Jane Mayer

In a company-wide memo sent to Random House staff this afternoon—labeled "a very different memo" by company spokesman Stuart Applebaum when he forwarded it to media—Markus Dohle turned a spotlight upon Random House's strong presence on year-end book lists published this week by The Toronto Globe and Mail and The New York Times Book Review.

Mr. Dohle delighted in the fact that fully nine of the ten books on the NYTBR list had been published by Random House. Those nine, for the record: Dangerous Laughter by Steven Millhauser; A Mercy by Toni Morrison; Unaccustomed Earth by Jhumpa Lahiri; The Forever War by Dexter Filkins; Nothing to Be Frightened Of by Julian Barnes; The Republic of Suffering by Drew Gilpin Faust; The World Is What It Is by Patrick French; Netherland by Joseph O'Neill; and The Dark Side by Jane Mayer.

Under Random House's old structure, eight of those nine would count as Knopf books, but after yesterday's reorganization, which stripped Jane Mayer's publisher, Doubleday, of its divisional status and placed it under the jurisdiction of Sonny Mehta, it is all nine. Mr. Dohle did not draw attention to this fact, presumably in the interest of fostering in-house harmony.  read more »

In his New York Times column today, William Kristol quotes The Wall Street Journal's Peggy Noonan saying of the Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin, "In the end the Palin candidacy is a symptom and expression of a new vulgarization in American politics."

Ms. Noonan, of course, knows from vulgarity when it comes to Governor Palin, but Mr. Kristol dismisses his sister-in-arms with the following: "Leave aside Noonan’s negative judgment on Sarah Palin’s candidacy, a judgment I don’t share."

To say Mr. Kristol, who was once famously dubbed Dan Quayle's "brain", doesn't share criticism of Governor Palin is an understatement.  read more »

THE DARK SIDE: THE INSIDE STORY OF HOW THE WAR ON TERROR TURNED INTO A WAR ON AMERICAN IDEALS
By Jane Mayer
Doubleday, 392 pages, $27.50

In the autumn of 2000, I was visiting the United States and watched the televised debates with keen interest. Of the four men—two presidential candidates and two running mates—the one I really took to was Dick Cheney. Maybe the competition wasn’t so strong, what with the inarticulate George W. Bush, the well-meaning but wooden Al Gore and the smirking Joe Lieberman. By contrast, Mr. Cheney seemed relaxed, bien dans sa peau, with a faraway smile playing on his lips as if to say, You mean you’ve just discovered that America is a plutocracy? Tell me about it!

What a long time eight years can seem: We have since been disabused of many illusions.  read more »