Happy New Year!

It's been a bit of a hiatus, but good to be back in the saddle. I'm working on a brief review of John LeCarre's newest novel "A Most Wanted Man," that may appear here soon, but in the meantime just wanted to share a line or two. I was at a pre-Christmas party of very mixed company (young/old; liberal/conservative), my favorite kind of party actually, and someone mentioned that they had read Palin's book and thought it very "elegantly" written. Of course the book was ghostwritten so that credit (if it's true -- haven't read the book and won't) would go to the ghostwriter. But diving once again into "I Claudius" I came across this very appropriate line on the first page: "My readers must not therefore be surprised at my practised writing style: it is indeed Claudius himself who is writing this book, and no mere secretary of his, and not one of those official annalists either, to whom public men are in the habit of communicating their recollections, in the hope that elegant writing will eke out the meagerness of subject matter and flattery soften vices."

To that, in the context of Sarah Palin I will raise my glass. And also to a year that will hopefully forget her.