Review: Pines (Wayward Pines #1) by Blake Crouch

Rating: ★ ★ ☆ ☆ ☆
Date Read: April 25 to 27, 2015
Read Count: 1
Recommended by: book club’s choice
Recommended for: people who miss Twin Peaks

This is Twin Peaks with a dollop of The X-Files and a dash of The Truman Show, and the writing reflects its inspirations in that it’s fast-paced and cinematic. In another week or two, this book will become a show, which doesn’t surprise me at all because the writing is made for the screen.

The story begins on a strong note with Ethan Burke waking up in the middle of a forest with a splitting headache and not recalling much about himself or anything of his life. He makes his way into a small idyllic town hoping to find answers, but no one seems to know who he is or how he came to town. He vaguely recalls being in a car accident, and the killer headache and injuries on his body seem to confirm it, but there’s something strange about this town, Wayward Pines.

All the houses are brightly colored and perfect. They sit on perfectly manicured lawns, and they all resemble each other, as though a suburban neighborhood from a 1950s sitcom has been preserved, like a little piece of Americana that didn’t change with the times. And the streets are too quiet. And the people seem like they’re willing to help, but they come off as evasive when questioned about the town. No one Ethan meets would give him a straight answer. They all seem to be in league with each other, save for one–Beverly. She tries to help as best she could because she, like Ethan, knows there’s something wrong with this place.

As he makes his way around searching for answers, Ethan slowly recalls certain things about himself. He recalls having a wife and son in Seattle and that he’s a Secret Service agent sent on a mission to find two other agents who had gone missing after being sent to Wayward Pines. He tries to get calls out to his family and SAC, but none go through. He tries to leave, but finds that there’s no way out of town. The Sheriff is adamant about getting in his way, and the nurse is adamant about keeping him in the hospital. It seems like almost everyone is working against him.

Memories come back to Ethan slowly in pieces, but the pieces don’t fit together. There are too many blank spots, and the people who run Wayward Pines are determined to keep Ethan from digging further. What is Wayward Pines really and why is no one trying to get out?

 

This book combines two of my biggest fears: kooky small towns and being stranded in kooky small towns. It’s just too bad that it turned out to be such a dud. It started out great though. The first 30% was gripping and so intense that I left a dinner early on Saturday night just so I could continue reading all through the night, but then the mystery started to unravel and lose its grip on me as soon as Ethan recalled memories from his past. There’s just something about his characterization and PTSD that I didn’t find altogether believable, and the writing took on a overly dramatic tone whenever he relived a specific painful memory. The story continued to unravel further for me when Ethan’s wife Theresa was introduced. At first, her POV was interesting and added to the intensity of the mystery, but then it fell apart rapidly. It’s supposed to heighten the suspense and ramp up the mystery, but there were too many things about it I found not at all believable, more on this further below.

I like primetime TV dramas just fine. I loved Twin Peaks and The X-Files, and I recently finished Fringe (X-Files for the new generation) and all six agonizing seasons of Lost. So I have no problem following along mind-boggling, nature-bending, physics-scoffing, over-reaching mysteries that don’t quite satisfy or end well. What those shows had, and this book lacks, is strong believable characterization–that still resonate with me to this day–and twisted but fascinatingly explained science–that I still bounce around in my head from time to time. While Pines has echoes of these things embedded in the story, they’re just that–echoes, derivatives. They don’t offer anything new to or expand on familiar themes and ideas; they just regurgitate. The last chapter of Pines, aka the huge info-dump that’s supposed to explain everything, just doesn’t pull the story together. While it does explain most of the weirdness in Wayward Pines, it doesn’t make much sense in the context of the world in which the town exists.

That said, this was an interesting mystery and I liked the beginning a lot. I think many others will like this book too, depending on what mood they’re in and what they’re looking for in a mystery. Just don’t think too hard or get caught up in the details like I did, and you’ll be fine.

 

[ETA]

So it’s been brought to my attention that this book might have started out in life as self-published (source?). If that’s really the case, then it sure does explain a lot.

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The Liebster Award, Part II

A big thank you to Anna from A Wondrous Bookshelf for including me among her nominations!

