From NYRB, a review of unChristian: What a New Generation Really Thinks about Christianity... and Why It Matters and The Scandalous Gospel of Jesus: What's So Good about the Good News? More on John Allen Paulos' Irreligion. Carlin Romano on the triumph of "smugism": The philosopher John Gray's certainty is certainly unwarranted. What makes a biopolitical space? An interview with Toni Negri. Instead of promoting the sharing of ideas among friends, social networking sites promote posturing and marketing, friendship as spectatorship, and give us the attention we crave (and how Facebook is like Ikea). The secrets of attraction: What makes a person desirable? From TLS, a review of Freedom and Neurobiology by John Searle. Jonah Lehrer on misreading the mind: If neuroscientists want to understand consciousness, they'll need new methods (and here's Bookforum's review of Proust Was a Neuroscientist). From The Magazineer, an article on how to read The New Yorker in 10 easy steps. Ruth Franklin on the nasty truth about a new literary heroine, Irene Nemirovsky. Yuval Levin and Ramesh Ponnuru on conservative populism, rightly understood. From IHE, an article on solving "The English Student’s Dilemma"; and here are eight academic debates that aren’t worth the calories, let along the anguish. A review of Life's Too F*ing Short by Janet Street Porter.
