"Not another incisive book reviewer!" Tom said, critically.

Scott McLemee makes the excellent point in his post on Critical Mass  that political blogger Jon Swift should be considered one of our country's most incisive book reviewers, even if the solons at Amazon.com have squelched some of his contributions to their fine intellectual journal. Or rather, perhaps he should be considered an excellent reviewer because of their deletions.

At any rate, in the tradition of scrupulous honesty that characterizes all book blogging, Mr. Swift begins each review with the confidence-inspiring declaration that "I have not actually read this book, but ...." and then proceeds to make such trenchant observations as the following about Ana Marie Cox's Dog Days: "Most people nowadays write non-fiction books with bits of fiction secretly interspersed throughout, sort of like Where's Waldo for adults. But Ms. Cox has brilliantly turned this idea on its head and written a fiction book with bits of non-fiction secretly inserted into the text. I wonder if Oprah knows about this unique innovation."

Or this, about Ben Shapiro's Porn Generation: How Social Liberalism is Corrupting Our Future: "I don't plan to read a book that is basically pornography. I must confess that when I was a teenager we used to look at books like this, which claimed to condemn pornography and various perversions, but went into very explicit detail about them. We would mark the dirty parts and pass them around."

Mr. Swift proudly points out that, contra Amazon, his work has inspired serious comment, notably a spectacularly self-defeating whine/rant by Michael Fumento, author of Fat of the Land, and an admiring citation by the Uncyclopedia.

It's here that book/daddy took special interest --