Tanenhaus also deserves some credit for keeping David Brooks on a leash with the Hamilton bio review. Although why give Brooks more column-inches? We'll see where this goes.

Actually, I was both disappointed and disturbed to see Karen Hughes' fellatio-cum-memoir granted full page status while Rachel Cohen's A Chance Meeting was relegated to Books in Brief.

I almost feel, though, that you can't say more than a paragraph about Cohen's book without giving away much that readers would be better off discovering in the book itself; since the delight isn't so much in "look at famous people meet" as in Cohen's unique way of describing how famous people meet. Not that I'd defend that assessment to the death or anything.

As for the page on Hughes, well, the NYTBR is what it is, and the book would've gotten that page under McGrath, too. I was more disturbed by the decision to give the Robert Hooke bio only two-thirds of a page, especially when there's another Hooke biography coming out in a month or so.

I agree that the Chipster probably would not have handled the Hughes book differently but in my bones I feel he'd have played Cohen more prominently, though you are right about the difficulties in reviewing it.

You recently quoted a letter that I had written to the editor of the New York Times Book Review... I went to another website purporting to contain a "free" copy of "Free Culture," and sure enough, there it was, but there, also, was the following legend:

"Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

"The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author's rights is appreciated."

It seems that Mr. Lessig, like any author worth his salt, wants us to swallow his thesis but not eat his lunch.

Ahhhh, but the Creative Commons license GIVES you that prior written permission from the copyright holder and the publisher to scan, upload, and distribute FREE CULTURE, as long as you're willing to agree to do so non-commercially. So it's quite possible to get a free copy, and I hope you did download it from the site I mentioned.