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"Luke Ford reports all of the 'juicy' quotes, and has been doing it for years." (Marc B. Shapiro)
"This guy knows all the gossip, the ins and outs, the lashon hara of the Orthodox world. He’s an [expert] in... all the inner workings of the Orthodox world." (Rabbi Aaron Rakeffet-Rothkoff) LATEST POSTS:
- Dennis Prager v Cedars-Sinai Lawsuit
- Dennis Prager Through Randall Collins: Interaction Ritual Chains
- What is a ‘Received Idea’?
- Jordan Bardella: The Manufacture of Normality
- Everyone Became Television: Bourdieu’s Warning and the 2026 Iran War
- Marine Le Pen
- The Coalition-Proximity Rule
- Nigel Farage
- Bernard Haykel: A Life Between the Text and the Gun
- Walker Connor (1926-2017)
- Benedict Anderson and the Nation as Imagination
- Anthony D. Smith: The Student Who Kept the Question and Rejected the Answer
- Ernest Gellner
- Eric Kaufmann: The Man Who Made the Majority Visible
- Dominic Cummings: A Biography
- Steve Lopez: The Last City Columnist
- California Historian Kevin Starr
- Stephen Kotkin: A Life in Power
- William T. Vollmann: An American Life in Excess
- Rod Dreher: A Life in Exile
BEST POSTS:
- * The Enlightenment Wasn’t Enlightened (6-23-26)
* Mr. Burge Draws The Line (6-23-26)
* 'Improving on Democracy' (6-17-26)
* People Leak To People Who Are Fun (6-11-26)
* Why Does Australia Produce So Many Great Journalists? (6-11-26)
* Steve Wynn and the Press: Power, Litigation, and the Contest Over Las Vegas (6-3-26)
* Sheldon Adelson and the Journalists (6-3-26)
* The Vigilant Animal: Thinkers Who Reject the Myth of Human Gullibility (6-2-26)
* The Cost of Refusing the Misunderstanding Myth (6-2-26)
* Show Me How It Travels (6-2-26)
* The Norm Explainers (6-2-26)
* Centering Marginalized Voices (6-1-26)
* What would it look like if the Washington Post put its reader first? (6-1-26)
* What would it look like if the Financial Times put its reader first? (6-1-26)
* What It Would Mean for the Los Angeles Times to Put the Reader First? (6-1-26)
* What It Would Mean for The New York Times to Put the Reader First? (6-1-26)
* Why Wembanyama Lives on the Perimeter (5-31-26)
* The Emotional Palettes Of San Diego, Los Angeles, San Francisco & Sacramento (5-27-26)
* The Administrative Capital: Sacramento Legal Culture (5-27-26)
* San Diego - The Quiet Republic (5-27-26)
* The Quiet Bar: San Diego Legal Culture (5-27-26)
* SF v LA Legal Culture (5-27-26)
* Why Talent Travels Poorly Between San Francisco and Los Angeles (5-27-26)
* San Francisco and Los Angeles as Rival Models of Urban Access (5-27-26)
* Social Cliques in New York, 2026 (5-25-26)
* Social Cliques in San Francisco, 2026 (5-25-26)
* The Rival Courts of Washington (5-25-26)
* The City of Private Rooms (5-25-26)
Category Archives: Book Reviews
Mr. Confidential: The Man, the Magazine & the Movieland Massacre
I interview Samuel Bernstein Monday morning. His first book was 1994’s Uncommon Heroes, 130 profiles of extraordinary gays. His latest book is Mr. Confidential: The Man, the Magazine & the Movieland Massacre (website). It has received only positive reviews, including … Continue reading
Posted in Author Interviews, Book Reviews, Hollywood
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The Secret Lives of Australians
From Slate.com: "They were too extravagant," a character thinks in a story in this volume, "for the web of quiet incident and subtle shifts of power that were the usual stuff of his fiction." He is Colin Lattimer, an "almost … Continue reading
Posted in Australia, Book Reviews
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Ten Tortured Words: How the Founding Fathers Tried to Protect Religion in America . . . and What’s Happened Since
I caught Stephen Mansfield discussing his new book on Dennis Prager. According to the book description: "Based on an intriguing examination of the First Amendment, Ten Tortured Words embodies centuries of diverse American legal ideas on the role of religion … Continue reading
Posted in Author Interviews, Book Reviews, Dennis Prager
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The Mexican Mafia
MayorSam reports: Tony Rafael’s debut book, The Mexican Mafia, went on sale last Wednesday. Many Mayor Sam readers already know Rafael as Wally Fay, editor of In The Hat, a popular, long-running expert narrative on Los Angeles gangs, crime, cops, … Continue reading
Posted in Blogging, Book Reviews, Los Angeles
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Tabloid Prodigy Marlise Elizabeth Kast
I first heard of Marlise on LAObserved. After I read Tabloid Prodigy (Marlise worked at the tabs from October 1997 to March 2001), I went looking for a review that articulated my confused feelings about the book. I found it … Continue reading
Posted in Book Reviews, Journalism
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‘Americanism’ – The Most Disappointing Book I’ve Read This Year
I heard David Gelernter interviewed on Dennis Prager’s radio show. It was a dull listen but the title of his new book intrigued me, "Americanism: The Fourth Great Religion." I read it yesterday and it was a waste of time. … Continue reading
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Why Does The Way Of The Wicked So Entrance Me?
I’m nearly finished with Bruce Duffy’s novel ("The World As I Found It") about philosophers Ludwig Wittgenstein, Bertrand Russell and G.E. Moore. And there’s this delightful passage about Russell on page 426: Miss Marmer was not the first teacher whom … Continue reading
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Intellectuals
I just read Paul Johnson‘s book Intellectuals for the third time. It was jolly good. I just finished Johnson’s book Creators, which I did not enjoy as much but still recommend. On page six, he wrote: "France now has more … Continue reading
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1967: Israel, the War, and the Year That Transformed the Middle East
David Margolick writes in The New York Times: Segev’s look into the origins of the occupation is invaluable. His research is prodigious, his intelligence obvious, his ability to reconstruct complex chains of events impressive. He writes clearly and confidently and … Continue reading
Posted in Book Reviews, Israel
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Supreme Conflict
I read two terrific books Sunday. First was Mr. Confidential: The Man, the Magazine & the Movieland Massacre by Samuel Bernstein. From Publishers Weekly: "Bernstein’s hard-boiled yet juicy chronicle of publisher Robert Harrison’s 1950s celebrity gossip magazine Confidential is an … Continue reading
Posted in Book Reviews
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