Brainless

Everyday I come home from work and there is a neat pile of packages on my front door step, the ones delivered by UPS, FedEx, and DHL. Crammed into my new mailbox (the last one finally exploded) are usually one or two more. Not sure why my mail delivery person insists on forcing these packages into the mailbox but my personal feeling is that she's too damn lazy to get out of her cute little mail truck and walk fifteen feet or so to my door. But I digress...

I get lots of books, and I don't read most of them. I read a lot, but even I can't read 25+ books a week. Nor would I want to, much less review them. Lately Penguin has taken to sending me a box of reissued classics every week along with little notes asking me to review them. I'm sorry, but even as opinionated as I am, I am not presumptuous enough to review Albert Einstein's Theory of Relativity, The Communist Manifesto by Friedrich Engels or The Bible.

But a book arrived yesterday that I would consider reading and even reviewing, except I'm not sure I have enough Ruby Red Absolut to get me through it. So we'll see. The name of this unsolicited book that caught my eye is

Brainless: The Lies and Lunacy of Ann Coulter by Joe Maguire

William Morrow is the publisher and frankly, just reading the pitch that came along with it - did I mention that every book that arrives has at least a one page typewritten letter full of exclamation points stressing its vital importance to the reading community, nay, to the world at large, if only I would read it? Another digression, sorry. Anyway, the pitch was full of so much of the Coulter vitriol that it made my head spin. So I'm afraid to read more from the "Mistress of Malice". The letter included her thoughts on Jimmy Carter; "vengeful, sneaky and backstabbing." I worked for his campaign before I was old enough to vote and that is just wrong. Other thoughts include the fact that Intelligent Design is real science while evolution is "make believe".

But this is my favorite: women's liberation has led to "exhibitionism, promiscuity, sex toys, and adultery." Ummm, it's also led to Ann Coulter. It's given her the right to stay single and sexually active while proclaiming herself a good Christian, and even more importantly, it's given her the right to spew her vitriol, circle her wagons and stir up as much hatred as she possibly can. She's got a platform to speak from that is not in her kitchen, where she would be without women's liberation and all those women who fought for her right to publish snarky, malicious books full of "lies and lunacy".

So yeah, I want to read more. But I'm afraid to. I'm really not advocating drinking, but I am an adult and I know that numbing myself with alcohol may make it possible for me to read more than a page or two and not rip them from the book and burn the rest in effigy. Of course, if there is any book burning to be done I should probably start with the Ann Coulter collection, but I don't advocate that either. Just not buying them is enough for me.

But buy Brainless, if only for the jokes, including this tasteless one from David Letterman that made me laugh out loud:

"Here's what we know about Ann Coulter: She's blond, she's single. Maybe someone will set her up with O.J."

On sale date is October 10. Oh, and the book includes pages and pages of source notes.