A Double Welcome
Two important new web ventures launch today:
New Republic's new online literary section, The Book, edited by Leon Wieseltier and Isaac Chotiner, will bring that magazine's outstanding literary section into the online age. What I most appreciate is the serious (and sadly rare!) commitment to truth-telling in the core question for any literary journalism: Should I read the book or not? See for example here. There's a new book about Joan of Arc published by Yale University Press. That promises well - or does it? The fine historian Daniel Bell offers up a fast-paced analysis-explication culminating in advice that would do Consumer Reports proud:
Readers looking for a lucid, reliable narrative of Joan’s life will do very well with this book. But readers hoping to understand Joan’s historical significance will need to wait for a different sort of book, one that does not hesitate to confront the past in all its utter strangeness.
Exactly what the doctor ordered.
Welcome too to Tucker Carlson's new Daily Caller. For years, Tucker has eloquently championed the need for conservatives to report as well as opine. He's right - and now he and partner Neil Patel are putting those words into effect. Today's launch issue features fascinating gossip on the third White House gatecrasher by Tucker himself and useful political intelligence like this on Harold Ford.
Former Tennessee Rep. Harold Ford Jr. may work for Merrill Lynch on Wall Street and be a MSNBC commentator, but that doesn’t mean Democrats in New York know him.
Steven Greenberg, pollster at Siena College in New York, said 74 percent of registered voters in New York state don’t know or have an opinion on Ford, according to a December poll —
Congratulations and good luck to Wieseltier & Chotiner and Carlson & Patel!