Forget Wiseltier’s bombast. Mark’s got a sizable and thoughtful review up (to the point where he’s blown his limit by 1,500 words).

Melville House has unleashed a new series of politically themed books: Irreparable Harm by Renata Adler, The Road to Illegitimacy by Mark Danner, and The Big Chill, a piece of journalism on the Bush inaugural protest penned by Uncle Moby himself, Dennis Loy Johnson. The books are small, attractive, and reasonably priced at $8.95/piece. As to their content, my hope is to get around to covering these sometime in the next few months.

Guardian: “Naked women, cars and sports help doubles sales of mens mags.”

Really? Who knew?

Maud has the scoop on the Crouch-Peck affair from Crouch’s lunch companion, ZZ Packer. Packer’s story closely matches Yablonsky’s. Even if Crouch is genuinely sorry, it still doesn’t excuse his boorish behavior, which is inexcusable in any context, much less the fact that an apology to Peck is long outstanding.

The more I hear about this, the more this whole thing reminds me of the thrown drink episode in John O’Hara’s Appointment in Samarra.