Here’s how it works:

– Link back to the person who nominated you
– Give 11 random facts about yourself
– Answer 11 questions from your nominator
– Nominate 11 new and obscure bloggers
– Come up with 11 questions for them to answer
– Inform your nominees

11 Random Facts:

1. I’m not a morning person.
2. I’m an insomniac; that’s how I get most of my reading done and why I’m not a morning person.
3. I recently found a coconut chai blend and mornings are getting better.
4. I’ve been a distance runner for most of my life, but have never ran in an official marathon.
5. I’ve always had the ability to deal with and get over upsetting things quickly.
6. Sometimes I get words that sound alike mixed up. Not like “accept” and “except,” but like “masticate” and “masturbate,” and “homophone” and “homophobe.”
7. I haven’t had a real vacation since I entered college. Sure there have been 4-day weekends now and then, but they’ve been either for work or family. I have yet to take any time off just for enjoyment.
8. Thanks to the magic of streaming I’m rediscovering TV shows I never finished. Currently working on Lost, Heroes, and Jericho. Next up: Fringe, Battlestar Galactica, and The Wire.
9. I’m also rediscovering The Color of Magic (aka Discworld #1). It makes me burst out laughing while violently weeping on the inside (RIP Sir Terry).
10. One of these days, I might become a ridiculously eccentric book patron, in the same vein as those ridiculously eccentric art patrons. Many of my favorite authors who have great stories to tell have trouble getting their work published, and I’d like to help them out if I can.
11. The world must never know that I can be bribed with puppies. And kittens too, I suppose. Small furry animals are my weakness. But the world must never know.

Questions from Anna:
Have you read any books recently by an author whose new to you?

• Yes, most recently is The Mad Scientist’s Daughter by Cassandra Rose Clarke. Wonderful story, beautifully written.

Is there a single item, a treasured possession that you never leave the house without?

• My keys, particularly the house one.

The typical physical book vs ebook vs audio book debate, which do you prefer?

• It used to be–hands down–physical book, but ever since I upgraded, I’m quite attached to my new ereader. So *sigh* ebook.

What is one place you’ve always wanted to travel to? (This can either be a fictional or non-fictional place)

• Not sure if this is considered a place, but I’d like to go outer space. Just to float around up there, no particular destination in mind.

Favorite quote from a book you’ve read recently.

“There is nothing else like me in the entire world,” said Finn. “That’s what you wrote. I’m the only one. I can’t tell you what it means to be the only one of my kind,” he said. “I can’t…There is a lack in myself. But your thesis almost filled it in. It was…a start.”
― Cassandra Rose Clarke, The Mad Scientist’s Daughter

Which book genre do you prefer above all others?

• SF/F

Which author would be your best friend?

• Martha Wells

If you could pick an era to live in which one would you choose?

• This one. Cynical as I am, I must admit this is an exciting time to be alive and I wouldn’t choose another over it.

Do you have any bookish habits?

• I bring my ereader everywhere I go.

How do you organize your books?

• By how much I enjoy them. Beloved books get quality shelf space and the rest get whatever space I can squeeze them into.

Who is your favorite book character and why?

• Hard question since I don’t have favorites, but a character that’s still haunting me is Melanie from Mike Carey’s The Girl with All the Gifts.

The blogs I nominate:
Carol @ http://clsiewert.wordpress.com/
Steph @ http://bookishswint.wordpress.com/
Bettie @ https://bettiesbooks.wordpress.com/
Kate @ https://thelawandthereader.wordpress.com/
Yvo @ https://melovebooks.wordpress.com/
Rabindranauth @ http://drunkendragonreviews.wordpress.com/
Ana @ https://anaslair.wordpress.com/
A House of Books @ https://ahouseofbooks.wordpress.com/
One More Attempt @ https://1moreattempt.wordpress.com/
Abby Mabb @ https://abbymabb.wordpress.com/
Ceridwen Anne @ the soap box

Questions for my nominees:
1. What book(s) would you recommend to someone you just met?
2. What book(s) have you recommended the most?
3. What book turned you into a lifelong reader?
4 What popular book(s) do you hate?
5. What book(s) do you have lined up to read next?
6. Something about you that would surprise most people?
7. What’s your biggest fear?
8. If you could have any super power, what’s one you wouldn’t want?
9. What’s the strangest thing that’s ever happened to you?
10. If nothing is impossible, what would you do right now?
11. What time is it and what’s the weather like where you are?

