Review: The Sociopath Next Door

The concept of the book is disturbing: four percent of all people in the United States are sociopaths, meaning people who literally have no conscience and who are capable of doing anything to anyone in pursuit of what they want without regret, remorse, or even the slightest twinge of guilt. I've known people like this, you've known people like this, and it's heartening to know that you're not crazy and that people actually do act outside all mores and morals. At least you aren't dreaming it. Given that the author is a psychiatrist who supposedly taught at the Harvard Medical School for 25 years (I'm not doubting her, just noting that I haven't independently checked.), she would have the intellectual and practical background to address the subject.

From that end, I think the book is important, but I found that some of the writing itself was disappointing. For example, there are somewhat stiff phrases of quasi-academic or medical jargon that she uses repeatedly and that stick out like a sore thumb. That may be fine in a technical paper, but is stylistically out of place in a book aimed at the popular market. Also, I noticed that the author would tend to make assumptions in her explanations that didn't necessarily have enough logical basis. For example, the lack of conscience itself would not seem to be a motive for the driving need to play oneupsmanship with others. That may be a common characteristic, but it would seem to be from some other dynamic. (This is from knowing some people who would seem to be textbook sociopaths who saved their activities for going after what they wanted at the expense of all others. Crushing someone just for the sake of doing so would have been a distraction to them.) But overall, it's worth reading to at least raise the question of exactly who lives next door - or is in the next room, office, or chair.

Maxim Reviews Album Sound Unheard

Folio, the trade publication of the magazine business, has an interesting story about Maxim reviewing a Black Crowes album without having the CD available to them. The group's blog has a fairly scathing posting, including the following:

Case in point: the “review” of Warpaint--the new album by THE BLACK CROWES--in the March issue of Maxim magazine. The writer--who has not heard the album since advance CDs were not made available--wrote what appears to be a disparaging assessment anyway, citing “it hasn’t left Chris Robinson and the gang much room for growth.”

Incredulously, the magazine gave the album a two and a half star rating--although neither the writer nor the editor could have heard more than one song (the single “Goodbye Daughters of the Revolution”).

When approached for an explanation, the magazine described the review as “an educated guess preview.” Huh?

If this is accurate, and I have no reason to disbelieve it, then "Huh?" is fairly mild. Dylan Stableford eventually got a comment from Maxim:

An apology from Maxim editorial director Jim Kaminsky: "It is Maxim's editorial policy to assign star ratings only to those albums that have been heard in their entirety. Unfortunately, that policy was not followed in the March 2008 issue of our magazine and we apologize to our readers."

Heard in their entirety? So, now I'm wondering if they heard anything at all. Granted, rating a CD without hearing the whole thing seems ridiculous, but are the magazine's comments completely unwarranted if they had a few sample songs from the group, particularly as you'd think performers would put their best crow's foot forward, so to speak, in a case like this.

New York Times Reporter Claims NYT Book Review is Unfair

Sometimes you see the strangest things, like an employee of an organization vociferously attacking his own publication for offering an unfair and twisted review of his own book. Editor & Publisher, a trade magazine for the newspaper industry, has a story about David Clay Johnston, who says that an upcoming NYT review of his book Free Lunch: How the Wealthiest Americans Enrich Themselves At Government Expense (And Stick You With The Bill) has a number of "egregious errors." Here's the letter that Johnston sent, and that is included in this article:

To the Editor:

Jonathan Chait's review of my book "Free Lunch" (Feb. 3) ignores its central thesis and neglects to disclose that he wrote a competing book.

He writes that I embrace litigiousness to solve societal problems. In fact, I describe litigation as "scary and nasty" and show ways to reduce lawsuits. My solution is for taxpayers to cover the full costs of Congress, ending legalized bribery.

Chait writes that I regard corporations as "inherently malevolent," which is ridiculous given that I am chairman of the board of a small corporation with big ambitions. He says I regard deregulation as "evil," when I wrote that deregulation is a fantasy and I show new regulations that thwart market capitalism, drive up prices and hinder competition. The only things I call "evil," citing the Bible, are policies that take from the many to give to the rich.

Chait twists words I use to describe the shared values of those Democrats and Republicans who favor people over corporations to make them appear as my views, not a description of theirs.

Chait misleadingly connects me to a faction of Democrats and calls me a left-wing populist, even though I am a registered Republican, a matter of public record that is posted all over the Internet, and without mentioning that classic conservative values drawn from Adam Smith, Andrew Mellon and the Bible are invoked throughout "Free Lunch."

"Free Lunch" is full of news, hard facts and plain English explanations of how market capitalism has been perverted. Chait did an excellent job of one thing -- hiding what "Free Lunch" actually says from readers of The New York Times Book Review.

David Cay Johnston

Ouch. E&P tried to reach Chait, who declined to talk.

Book Author Sues Reviewer

I'm not sure whether this is what the newspaper business calls a man-bites-dog story. Such a tale (or tail) depends on someone doing something you just wouldn't expect. Of course, most book authors probably harbor desires to sue for a bad review - and that's on their good days. (Imagination on the bad days tends toward more graphic and inventive violence.) So I was a bit surprised to read this BoingBoing post about a blogger who saw the subject of a negative review head right to court. As the post quotes the blogger:

He claims to have a revolutionary idea for how evolution works, but his ideas have no connection to reality, and these lovely elaborate drawings he made look nothing at all like actual embryos. The bottom line is that I said his work was more about the evolution of balloon animals than biology.

Obviously this is proof positive that Darwin was nuts and that the fittest aren't necessarily the ones surviving.

Amazon to Cut Number of Visible Reader Reviews

An article on gather.com notes that Amazon.com is reducing the number of visible customer reviews of books. Only three reviews will appear on the page with the book, and those will be the ones voted "most helpful" by others. New reviews will head right to a link page with all the reviews. So book sales are going to be heavily influenced by three reviewer voices per title.

I know that at times I've used Amazon I look at the reviews, see if there's a pattern, and then jump to other reviews if there seems to be some real disagreement. But three reviews? Hardly seems enough opinion - which is really pretty amusing, given how often in other areas I find myself heavily influenced by a single "professional" reviewer, who might know less than I do.