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!

This Boy’s Life: A Memoir
March 5, 2007 · No Comment

It’s very good writing, pretty but spare, not like I remember the movie at all.   It’s frustrating in spots, certainly, but if Wolff had had some sort of getting-it-together epiphany, it would have felt …

Thing of Beauty: The Tragedy of Supermodel Gia
March 5, 2007 · No Comment

I can’t decide if I liked it or not.   It’s well written and moves along, but I feel like a lot got left out — which is weird, given how much got left in. …

Tex
March 5, 2007 · No Comment

I liked the movie better, actually; Hinton’s narrators have a disingenuous way of talking about themselves that gets a bit irritating after a while, and it works better as film melodrama.   Also, I used …

The Teammates
March 5, 2007 · No Comment

A sweet baseball reminiscence that could stand a tighter, cleaner edit — and unless you’re a Red Sox fan and/or you know a good deal about the game pre-1950, I don’t know that it’s the …

The Studio
March 5, 2007 · No Comment

John Gregory Dunne’s dry prose is such a good fit with the movie industry; he’s really able to take the wind out of it, but without sounding bitter or mean.   Good time capsule, good …

Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers
March 5, 2007 · One Comment

It’s meticulously researched, and some of the descriptions made me nauseated enough that I had to put the book down to read something else for a little while — but there’s still something irritating about …

Sophie’s Choice
March 5, 2007 · No Comment

The book is good — Styron’s prose is outstanding — but it’s too long; I like the movie better, because Styron does tend to get into sidebars that don’t feel necessary to the story, and …

Something Wicked This Way Comes
March 5, 2007 · No Comment

The writing is both very precise and wildly overwrought, particularly the dialogue, which…my God, even a Lassie episode is closer to how kids really  talk, and the father’s lengthy pontificating in the library was just …

Snobbery: The American Version
March 5, 2007 · No Comment

Very sharp and funny, particularly the extremely dry and long overdue takedown of Susan Sontag. (9/8/03)

She’s Not There
March 5, 2007 · No Comment

A lovely…what’s the term I want here?   “Memoir of the transgender experience,” I guess.   In any case, funny and touching in just the right balance, and beautifully written.   (9/8/03)