Review: Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail by Cheryl Strayed

Rating: ★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆
Date Read: April 9 to 15, 2015
Read Count: 1
Recommended by: book club’s choice
Recommended for:

I was 22, the same age she was when she’d been pregnant with me. She was going to leave my life at the same moment that I came into hers, I thought. For some reason, that sentence came fully formed into my head just then temporarily blotting out the “fuck them” prayer. I almost howled in agony. I almost choked to death on what I knew before I knew. I was going to live the rest of my life without my mother.

[…]

What if I forgave myself? I thought. What if I forgave myself even though I’d done something I shouldn’t have? What if I was a liar and a cheat and there was no excuse for what I’d done other than because it was what I wanted and needed to do? What if I was sorry, but if I could go back in time I wouldn’t do anything differently than I had done?

Engaging, well written, and poignant at times, but ultimately a frustrating read for me. It’s not so much the writing that I take issue with; the writing is great. It’s the little things in the story that got to me; they built up the further I read on. Cheryl Strayed, though, is an excellent writer who recalls her life with precise detail and a sense of dry humor. She writes so vividly of her grief, loss, and heartbreak that you can actually feel her pain through the pages.

Strayed’s life story is a classic in that it’s been played out before in both fiction and nonfiction. This time, though, the familiar story is told from a slightly different perspective, framed by Strayed’s particular upbringing and close relationship with her mother. The familiar story starts with a young person on the cusp of adulthood losing someone important in their life and spiralling out of control.

Her death had obliterated that. It had obliterated me. It had cut me short at the very height of my youthful arrogance. It had forced me to instantly grow up and forgive her every motherly fault at the same time that it kept me forever a child, my life both ended and begun in that premature place where we’d left off.

This person lives hard and fast for several years, as punishment for whatever they think they deserve. They might even turn to drugs and anonymous sex to dull the pain. They sever relationships with people who care about them. They bounce from location to location without a vague memory of those places. They make almost no meaningful connection to the current people in their life and cut those people loose when they move onto a new city. They live from paycheck to paycheck. They go through menial jobs and try on new identities only to shed them at the end of the day. They exist this way for several years. Then one day something shocking happens, shocking enough to shock them awake, and they they wake up, realizing they can’t live like this anymore, can’t keep wandering through life lost, confused, and hurt. So they try to pull themselves together by doing something drastic (and reckless), like take on the Pacific Crest Trail even though they have no hiking/backpacking experience.

It had nothing to do with gear or footwear or the backpacking fads or philosophies of any particular era or even with getting from point A to point B.

It had to do with how it felt to be in the wild. With what it was like to walk for miles with no reason other than to witness the accumulation of trees and meadows, mountains and deserts, streams and rocks, rivers and grasses, sunrises and sunsets. The experience was powerful and fundamental. It seemed to me that it had always felt like this to be a human in the wild, and as long as the wild existed it would always feel this way.

Through trial and error and lots of hardship and suffering, they somehow find themselves again and reach spiritual enlightenment. Their life is completely changed from then on. And then their story becomes a book which becomes a movie, both are big hits and receive rave reviews. The end?

I know a few people who went through something similar, the only difference is their stories won’t become blockbuster movies–or maybe they will, who knows. They’re doing okay now and we’re on speaking terms again, but for several years, I didn’t know if they’d lived or died. This book takes me back to that time when I first lost contact with them. It was scary, not knowing what became of them, and it was even scarier to watch someone you love spiral so completely out of control. In that I share Strayed’s husband “Paul’s” frustration and despair.

“We all grieve in different ways.” I see this sentence a lot in other people’s reviews. Almost every reviewer tucks this line somewhere in their explanation of why this book worked or didn’t work for them. For me, it mostly doesn’t work, but that has more to do with my general objections to amateurs putting their lives in danger in order to “find themselves,” or in Strayed’s case “save” herself. I’ve never understood that line of “reasoning,” but I do sympathize with her need to set out on her own, to be alone, to challenge herself while pulling her mind and body together again–to survive. Maybe there was an easier way to go about it, but that wouldn’t have been a true challenge. It wouldn’t have pushed her beyond her abilities to survive on her own. Maybe in the middle of the wilderness wasn’t the place to rebuild one’s life, but it worked for Strayed. Though not recommended for most people who are working through their own grief and loss.

I don’t have serious objections to Strayed or how she lived her life because, you know, to each their own. I do, however, hope amateur hikers aren’t as naive. I hope they take more precaution and have more common sense if they’re going to take on the Pacific Crest Trail. At least…try an easier trail first.

