This is for You, J.F.

For the intended recipient, the jury is still out on the perspicacity of this writer. Although our posts have been increasingly infrequent, we do realize that frequency and entertainment value are, well...valued by our readers.

I'm privileged to be able to preview a certain percentage of upcoming literary releases (heavily weighted toward fiction, I might add), and I hope to be able to use this forum to share piquant passages from that literature.

So, this one's for you, J.

Should democracy be applied like a tourniquet? Or a suppository?

Talk amongst yourselves.

And for you, J., if you want to go "slumming," try 038551722X. To my mind, it's a cross between C. Buckley and J.S. Foer. Accessible, yet bizarre. Satiric, yet filled with cultural iconoclasm.