A Chat with Sidney

Today, for a brief interlude between longer books, I'm continuing an annual tradition of spending some time with the winners of the Sidney Awards, named for philosopher Sidney Hook.

This year, my selections are pretty diverse:

• Dr. Don: The Life of a Small-Town Druggist, by Peter Hessler in The New Yorker
  • 9/10 - a whimsical, gently told narrative, character-driven and subtly shaped.
    
• A Beauty, by Robert Boyers in AGNI Online
  • 5/10 - a bit esoteric and abstract for my taste, but the style is appropriate, given the topic.
    
• The Order of Things: What College Rankings Really Tell Us, by Malcolm Gladwell in The New Yorker
  • 6/10 - statistically based, but not to an extreme. The parallel anecdotes are extensive, almost to the point of distraction.
    
• The Accidental Universe: Science's Crisis of Faith, by Alan P. Lightman in Harper's Magazine
  • 6/10 - interesting content, but the casual narrative style seems to clash with the more formal statistical explanations at points.
    
• The Bitch Is Back, by Sandra Tsing Loh in The Atlantic
  • 6/10 - witty and (I suspect) insightful. I'll have to re-read it in 20 years to be sure.
    
• The Epidemic of Mental Illness, Why?, by Marcia Angell in The New York Review of Books
  • 7/10 - weaves together approachable background information with a convincing presentation of the implications. I would pick up any of these three books.
    
  • Part II of Angell's review is called The Illusions of Psychiatry.
    
• The Movie Set that Ate Itself, by Michael Idov in GQ
  • 8/10 - fascinating and slightly unnerving. I would be curious to see the film if it's ever completed and released internationally.
    

My top pick? At least in this universe, I'll have to go with Dr. Don.