Review: The Ace of Skulls (Tales of the Ketty Jay #4) by Chris Wooding

Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ½
Date Read: February 22 to March 10, 2015
Read Count: 1
Recommended by:
Recommended for:

This book.

THIS BOOK.

Chris Wooding must think himself such a clever, cheeky bastard storyteller. All I have to say to him is…when’s book 5 coming out?!? Because this can’t possibly be the end. I know he must be working on something. I can feel it.

This book fills me with both hope and rage, and it’s been a long time since a book has brought that out in me. It feels like forever since anything has made me want to go full fandom mode. But there’s no one around I can talk to or bounce ideas around with because no one has read this book yet. NO ONE. WHY NOT? It’s like everybody subconsciously and unanimously agreed to stop reading after The Iron Jackal, as if they all knew impending doom was inevitable, which it is but it’s so good. All paths lead to all out war with the Awakeners, and Frey and Crew are in the midst of destroying yet another city.

With war looming above them, the crew of the Ketty Jay must make hard choices. Which take them back to the beginning of the adventure, and each character’s personal journey come full circle in that each is forced to confront his or her own worst nightmare–the sole reason that forced them to join Frey’s crew in the first place–and come to terms with it. They’re also forced to choose sides: stay on the ship and fly away from war or leave the ship–and all their friends behind–and fight for Vardia. Tough decisions are made. They pit the crew against one another and almost tear the ship apart.

I love this book so much because it takes all the good things from previous books and crank them up to 11. The previous books were great in their own rights, but this one blows them all to pieces. It raises the already precarious stakes to new heights. War breaks out. Lives hang in the balance. Another Awakener conspiracy is put into play. Close calls for everyone. Every single character, beloved or scorned, main and supporting alike, is at risk. No one is safe. No guaranteed happily-ever-afters here.

The first half of the book is slow to get going; the gradual build up is near agony as you sit on the edge of your seat and wait for nothing short of total destruction. And the second half is a nonstop roller coaster ride of emotions. And total destruction does come, none too soon. I needed time to work this book out of my system, but have come to the conclusion that it’s gonna stay. It’s gonna hang around and haunt me, and I might never get over it.

I started and stopped reading so many times in the past six months because I knew where this journey was heading and wanted to delay the inevitable for a little while longer. I just wasn’t ready for this series to end and certainly not ready to leave the world of the Ketty Jay behind. So I took several months to get through the first half of the book and planned to take several more months to finish the second half, but then it got so good that I couldn’t drag it out any more. I finished the whole thing during a wedding and reception. It took a considerable amount of self-control during the procession not to scream NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO at the end of every chapter.

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Review: So You’ve been Publicly Shamed by Jon Ronson

Rating: ★ ★ ½ ☆ ☆
Date Read: April 1 to 3, 2015
Read Count: 1
Recommended by: BOTM (book club’s choice)
Recommended for: anyone curious by the title

We were not going to tolerate a resurgence of old-time bigotry, and as a result of our collective fury, Marks & Spencer and Nestlé demanded their advertising be removed from the Daily Mail‘s website. These were great times. We hurt the Mail with a weapon they didn’t understand–a social media shaming.

[…]

I suppose that when shamings are delivered like remotely administered drone strikes nobody needs to think about how ferocious our collective power might be.

The operative word here being “collective.” When people gather en mass and focus their attention on just one thing, that one thing escalates. It’s human nature, made worse (and easier) by the internet.

This book is interesting but not as interesting as it could have been, which is let down considering it’s written by Jon Ronson. Funny, witty, accessible Jon Ronson and his offbeat choice of topics and his unconventional method of investigation. I was expecting him to dig a little deeper into the concept of public shaming in this age of social media, with the focus being on how and why some things pick up speed and go viral while other things are brushed aside. But instead, Ronson delved into the lives of people who’ve been publicly called out for their (alleged) transgressions, most of which occurred on twitter. He also followed up with these people and discuss how they’re doing now and what their lives are like currently (and existentially) in their post-shame existence.

