Jay McInerny, “Bright Lights, Big City”

Even more Bret Easton Ellis-y than Bret Easton Ellis.

THE LOWDOWN
Published: 1984, 208 pp.
Obtained via: Library
Date started: 8.18.08
Date finished: 8.21.08
What I liked: It’s like “Catcher in the Rye,” if Holden Caulfield worked at The New Yorker and did lots of coke. Good use of the second person, too.
What I didn’t like: There’s really not much of a narrative arc, but. hey, the book makes up for it with lots of zeitgeist.
What I learned: What the inside of a magazine fact-checking department looked like in the 1980s.

Hanna Rosin, “God’s Harvard”

This Washington Post writer’s in-depth study of Patrick Henry College is one of those books that I can’t stop talking about and recommend to all of my friends.

THE LOWDOWN
Published: 2007, 304 pp.
Obtained via: Library
Date started: 8.12.08
Date finished: 8.17.08
What I liked: Rosin spent a lot of time with the students of this Christian college, and she not only writes about their lives, but about the philosophies supporting the school (among them, to create the next generation of politicians for a Christian America) and the academic struggles behind the scenes.
What I didn’t like: No complaints!
What I learned: Quite a bit about baraminology.