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!

Freaky Deaky
March 5, 2007 · No Comment

Good writing, good plotting, deeply annoying characters, especially the women.   I really couldn’t stand Robin, and maybe I’m not supposed to like her, but I don’t enjoy spending that much time with characters who …

Fraud: Essays
March 5, 2007 · No Comment

I’d had this book for ages and finally grabbed it off the pile, and it’s outstanding.   It’s like David Sedaris, in that the writing is perfectly turned and often extremely funny, but it’s not …

The Forensic Science of CSI
March 5, 2007 · No Comment

Pretty interesting, but it only encompasses the first season — and a lot of it seems redundant if you watch the show on a regular basis.   Quite well-written of its ilk, though.   (1/31/04)

50 Things You’re Not Supposed to Know
March 5, 2007 · No Comment

Some of the stuff I already knew from Bigger Secrets, but that the Ten Commandments most of us know aren’t actually the ones on the tablets?   That was news. (8/27/05)

Fiasco: A History of Hollywood’s Iconic Flops
March 5, 2007 · No Comment

I wanted really badly to like this book, but…it didn’t work out that way.   Parish, the author, is, I think, extremely knowledgeable about film history, and I think I would enjoy talking with him …

Fair Ball
March 5, 2007 · No Comment

I like it so far; I think Bob Costas is rad, just generally.   But I have to see how it shakes out, because some of the things he’s talking about, dynastically, were germane when …

Elvis
March 5, 2007 · No Comment

It’s a quick read, but I think the subject is problematic; I don’t remember music pre-Elvis, so it’s difficult for me to relate to how much he changed it, and while he’s a unique figure …

Eight Men Out: The Black Sox and the 1919 World Series
March 5, 2007 · No Comment

An interesting story, marred at great and poorly written length by myriad inexcusable misspellings and the occasional exclamation-point cluster-bomb.   Read the section on the scandal in Baseball Babylon instead to get all the relevant …

8 Ball Chicks
March 5, 2007 · No Comment

It’s a semi-depressing read, but Sikes’s prose stays out of the way of the subject, which is impressive in a book about girl gangs; occasionally she editorializes and you’re like, “Yeah, we get it,” but …

Edie: American Girl
March 5, 2007 · No Comment

I’d had this for ages; New York (…I think) happened to recommend it in the current issue; I was bored last night, grabbed it, and read it in more or less one sitting.   I …