Baseball

“I wrote 63 songs this year. They’re all about Jeter.” Just kidding. The game we love, the players we hate, and more.

Culture and Criticism

From Norman Mailer to Wendy Pepper — everything on film, TV, books, music, and snacks (shut up, raisins), plus the Girls’ Bike Club.

Donors Choose and Contests

Helping public schools, winning prizes, sending a crazy lady in a tomato costume out in public.

Stories, True and Otherwise

Monologues, travelogues, fiction, and fart humor. And hens. Don’t forget the hens.

The Vine

The Tomato Nation advice column addresses your questions on etiquette, grammar, romance, and pet misbehavior. Ask The Readers about books or fashion today!

What Just Happened? Bitter Hollywood Tales from the Front Line
March 5, 2007 · No Comment

Eh.   Not nearly enough dirt, the interstitial bits with Jerry are forced — if you read the excerpt in Vanity Fair, you don’t need to read the whole thing.

We Have Always Lived in the Castle
March 5, 2007 · No Comment

The problem here is that it’s pretty clear early in the book what had actually happened (sorry for the vagueness, I don’t want to ruin it for anyone), which is a shame; Jackson’s first-person narration …

Watchmen
March 5, 2007 · No Comment

Parts of it haven’t dated well, I don’t think, and while I like the build, the ending is not my favorite — I got that inorganic “because I said so” feeling from it.   Still …

Until the Twelfth of Never: The Deadly Divorce of Dan and Betty Broderick
March 5, 2007 · No Comment

It’s a good read; it seems overly long for a true-crime book when you start it, but I can’t see where I would have cut it.   (In fact, I might have added to it; …

Under the Banner of Heaven
March 5, 2007 · No Comment

It’s excellent, both as a true crime account and as an overview of the birth of Mormonism (although I don’t imagine Mormons look too kindly on it, but it’s quite evenhanded).   Fast read, fascinating …

Truman Capote: In Which Various Friends, Enemies, Acquaintances and Detractors Recall His Turbulent Career
March 5, 2007 · No Comment

So gossipy and good; I loved it.   It’s all the best parts of Capote and that SNL oral history, and even when you aren’t sure what (or whom) they’re talking about, it’s very bitchy …

Triumph and Tragedy in Mudville
March 5, 2007 · No Comment

It’s a collection of Gould’s baseball writings over the years — and a disappointment as such.   He’s a wonderful writer, ordinarily, and I loved his contributions to the Ken Burns series, but because this …

To Kill a Mockingbird
March 5, 2007 · No Comment

I’d forgotten how funny it is — well, not funny, exactly, but witty.   I remember not liking it that much when I read it the first time, so it’s a surprise that it’s actually …

The Ticket Out: Darryl Strawberry and the Boys of Crenshaw
March 5, 2007 · No Comment

A good, worthwhile read, but sometimes a little much with the I Get It attitude…by which I mean that, sometimes, sportswriters will take it upon themselves to lecture the reader on attitudes about athletics and …

This Time Let’s Not Eat the Bones
March 5, 2007 · No Comment

I found it for reasonably cheap (note: not cheap, just reasonably so given the difficulty in tracking it down) and read it in what seemed like no time; he’s such a natural, easy writer, and …