Note to self: when writing a headline about storing books in ceiling rafters, name drop a relatively obscure J.D. Salinger short story collection.
Dwight Garner over at Paper Cuts finds The Times’s old copy of Group Sex: A Scientist’s Eyewitness Report on the American Way of Swinging by Gilbert D. Bartell, Ph.D.
Like us, Dwight is curious who at the Times would use such a book:
How many Times writers and editors checked out “Group Sex” while working on stories? There’s no way to tell. The back slip has (mercifully) been removed.
“Working on stories”? Come on, Dwight, you know Times reporters were doing their own research with that book.
Dwight Garner, senior editor of the New York Times Book Review, reveals this nugget about his personal life on Paper Cuts:
When my wife and I got married, we combined our book collections and made a deal. It’s the kind of brutal arrangement that pretty much guarantees we’re sticking it out until the end.
Here’s how it works: If she ever leaves me, I get to keep all her books. If I ever leave her, she gets mine.
Loser take all. More things in life ought to work that way.
Does the same rule apply to the kids?
Dwight Garner, senior editor of New York Times Book Review and author of their earnestly titled blog, Paper Cuts, has this to say about This American Life:
Admirers talk about how, blinded by show’s minor-chord epiphanies, they’ve pulled over to the side of the road to listen to a story’s conclusion. Detractors think This American Life is the most pretentious and self-absorbed mewling they’ve ever heard.
I tend toward the latter view; there have been times when I’d have gladly totaled my car just to make This American Life go away.
Try not to alienate your audience, Dwight. Who would read a blog about books but fans of This American Life?
Related: Kasper Hauser’s parody of This American Life is right on point.
