Reviewer Bias, Imperial Tongues and Other Letters to the Editor

A Chic Sketch

To the Editor:

Relating to “Day Jobs,” by Paul Karasik (Feb. 27): Sensible! Liked it! Framed it! Hung it! Thanks!

Elaine Cioffi
Paramus, N.J.

Lack of Focus

To the Editor:

I’m treading rigorously concerning Amy Bloom’s highly effective memoir “In Love” (March 6), about her husband’s Alzheimer’s and euthanasia, and the small print highlighted in Alex Witchel’s evaluate. (My husband had extra age-appropriate Alzheimer’s.) Citing Bloom’s husband’s declining curiosity in his wardrobe and her tv script appears maybe unfair given the larger image of his prognosis and an impossibly troublesome resolution for each.

Paula Burke Campbell
Washington, D.C.

Style Bias

To the Editor:

Relating to Becca Rothfeld’s evaluate of Rebecca Mead’s “House/Land: A Memoir of Departure and Return” (March 6): I used to be so excited after I noticed a difficulty dedicated to memoir. However why would you choose a reviewer who clearly has contempt for the entire style? “Embarrassing indulgences”? “Reviled species”? I attempted to think about a reviewer who bemoaned the tedium of getting to learn any novel, or any e-book of poetry, earlier than launching into her snooty tirade in opposition to a selected instance. It could by no means occur. Why, in 2022, is it nonetheless truthful recreation to trot out all of the previous, worn prejudices in opposition to memoirs?

Don’t invite these bullies to play on our a part of the literary playground.

Wayne Scott
Portland, Ore.

Indexing Humor

To the Editor:

Margalit Fox’s evaluate of Dennis Duncan’s “Index, A Historical past of the” (Feb. 27) jogged my memory of an entry within the index for William Kennedy’s “O Albany!” When it got here out, I regarded to see if my great-grandfather’s ice home was listed below the W’s. It wasn’t — however I used to be amused to see a close-by entry for “vote fraud” the place, relatively than present the web page numbers, the indexer indicated, “see Democratic Social gathering.” I’d by no means thought that an indexer might each editorialize and entertain.

Whereas the index consists of entries for “Prohibition,” “prostitution” and “Mafia, the,” there isn’t one for “speakeasy,” though my grandfather labored at such a “gents’s membership” throughout the road from the State Legislature; so below this class, the indexer might have indicated, “see New York State Capitol.”

Michael Wilpers
Silver Spring, Md.

♦

To the Editor:

I used to be a resident doctor in obstetrics and gynecology from 1982 to 1986. The authoritative textual content at the moment was a 1,179-page tome: “Williams Obstetrics, sixteenth Version” (1980). We had been anticipated to know each little bit of it. The authors had been college on the famend Parkland Hospital in Dallas. In perusing the index late one night time, considered one of my colleagues came across the next entry: “Chauvinism, male, voluminous quantities 1-1,102.” We additionally found “Eyes, of Texas are upon you, 1-1,102.” All of us liked this commentary and got here to confer with it because the revenge of the mad indexer. Had been the indexer and proofreader in collusion?

Susan Davidson
Madison, Wis.

Imperial Tongues

To the Editor:

In a letter (Feb. 27) responding to Amy Chua’s evaluate of Rosemary Salomane’s “The Rise of English,” Kibbe Fitzpatrick nonetheless searches “for the reply to why English might win a battle that Sanskrit, Greek and Latin couldn’t come near attaining.”

You don’t suppose the English-speaking British Empire — which coated about 25 p.c of the world’s land mass at its peak — might have had something to do with this, do you? Simply questioning.

Martin Wilson
Fernandina Seaside, Fla.

books@nytimes.com

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