- Liz Brown reviews William Graebner's new Patty Hearst bio for Newsday: "Graebner looks . . . at Hearst's story writ large, touching on questions of class hostility, free will, paranoia and Stockholm syndrome . . . [but] doesn't always probe or reinforce the connections between his cultural touchpoints." At Kill Fee, Liz posts a photo of Hearst and a link to video of her famous bank robbery.
- For the New York Times Book Review, Hugh Eakin reviews Sharon Waxman's new book Loot, about the attempts to repatriate from Western museums cultural artifacts plundered both long ago and recently:
How did museums become looters? To Waxman, a former culture reporter for The Washington Post and The New York Times, the problem is part of a larger battle about history, in which “once-colonized nations” are seeking to reclaim the “tangible symbols” of national identity from the “great cultural shrines of the West.
- Rachel Donadio describes for the New York Times how Italy is reacting to Silvio Berlusconi's reference to Obama's "suntan."
- Henry Alford tries to induce remorse.