The New Republic

Praise Jesus and pass the chinchilla, fur is hot again. For the last several years, the skinned-animal taboo has been receding, and now, with Beyonce sporting the look and Neiman Marcus hawking fur scrunchies, everyone is panting after fashion's ultimate luxury symbol. Muffs, socks, mittens, wraps--you name the accoutrement, it can be upgraded with a touch of mink. Or, better yet, sable. When contemplating an expenditure of this financial and spiritual magnitude, however, it is important not to go off half-cocked, rummaging through the racks at any old department store. READ MORE >>

Catholic Matters: Confusion, Controversy, And The Splendor Of Truth By Richard John Neuhaus (Basic Books, 272 pp., $25) READ MORE >>

Violence is scary. Violence is sexy. Violence is wrong. Violence is righteous. Violence is a problem. Violence is the solution. Befitting its title, David Cronenberg's film A History of Violence comprises all these definitions and more. READ MORE >>

NightBy Elie Wiesel Translated by Marion Wiesel(Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 120 pp., $9) READ MORE >>

COVERING: THE HIDDEN ASSAULT ON OUR CIVIL RIGHTS. By Kenji Yoshino(Random House, 268 pp., $24.95)  READ MORE >>

TSOTSI (Miramax) THE FILM SNOB’S DICTIONARY (Broadway Books)  READ MORE >>

Nature, in its limited wisdom, gave us four seasons. The New York Times and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences have added a fifth: Oscar season--the time of year when movie studios advertise their most "important" films, when over 6,000 members ponder whom or what to grant Academy honors, and when millions of Times readers slog through tens of thousands of words of Oscar news. The forecast: parties and celebrities with a chance of irrelevant gossip. READ MORE >>

"It satisfied desire and created desire."—DeVoto For my sister All night it kept up its music, the Boulder River, skirmishing across a shallow bed of stones beyond the cottonwood, Russian olive and poplar, the tangled mosquitoey woods where cattle browse. Cabled in its quick places, glassy in its deep, the river had no particular claim on me (though I have known other rivers that did), except that it inhabited my sleep, READ MORE >>

SIEGFRIED SASSOON: A LIFE By Max Egremont (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 597 pp., $27)    I. READ MORE >>

WITNESSING THEIR FAITH: RELIGIOUS INFLUENCE ON SUPREME COURT JUSTICES AND THEIR OPINIONS By Jay Alan Sekulow(Rowman & Littlefield, 349 pp., $27.95) I.   THE CONFIRMATION OF JUSTICE Samuel Alito brings to five the number of Catholics on the Supreme Court of the United States. All Americans can be proud of this fact, or more precisely, proud of the fact that Alito’s religious affiliation never became an issue during his confirmation process. It marks tremendous progress over a constitutional history in which the fear of Catholicism was a recurrent theme. READ MORE >>