Ya burnt, John O'Hara

Of the many delights of LIFE ITSELF, just one for now: Roger Ebert recalls a college professor who deemed John O'Hara a "first-rate second-rate author" -- fine with young Roger whose tastes leaned more toward Thomas Wolfe instead. Ebert would later review his professor's book badly, and then be capsized with guilt over it, but appreciate his words sometime later when he almost flunked out of study-abroad eligibility.

It's a great book, is what I'm saying, and I'm glad one of my coworkers (hey, P.!) is reading it simultaneously so we can talk about it later.To be a little unfair to a writer I otherwise like, this is the kind of nostalgia book THE LIFE AND TIMES OF THE THUNDERBOLT KID wishes it was.