Rumsfeld rules: Known and Unknown
I haven’t finished reading the book, so this is not a proper review, as such. But, based on leafing through this 815 page tome, and having now begun reading it properly from the beginning, it’s safe to say a few things about it right off the bat. It is a monumental work, quite unlike your average book from a political figure, memoir or otherwise.
I expect it will be characterized in the near term by critics based largely on political bias: Rumsfeld’s many enemies, both on the left and right, will give it short shrift. His friends — a subset of the political right in America — will laud it. [Read more →]
(Knopf, 224 pages)
I like James Ellroy. My favorite book of his — and I think his greatest — is 
which is a take like no other on American history from 1958 to the end of 1963. Unlike the JFK conspiracy tracts and movies which beg you to accept their veracity but can’t escape their basis in puerile phantasm, American Tabloid — while not pretending to be anything other than complete fiction — can leave a reader wondering how in hell it could not be the truth. It’s so real, so perfect, so true to human nature. Dirtier than any conspiracy theory, messier and far more believable than any politicized take could be. As a literary achievement, it’s hard to argue that it is not Ellroy’s finest hour; all the darkness, madness and obsession is kept just enough in rein with a narrative that burns high-octane all the way yet somehow keeps driving within the lines of a crazy whiplash highway. 
A few years ago, at the age of eighty, Samuel Menashe became the first recipient of the “Neglected Masters Award” from 
