Never Let Anyone Outside the Family Know What You're Thinking

It's a big ol' NYTBR this week, and though the year-end roundups and the massive Daniel Mendolsohn essay on Truman Capote probably have the strongest gravitational pull this week, I was pleased to see Neil Gaiman writing about Grimm's fairy tales and Sarah Vowell on The Godfather Returns, which she liked enough to actually make me interested enough to maybe try and scrounge a copy one of these days.

In his column on the bestseller lists, Dwight Garner notes observes that Mark Winegardner's authorized sequel "has received generally positive reviews." Not, however, in other parts of the Times, where Michiko Kakutani called it "a meal made from leftovers" while allowing that "as these sorts of follows-up go, it's a solid enough performance: dutiful, suspenseful, and only occasionally annoying." But Garner's right, the book has gotten some better reviews elsewhere; the early word from PW was good, and Jeff Guinn of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram liked it so much he also interviewed Winegardner. In Las Vegas, though, Jon Ziebell is less impressed--but it's actually rather surprising, at least to me, that he has nothing to say about whether or not the book depicts Vegas--where, apparently, the bulk of the story takes place--accurately. In fact, from Ziebell's review, you wouldn't even know the Corleones had anything to do with Vegas. Very strange.