unheralded inventions of the 20th century.

There was probably no worse time and place to be a postmodernist sage than in 1920s Russia. Still, bibliophiles like to believe that genius makes itself known, regardless of social pressures, and in the case of Ukraine-born Sigizmund Krzhizhanovsky, they may have a point -- only it took about six decades for anyone else to catch on. Krzhizhanovsky wrote the seven mad -- albeit, magisterially controlled -- stories of "Memories of the Future" in...

The great thing about the wide-open space of the Web is that it's accepted practice -- encouraged really -- for anyone to walk in many worlds and take on many guises. Rock stars can blog about politics. Politicians can thrill us with lists of their favorite rock songs. And the Huffington Post can create a new book section that both doubts and embraces the value of book reviews. In recent days, founder Arianna Huffington trumpeted a partnership with the New York Review of Books, that redoubt of serious criticism, just about the time the website's new book editor seemed to disdain reviews, which she said "tend to be conversation enders."

In his long and distinguished career, Robert Coles, the Harvard child psychiatrist, has written several well-regarded books and a prolific stream of scholarly papers and articles. This book is a collection of his popular articles--book reviews, memoirs, essays and musings from publications like the New Yorker, the New England Journal of Medicine, the New Republic, Commonweal and the New York Review of Books, among others (some of which are not so easily accessible). Coles is wise, thoughtful and soft-spoken.

The great thing about the wide-open space of the Web is that it's accepted practice -- encouraged really -- for anyone to walk in many worlds and take on many guises. Rock stars can blog about politics. Politicians can thrill us with lists of their favorite rock songs. And the Huffington Post can create a new book section that both doubts and embraces the value of book reviews. In recent days, founder Arianna Huffington trumpeted a partnership with the New York Review of Books, that redoubt of serious criticism, just about the time the website's new book editor seemed to disdain reviews, which she said "tend to be conversation enders."

The question that echoes throughout "Sheppard Lee, Written by Himself" is: Who, or what, is Sheppard Lee? The answer seems clear enough at the start of Robert Montgomery Bird's 1836 novel (just reissued as part of New York Review Books' invaluable classics series). When we first encounter him, Lee is a luckless ne'er-do-well who has squandered his father's estate and has hazy notions of entering politics.

Something there is that doesn't love an e-book. Take Amazon's new Kindle, this season's much-hyped new electronic reading device that allows you to instantly, wirelessly download any of 90,000 titles from the online retailer's database. Despite its $$399 price tag, first-generation clunkiness and mid-'80s design aesthetic, the Kindle actually provides a pretty darn good reading experience. But try telling that to anyone who first read "Treasure Island" at age 11 and could still tell you whether the cover illustration on that copy had Long John Silver in a red pantaloon or a black one. Or to anyone who's ever discovered a first edition among the musky tomes of a used-book store.