Just a Gwai Lo fun within prescribed limits [?]

Rebecca Traister: “Far from being any kind of feminism-denier, Dowd, the only female Op-Ed columnist at the most powerful newspaper in the world, is the embodiment of its triumphs, and she knows it. What she has to say in this book is sometimes crass, often recycled from old columns, intermittently sloppy, consistently over-generalized and rooted too firmly in her own rarefied D.C.-N.Y. corridor of power. But just because Dowd's sphere is a privileged one doesn't mean her observations aren't both fascinating and true. And, as the blizzard of response demonstrates, Dowd has kicked off a conversation we are desperate to have.”

Pamela Paul: “While the temptation to correct errors - which often reverberate from blog to blog - can be strong, counterblogging can be counterproductive. Authors report sad tales of the flaming feedback loops that follow such confrontations.”

The article links to the most blogged-about books of 2005, and I'm linked on the page for Are Men Necessary? by Maureen Dowd (which links to my 'just quote' of a review of the book). Most of the writers asked seem overly-sensitive about reactions they read in weblogs, but then again, aren't writers overly-sensitive to begin with? (And the same for bloggers?) Dowd seems the most sensible about following what bloggers say about her by deploying human filters—her assistant and her sister—to forward her the important reactions.

Dowd's book is not listed in the top-20 list, however, but two technical aspects of the list strike me as interesting: you do not need an account to view the list and also search engines are allowed to index the list, though not archive it in a cache. (But what, no links so that I can purchase any of the books, with the newspaper getting a cut?) It's unusual for The New York Times to allow search engines to index anything—but it's very smart, because users coming in through search engines are more likely to click on the ads which most bloggers and weblog readers probably have learned to ignore.

Here are the books on the list that I've read, with, if applicable, a link to my short review for each:

• 3. Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking by Malcolm Gladwell (my brief review)
• 5. Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity by David Allen (my brief review)
• The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference by Malcolm Gladwell
• 12. The Wisdom of Crowds: Why the Many Are Smarter Than the Few and How Collective Wisdom Shapes Business, Economies, Societies and Nations by James Surowiecki (my selection as best book of 2004)
• 14. 1984 by George Orwell (my favourite book of all time)

Kathryn Harrison on Are Men Necessary?: When Sexes Collide by Maureen Dowd: “what makes Dowd an exceptionally good columnist on the Op-Ed page - her ability to compress and juxtapose, her incisiveness, her ear for hypocrisy and eye for the absurd - does not enable her to produce a book-length exploration of a topic as complex as the relations between the sexes. Consumed over a cup of coffee, 800 words provide Dowd the ideal length to call her readers' attention to the ephemera at hand that may reveal larger trends and developments. But smart remarks are reductive and anti-ruminative; not only do they not encourage deeper analysis, they stymie it.”

Charlie Gillis writes about waning masculinity in North America. (In the same issue of Macleans, John Intini writes about a series of Canadian commercials featuring a handyman that he finds irritating.) Maureen Dowd writes about men still preferring unequals in their women and introduces me to the term 'girl money', that is, her money not being good enough when it comes to paying for things, such as dinner.