The New Yorker

Finally, I read The 40s: The Story of a Decade which has made me want to subscribe to The New Yorker so it definitely did its job. It's a collection of pieces from that illustrious publication during the 1940s when it underwent the change from witty, humorist magazine to political, correspondence magazine. From profiles to poetry to politics, The New Yorker broke down barriers and contributed some truly revolutionary writings that left an indelible mark on the history of journalism. I was show more especially moved by the essay on Hiroshima which focused on a handful of survivors of the atomic bomb. The entire collection was fascinating for its time capsule like quality but it was also a fine sampling of excellent writing. I'd also like to point out that I heard about this book on the New York Public Library's homepage on a blog post entitled "The Blacklist: What is Red Reading?". Turns out James Spader is currently reading this book and it sounded so intriguing that I decided to give it a shot. I'm so glad that I did! show less

On the Money: The Economy in Cartoons is a coffee-table collection of more than 400 cartoons drawn from the pages of The New Yorker magazine from 1925 to 2009.

The book is sturdily produced and the cartoons -- involving money, taxes, spending, investing, business operations and class-status -- are clever, insightful and ironic. Because they’re organized by decade, I enjoyed tracking trends in content (living large in the ‘20s; economizing in the ‘30s; patriotism and inflation in the show more ‘40s; the emergence of the IRS and specific companies and a more prominent role of personal finance in later decades; the cycles of growth and recession throughout) and trends in the art itself (visually dark images early on; lighter, sparer drawings of late).

And what locks this book into the 5-star category is Malcolm Gladwell’s excellent Introduction -- a theory of humor that acknowledges the differing rules of business life (realism) and personal life (romanticism) and suggests that “funny” happens when the rules are misapplied. (For more about the process of creativity and cartooning, take a look at Robert Mankoff’s The Naked Cartoonist.)

For terrific social commentary -- as opposed to laugh-out-loud humor -- I highly recommend this collection. show less

I can't recommend this book to anyone who is easily offended. In fact, I can't in good conscience recommend this book to anyone, period.

It's important to note the historical period in which these pieces were printed. That is, when racism was not only acceptable, but pretty damn funny (apparently). I had to stop flipping through the book when I came to a cartoon that made a joke of a lynching, the picture showing the man still hanging from a tree.

Much of the work is that patently offensive. I show more was almost relieved to come across the "light-hearted" sexism .

I can't believe this is filed under the 'American Wit and Humor' subject. show less

A beautiful book, as New Yorker would do. The introduction from Malcolm Gladwell, one of my favorite authors, decries the lack of space for dogs in the city full of dog lovers. He also has two dog stories in here, one being "Whath the Dog Saw". I am not one for fiction, which is most of what we have here, let a lone canine tales, but some stood out: A John Cheever story, the epistoltory one from James Thurber, and a Jeffrey Toobin one about Leonna Helmsley. Always great are the New Yorker show more cartoons which season this volume along with appropriate reproductions of dog-featuring covers from the magazine. show less