Speaking of Wow! Today's WSJ "Review" Section Is Incredible

Print edition, of course.

I quit subscribing to print media some years ago. When I went cold turkey, I was subscribing to the Wall Street Journal, Forbes, The Atlantic (Monthly?), and The New Yorker, plus others I've long forgotten. I think I maxed out at seven periodicals. This does not include a multitude of professional journals and one investment news letter.

Forbes was one of the best for business writing. I think I lost interest when the founder died, his son took over, and ran for president. I no longer miss it, although I do miss some of the columnists.

For literature, The New Yorker was THE best. I still remember some articles that I read thirty years ago. One I remember vividly:

Calvin Tomkins, Profiles, “NEW PARADIGMS,” The New Yorker, January 5, 1976, p. 30. 

To see the article now, I need a subscription. Too bad. Wow, that was back in 1976 -- 36 years ago: about as long as some Williston Basin oil wells have been producing. (All Bakken All The Time.)

I always looked forward to articles by Woody Allen, but they generally seemed to come up short.

I don't what it was that caused me to lose interest in The Atlantic.

About four years ago, maybe longer, I tried the WSJ again, and have subscribed off and on since then. I look forward to it every day (except Sunday, of course). Occasionally there are days it lets me down -- nothing of interest -- but most days its excellent, and some days it is outstanding. Today was an "outstanding day."

The review section in today's WSJ is absolutely chock full of book reviews:

• a book on atheism, which appears to be a trend this year (noted by the WSJ, not me): Religion for Atheists: A Non-Believer's Guide to the Uses of Religion, Alain de Botton
• a book about the resurgence of Al Qaeda, all but defeated by 2008: The Endgame, Michael R. Gordon and Bernard E. Trainor
• a book about Willy Sutton: Sutton, JR Moehringer; with a huge photograph -- a very dapper bank robber
• a new biography of General US Grant: The Man Who Saved the Union, HW Brands; it is said that the greatest autobiography ever written -- all autobiographies, not just military men -- was Grant's; I've read it twice; it is outstanding
• a biography of Hetty Green: The Richest Woman in America, Janet Wallach
• a new novel by Michael Kimball, Big Ray -- "a story of a father so crude, cruel, perverse, tawdry and mean that he makes Pap Finn look like Atticus Finch"
• a couple of reviews on the nuclear family in meltdown; review by Sam Sacks and then this little jewel buried in one of reviews:
• "... is not abetted by suburban affluence but by a discriminatory justice system. In 1988, on an Ojibwe reservation in North Dakota -- the setting of most of Ms Erdrich's previous novels, including...."
• an autobiography, Waging Heavy Peace, Neil Young (of Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young)
• science of the body: The Spark of Life, Frances Ashcroft
• AIDS: The Scientists, Marco Roth
• five personal recommendations from John Kelly, author (more to follow)

More to follow. [Update: I never did get back to this. Sorry.]