A Sad Book and a Funny One

The Economist is ultimately a British publication, much as they do aspire to be worldly and all that. It shows in their fundamental skepticism in matters of Israel, and sometimes it shows up in the way they offer book reviews for items which have yet to be published in America (and thus can't be delivered yet by Amazon.com, which means they effectively don't exist). Here are two reviews of two very different books which one might have taken to the beach for some light summer reading, if only someone else had had their act together.

First, the sad book, John Calvert's Sayyid Qutb and the Origins of Radical Islamism (Columbia/Hurst), reviewed by The Economist here. Sad, but probably important.

Then there's this one, by John Gross: The Oxford Book of Parodies. Going by the few snippets offered by The Economist here, this one's probably a delightful book.