IF, LIKE ME, you’re a voracious reader–someone who maintains a steady diet of not only novels and biographies and important new works on current affairs, but also good journalism–then you’re probably familiar with a particular kind of despair: knowing that you don’t have enough hours in the day to read all the things that look like essential reading. This problem has worsened since September 11, as the new world we find ourselves inhabiting has inspired many journalists to strive for higher levels of excellence in writing about subjects that are, literally, matters of life and death.
If you’ll allow me to display a little institutional vanity, I’ve been particularly proud of our own magazine in this respect, as we’ve been on a hot streak lately. To cite just a few examples: David Brooks’s article on “Bourgeiosophobia” as an explanation for elite Europeans’ disdain for America and Israel; Christopher Caldwell’s brilliant reporting and analysis on anti-Semitism in France; David Tell’s definitive look at how the FBI is bungling the anthrax investigation; Stephen Schwartz’s tireless unveiling of the ties between the Saudi royals and the virulent Wahhabi strain of Islam that fuels the efforts of al Qaeda; and of course, practically everything written by Reuel Marc Gerecht. And to top things off, this week’s issue features Mary Eberstadt’s “The Elephant in the Sacristy,” which I suspect will prove to be one of the definitive treatments of the priest-sex crisis in the Catholic church.
