> For a few glorious pages, Noem feels like a Flannery O’Connor character with tax cuts. Honestly, as someone who had to endure all 260 pages of No Going Back, I wish Noem had shot more dogs—or me.

These are a riot.

Too many of these (especially as you click back through previous years) are political; however warranted they might be, they're not interesting. Elie Mystal doesn't like John McWhorter. Shocking! Also: these all lean too heavily on The Baffler.

There's good stuff here! You don't so much have to dig for it, but you do have to root through less good stuff.

I do like that Sally Rooney is a perennial punching bag here though.

I read through some, skimmed through some more and glanced at the rest.

Honestly there’s nothing here for me. I’m sure many of these reviews are individually accurate enough, but when compiled together like this it all becomes a slog of bland constructed negativity.

I didn’t come away from this a better person, curious, or even amused.

It seems to me that more books are a strict good: let’s get as many books written as possible.

Let’s get some scathing book review reviews written.

This dreck isn’t dangerous: books are harmless.

Dreck is dangerous when powerful people endorse it as they way their followers should think.

What’s dangerous is saying one thing on Lex or Rogan and saying something entirely different on Signal to Chamath.