And these people are Jonah Lehrer (plagiarist), Justine Sacco (AIDS tweet), Max Mosley (former Formula 1 boss), Adria Richards and Alex Reid (donglegate), Mike Daisey (Apple exposé), and Lindsey Stone (silence and respect). Ronson visited with each individual and interviewed them at their leisure. It’s all very casual and friendly. Ronson gave them each a chance to share their side of the story and explain the events leading up to their public shaming, which the internet was particularly not interested in hearing at the time (or ever?). There’s no judgment or dissection of anyone’s conduct or intention; all Ronson wanted to know was how their fall of grace played out on the internet, how that event affected them during and afterward, and how they’re dealing with it now. Like I said, very casual and friendly and on the surface.

The weakest part of the book is the ending. Ronson doesn’t wrap things up in a conclusive manner. He leaves a lot hanging about, as a matter of fact. Which is why I don’t know what to make of this book.

Reading this book and following along on Ronson’s journey was a lot like reading a tabloid magazine in the sense that I didn’t learn anything new, but I did get a run-down of things I’ve only heard in passing. The content of the book is shocking, the people familiar, their stories fascinating to watch (unfold as they combust), and I found it hard to put the book down, even when I had to google references I didn’t understand–dongles and forking. With the exception of Jonah Lehrer, I’m only vaguely familiar with these other stories and I only know them by their brief appearances on the blogosphere. Then it occurred to me that I never actually took the time to think about the repercussion these people faced following their internet expulsion. This book brought that to light, and I’m glad for that perspective.

However, I don’t think I’ve learned much from Ronson’s journey, and I still know very little of the concept of public shaming. The whole thing is still elusive to me; I see it the same way I see natural disasters–vortex-like and unpredictable. There’s no way to tell who or what will be hit next, or what kind of content will get the unanimous attention and ire of the internet and what will be ignored. There’s no pattern, that we can see anyway, and that’s fascinating to me. Jon Ronson doesn’t touch on this in the book, and that’s a letdown. But that’s on me, my expectations are off the book’s mark.

Something I’ve always liked about Jon Ronson’s writing is that he has a way of explaining slippery, difficult to grasp subject matter and putting those things in the form of humorous and/or enlightening anecdotes. Although his writing is funny, it’s never intentionally harsh or cruel, and the people in his stories are never the butt of the joke. I’m glad to see he still takes the same approach with this book.

Review: The Retrieval Artist: a Short Novel (Retrieval Artist #0.5) by Kristine Kathryn Rusch

Rating: ★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆
Date Read: April 5 to 6, 2015
Read Count: 1
Recommended by: list of past Hugo Award nominees
Recommended for: fans of hardboiled sci-fi

If Hammett and Chandler were to dabble in sci-fi, I think the result would look something like this novella.

Miles Flint is a retrieval artist and his job is to locate the “Disappeared,” people who have gone into hiding and whose former existence has been permanently erased from all databases. Flint tracks them down for an exorbitant fee because he’s good at his job and known in the business as the best money could buy, but he isn’t without scruples. Sometimes certain people need to stay disappeared, like for instance, witnesses in high profile cases who want to start a new life somewhere else far from their old world. There are lots of reasons for someone to disappear permanently and most of then have to do with escaping assassinations. In those cases, Flint is fine with letting those people be. He wants nothing to do with helping assassins locate their targets.

That’s the set-up to this long, multi-book series which takes place on the moon, and this novella is a short but expensive introduction to Flint and his job. The plot is about a case Flint couldn’t turn turn even though he knew he should have.

A young woman from a corporate dynasty hires him to find her mother and sister. Her father is on his deathbed and once he dies, the missing sister stands to inherit his share of the empire because she, the young woman, could not because she’s a clone. There are laws against clones inheriting the family fortune. Flint knows at once he should turn the job down–he has a bad feeling about it–but he just couldn’t resist the mystery or the woman. So he takes the job. What follows is an interesting look into birthrights and legitimate heirs in this new age of space exploration.

Miles Flint is a throwback to the private eyes of those early hardboiled days. Brash and candid, the character has a bluntness and directness that weed out sob stories and cut right through bullshit–so maybe more of a Hammett-type character than Chandler. He assesses people in a cool apathetic manner that allows him to judge their intentions and gauge whether or not they’re out to kill the Disappeared people they claim to seek. Being able to tell the difference is the point of his job, really, and something he takes pride in.

The concept of being Disappeared is a gray area. It’s like being on the run, but there’s no running. Your existence is wiped from all databases, you move to a new planet where no one knows who you are, and no one from your old life can find you. If the person you hired to make you disappear were any good, you stay disappeared.

