Jason Clarke

The night before my book came out, Glenn Reynolds linked to it and drove its Amazon rank from around 12,000 down the mid-hundreds. Two days later, his links again propelled the book, this time all the way to #4.

Of course, I can’t return the favor, but the least I can do is link to Reynolds’ new book, An Army of Davids, and encourage you to pre-order it. I haven’t read it yet, but if you’re a fan of Reynolds’ blog- or blogging in general, or free markets, or people-powered media, progress, etc- you’re guaranteed to like Army of Davids.

A few books I’ve read in the past couple weeks:

Son of Fletch, Gregory McDonald - Fletch returns, this time to help his newly discovered son. Pretty good stuff. B-

Fletch Reflected, Gregory McDonald - Fletch is back again, or actually, Fletch’s son Jack Faoni is, but it’s hard to tell the difference in this one. The young prodigy is quite similar to his Dad. That’s good though- this book is nearly vintage Fletch. B+

The DaVinci Code, Dan Brown - This book has taken some serious shots, in part because it’s so popular. Yes, some of the writing is a bit cheesy, and it was almost certainly written as a movie (the author even takes the lame shortcut of comparing his hero to “Harrison Ford in tweed.”) For those reasons and more, I avoided this thing for as long as I possibly could. Forget all that though- this book is a riveting, fascinating read that will amount to more history, philosophy, and re-examination than most people are treated to in a year. A

Angels & Demons, Dan Brown - Reading this after DaVinci, it feels like a mediocre warm-up to what Brown delivered with DaVinci. C-

To be honest, I think it’s getting past time for somebody to infuse some much-needed skepticism into Malcolm Gladwell’s writing.

As much as I love and respect Gladwell’s writing- his book, The Tipping Point, is one of my all-time favorites- he’s coasted far too long on an overwhelmingly unchecked public image. Call me cynical, but I believe that few, if any, public figures should enjoy a 100% approval rating.

It’s curious, then, that along comes Mickey Kaus to inject a healthy arched eyebrow towards Gladwell’s latest New Yorker article, subtitled The bad idea behind our failed health-care system.

Kaus doesn’t trash Gladwell- he just raises some interesting arguments that suggest Gladwell’s tendency to sometimes avoid mentioning counter-arguments hinders his points. Kaus’ sharpest criticsm:

Like many New Yorker policy articles, Gladwell’s reads like a lecture to an isolated, ill-informed and somewhat gullible group of highly literate children. They are cheap dates. They won’t think of the obvious objections. They won’t demand that you “play Notre Dame,” as my boss Charles Peters used to say, and take on the best arguments for the other side. They just need to be given a bit of intellectual entertainment and pointed off in a comforting anti-Bush direction.

Interestingly, Gladwell’s healthcare article isn’t getting flack from Kaus only- here’s the IceRocket blog search results for the article’s URL.

Thanks to my affiliation with the Media Bloggers Association (disclosure: I am a board member and web developer) and the organization’s book review copy distribution program, I came home the other day to find a free copy of Ben Hammersley’s new book, Developing Feeds with RSS and Atom, waiting for me.

I’ve only glanced at the book, but I hope to start reading it sooner than later. More on it when I get there. In the meantime, thanks to O’Reilly publishing for the book, and for joining MBA’s review copy program.

I am reading On Writing.

“My Life” has slipped from the top spot on Amazon.com for the first time in weeks. And Drudge is reporting that the book - which will presumably claim the top spot at the NY Times Bestseller list again the week - moved around 85,000 this week, down from over 100,000 last.

After months of waiting, I’m finally able to announce that I’ve co-written a book:

Michael Moore Is A Big Fat Stupid White Man

Pre-order it, read all about it, and keep up to date with the Book Blog, all over at moorelies.com/book.

Thanks to all whose support made the book possible- Judith Regan, Bridie, Jim, Ellen, everbody else at ReganBooks, Jim & Lee at Moorewatch.com, Mike Wilson, and of course the family.

Historian David Halberstam was on The Daily Show Thursday talking about his new book, The Teammates.

The book is about Red Sox legends Dom Dimaggio (yes he is) and Johnnie Pesky driving from Boston down to Florida for one last visit with Ted Williams, who has since passed.

Williams was the greatest hitter that ever lived, and Dimaggio and Pesky were his teammates during a time when men like Williams left the game to serve during wartime, and those who stayed behind stayed with the same team, often throughout an entire career.

Dimaggio and Pesky are two peas, both small, wiry men who made great players with their heart and attitude. Pesky, at 83 years old, is still employed by the Sox in this, his 57th year in pro ball.

It sounds almost too good to be non-fiction, but it is…these are the stories that make New England the most true, and best, part of this country.