Pulitzer Prize–winner Will (Men at Work
) serves up an engaging compilation of his columns and reviews from the past five years. Touching lightly on the Bush administration and heavily upon American history, good government, obituaries and baseball among other less schismatic topics, Will is at his most colorful when describing the intrigues and absurdities of great figures in American political history—FDR setting the price of gold from his bed, Churchill imperiously ordering bacon and alcohol from White House staff. Will is, in the late William Buckley’s words, the consummate “conservative high-priest,” who favors historical analogy and tasteful argumentation to partisan moralizing. The columns are uniformly excellent, but they are short-lived pleasures and can become disposable when read one after another—even the grouping by genre cannot obviate this—and these essays would have been better served had they been arranged chronologically. Nevertheless, this is a rewarding book, offering all the riches of a writer in full control of his medium and with plenty to tell. (June)
