Ben East Books

Grid of posts 2×3

  • Kush for FBI

    It’s little wonder the hunt for a new FBI Director seems to have ground to a halt. The country’s next top cop will be subservient to a criminal, whose charge sheet includes housing discrimination in NYC, fraud related to an eponymous university, bribery of a federal judge, tax and immigration violations, and sexual predation. This Whitman’s Sampler of criminal… Read more

  • We Have Better Writers

    Kevin Spacey tells Stephen Colbert why House of Cards makes for better viewing than the drama issuing daily from the ‘real’ White House. “I do believe we have better writers.” Season five binge-watching begins May 30. “I have to say, I think we’ve never been more relevant.” Earlier thoughts on the House of Cards opening credits… Not just some anodyne tour… Read more

  • In Flight Entertainment for POTUS

    What are Trump & Co. reading as they wing their way to Saudi Arabia tonight? Two Pumps for the Body Man! This black comedy set in Saudi Arabia does for American diplomacy what Catch 22 did for military logic: The enemy in the War on Terror can’t kill us if our own institutions kill us… Read more

  • The F-Bomb Drill

    A few years back my son told me about his day in kindergarten: ‘We practiced the truder drill. It’s like the fire drill, only instead of going outside we go to the back of the room. The teacher locks the door and pulls the shade. We all keep quiet.’ His anecdote about a potential armed… Read more

  • Mother Land: A Review for Mothers Day

    Stephen King reviews Paul Theroux’s new novel, Mother Land at the New York Times this week (PeaceCorpsWorldwide brought it to my attention). King gives voice to the love-hate relationship so many readers have with the Returned Peace Corps Volunteer, novelist and travel writer, whose prolific career spans nearly six decades and whose vicious pen reaches the furthest places on the… Read more

  • Happy Book Launch Day Vikram East!

    Congrats to Vikram East today as he launches his debut novel, Fun in Ancient Greece. The book manages to do for homework what homework never did for books: make learning fun! The assignment? Convince the elementary school principal to take the third grade class to one of four civilizations: Rome, Greece, Egypt, or China. Fascinated by gods and warriors, Vikram… Read more