Fareed Zakaria

There are no jokes in Maureen Dowd's New York Times column this morning. There is no Latin (or pseudo-Latin like quid profiterole), no dialogue or out-sourcing or a single reference to Barney's.

Today, Ms. Dowd set aside her Pulitzer-winning bells and whistles to talk to former Secretary of State Colin Powell about his endorsement of Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama:

[W]hat sent him over the edge and made him realize he had to speak out was when he opened his New Yorker three weeks ago and saw a picture of a mother pressing her head against the gravestone of her son, a 20-year-old soldier who had been killed in Iraq.  read more »

Tomorrow evening, the East Hampton Library will host its fourth annual Author's Night benefit, Page Six reported today. All of the proceeds will benefit the library (though an Authors Only summer share might be kinda fun too!). Over 80 writers are expected to attend, including E.L. Doctorow, Jay McInerney, A.M. Holmes, Marie Brenner, Malachy McCourt, Steven Gaines, Barbara Goldsmith, Robert A.M. Stern, Fareed Zakaria, Tom Clavin, Sidney Offit, Philip Schultz, and Nelson DeMille.

The Daily Transom called up Sheila Rogers, the library's spokesperson. "It's just one famous writer after another!" she exclaimed. (We long for the days when a writer could have a house on the East End.  read more »

The Post-American World, by Fareed Zakaria. W. W. Norton, 292 pages, $25.95.

Fareed Zakaria’s The Post-American World is one of those peculiar volumes public thinkers of a certain disposition, upon reaching a certain popular standing, seem compelled to write: an omnibus summation of the recent trajectory of their thinking—and, by extension, the state of the world.  read more »

The May issue of Playboy seems unusually concerned with international affairs. First there's the photo spread "The Women of Putin's Russia," which offers a breezy one-paragraph summary of the Cold War that concludes, "But enough politics. Better to turn to Russia's best asset: its women." Nine pages of photos follow.

But the really hot stuff can be found in the Playboy Interview with Fareed Zakaria, Newsweek's foreign policy master.  read more »