the Scott Stein

National Review has published my new story, "The Big Switch." It's a simple tale of how linguislation turned America downside-up and saved us all.

I didn't do as good a job tracking the books I read this year as I did last year, but I think the below covers it. I hope your 2008 in books was a good one. This list is cross-posted at When Falls the Coliseum, where you can comment and discuss the books if you'd like.

1. The Ladies of Grace Adieu, stories by Susanna Clarke

2. I, The Jury, a novel by Mickey Spillane

3. Freakonomics, by Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner

4. Boomsday, a novel by Christopher Buckley

5. The Black Swan, by Nassim Nicholas Taleb

6. The Kite Runner, a novel by Khaled Hosseini

7. The Rape of Nanking, by Iris Chang

8. The Thirteenth Tale, a novel by Diane Setterfield

9. The Godwulf Manuscript, a novel by Robert B. Parker

10. How the Mind Works, by Steven Pinker

11. The Tyranny of Good Intentions, by Paul Craig Roberts and Lawrence M. Stratton

12. Everything Bad is Good for You, by Steven Johnson

13. The Big Sleep, by Raymond Chandler

14. Enter Jeeves: 15 Early Stories, by P.G. Wodehouse

15. Gutenberg: How One Man Remade the World with Words, by John Man

16. Hyperspace, by Michio Kaku

17. The Time Machine, a novel by H.G. Wells

18. Consider the Lobster, by David Foster Wallace

19. V for Vendetta, by Alan Moore

20. Freedom Evolves, by Daniel C. Dennett

21. The Misanthrope, by Moliere

22. The Bourne Identity, by Robert Ludlum

Jacob Sullum of Reason magazine has blogged about the American Spectator article about Mean Martin Manning. I'm famous again.

Mean Martin Manning was reviewed by the American Spectator on July 28, 2008. Read the full review.

I am pleased to announce the rebirth of my online magazine, When Falls the Coliseum: a journal of American culture (or lack thereof) .

I ran this online publication from 1999 to about 2003. You can read the full history and a welcome statement. We have a few really good writers already signed up and more will be joining us soon. So please take a look and subscribe. My first post is already up on WFTC: It goes without saying.

This site, the Scott Stein, will continue to exist as a personal blog. I will post here whatever is not quite right for When Falls the Coliseum. Thanks for your continued support and for reading.

Painted Bride Quarterly will be exploring temptation. If it sounds like an intriguing evening, come on out. As if the eclectic mix of panelists and setting weren't quite enough to entice you... I'll be lurking in the background and eating cake. The announcement from PBQ:

Painted Bride Quarterly invites you to explore Temptation at the Unitarian Church, 2125 Chestnut St., Phila., at 7:00 p.m. Thursday, May 29, 2008. Panelists for the discussion include: executive chef Robert Bennett, anti-violence activist Shawn "Frogg" Banks, Christian campus minister Timothy Emmett-Rardin, and burlesque performer Lulu Lollipop. Following the panel, join us for a reception featuring a talented jazz band. Following the reception, join us for a performance by down-tempo electronic act, Natalie Walker. Tickets can be purchased for $10 in advance from the below link or at the door.

Learn more and get tickets.

Drexel University's Week of Writing begins on Monday. I run WoW with the help of some colleagues and students. It started three years ago and has grown each year. If you are interested in writing, blogging, literature, poetry, all manner of things, I'm sure you'll find something of interest. See the full schedule. All events are free and open to the public and take place on Drexel's campus, on Chestnut Street just off of 33rd Street, in Philadelphia.

Writers, readers, and bloggers in the Philadelphia area, please save the date to join us for:

A Frank Conversation with Frank Wilson

April 11, 2008
2:00 PM
Paul Peck Center
3142 Market Street
Drexel University
Philadelphia

Free and open to the public

Many of you know Frank as the (recently retired and much admired) book review editor of the Philadelphia Inquirer and (not retired at all but much admired) proprietor of Books, Inq.

Topics covered could include:

—Book reviewing (maybe including how books get chosen, what writers and publishers do to guarantee that they will not be reviewed, how one gets to write reviews, what pressures a book review editor faces, what makes a book reviewer good)

—The Philadelphia Inquirer (including why Frank left)

—Declining space devoted to book reviews in newspapers across the country and the future of book reviewing

—Trends in book publishing and writing

—The state of journalism

—Blogging and how blogging intersects with any and all of the above (including what some see as the conflict between professional book reviewers and lit. bloggers and between professional reporters and news bloggers)

A Frank Conversation with Frank Wilson will be just that. This isn't a lecture, but a discussion, so bring some friends, bring some questions, bring some ideas. We start at 2:00 and should finish before 4:00. Refreshments of some kind are likely.

I humbly ask you to blog about this save-the-date announcement. I'd like to pack the house for Frank.

Mark your calendar for April 11th.

This event is sponsored by the Certificate Program in Writing and Publishing in the Department of English and Philosophy at Drexel University.

I just finished reading Iris Chang's The Rape of Nanking. I've read my share of horrifying nonfiction these last couple of years, including books about the Soviet Gulag, the fire-bombing of Dresden, and the atomic bombing of Hiroshima. All contain gruesome details of intense human suffering. And none of them is quite as haunting — as immediate and violent — as Chang's book. Rough stuff. No horror writer's fantasies can compare to what real life has provided in abundance. It's unfortunate that so many people don't even know to what "the Rape" refers. Almost as disturbing as the atrocities themselves is what people are being taught today in Japan about Japan's actions in and around World War II. Chang does a good job of exploring that as well. The Rape of Nanking is a hard book to read because of its content, but an easy and engaging one, and I recommend it, despite the odds of it interfering with peaceful sleep. You've been warned. (And if you're squeamish, do not look at the photos.)

This has to be a spoof, right? Someone goofing around? I haven't heard of Raw Story. Is it like The Onion? If not, if this story is real, I'm worried that there is no future in satire. Really, how do you exaggerate this?

House Bill 282 aims to require dining establishments with seating capacity of five or more to follow guidelines set by the state's health department to determine a prospective customer's obesity, turning away those considered too fat to serve.

And you think Mean Martin Manning is a satire. Maybe it isn't. Maybe it's history written before the fact.

Could Alice Pitney be behind this? Could she be Big Dietician?

It must be a joke.

(hat tip Dave Lull)

Update: I see that David Harsanyi has blogged about this. The story is in USA Today. No joke, I guess. The bill is not expected to "garner much support in the statehouse."