Here’s where it gets murky though. Disappearing allows actual criminals the same chances of survival as innocent people who have been similarly marked for death. I find this concept very interesting. It’s one of the few things that’s motivating me to pick up the next book because the writing, although gets the job done, is just okay. It leans more towards telling than showing, and there are quite a few long passages of explanation nestled in between the action. But that’s too be expected as this novella is literally an intro, and the info-dumps are necessary to introduce the setting, story, and Miles Flint’s precarious job.

All in all, a good story and solid start to what I hope will be an interesting series. I also hope it will be a new favorite series which I can fall back on as Rusch is currently at book #13 at the time of this review and she’s still writing for this series.

Some thoughts RE: So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed

The ever-hilarious Jon Ronson is back with another investigation into pop-psychology, or rather the collective psyche of that mob mentality on social media. Some call it a social movement. I have no idea what it really is, but I’m fascinated by its energy. Here is a snippet from Ronson’s meeting with Jonah Lehrer, the now infamous self-plagiarist.

For the last hour Jonah had been repeatedly telling me, in a voice strained to breaking point, ‘I don’t belong in your book.’

And I was repeatedly replying, ‘Yes, you do.’

I didn’t understand what he was talking about. I was writing a book about public shaming. He had been publicly shamed. He was ideal.

Now he suddenly stopped, mid hiking trail, and looked intently at me. ‘I am a terrible story to put in your book,’ he said.

‘Why?’ I said.

‘What’s that William Dean Howells line?’ he said. ‘“Americans like a tragedy with a happy ending”?’

The actual William Dean Howells line is ‘What the American public wants in the theatre is a tragedy with a happy ending.’ I think Jonah was close enough.

Hah, way to kick him when he’s down.

Aside from self-plagiarizing, Jonah Lehrer has also been found guilty of misquotations and, in some cases, mangling Bob Dylan’s words. That was his downfall–mangling Bob Dylan. It was a small, barely noticeable, lapse in Lehrer’s huge body of work. By the time anyone (Michael Moynihan) found that tiny piece of loose thread and pulled, Lehrer had already become a popular successful author. And he’s so young too. Everyone had been amazed. So when the boy genius fell from grace, it was a big deal. It rocked the publishing world. But the fall out didn’t stop there. People went back and meticulously combed through everything he’s written and found that almost every essay and two books, now pulled from publication, contained self-plagiarism.

You may not think that’s a big deal–so he didn’t cite himself a couple of times, so what? Here’s what: he did it repeatedly and, I would assume, deliberately. But you’ll have to read Moynihan’s side of the story and decide for yourself. Anyhow. The point isn’t that Leher “forgot” to cite himself. The point is he recycled old material and passed it off as new…and got paid handsomely for it. If Lehrer were to cite himself properly in each of his essays, almost every single paragraph would have been a quotation taken from essays he’d written in the past. Very little of the new essay would contain new or original content. So if not for the recycled material, there would have been no new material to publish or sell. It was essentially a scam, and Lehrer did it knowingly. That is the point. Another point is no one looked twice because he’s a young educated fellow from a prestigious background, but that’s another thing entirely.

So far I haven’t learned much about the concept of public shaming, other than how it plays out, but I did learn what self-plagiarism is in the publishing world. And yes, it’s a difficult thing to avoid when you’ve written so much for so long on just one topic. Sometimes you’ll end up repeating what you’ve already written in the past; the lapse in memory is bound to happen sooner or later. It’s an honest mistake… if it happens once or twice. But in almost every essay? That shows intent and deliberation.

Jon Ronson writes in a very funny and engaging way. I find myself reluctant to put this book down.

 

[ETA] I did some digging and it looks like Jonah Lehrer’s transgressions extended further than self-plagiarism. People have found actual plagiarism in the two books that were pulled and many of his essays from Wired.com and The New Yorker. Only 18 essays were pulled for closer examination, and of those 18, 17 were found to contain plagiarized material. People have also found instances where Lehrer pulled a Stephen Glass, formerly known as a Janet Cooke, and made up facts and sources to pad his writing (source).

Jon Ronson seems to think we’re all being too hard on Lehrer. Maybe it’s time to forgive and forget? Maybe. After all, “we’re not monsters.” Hah hah…hah. Ahem. We’ll just have to see how much plagiarism is in his new book to determine whether or not it’s forgivable. Oh btw, he’s sold a new manuscript (source).