Little White Lies, Deep Dark Secrets: The Truth About Why Women Lie (St. Martin’s Press, $23.95) is the latest from “gender expert” Susan Shapiro Barash. I picked it up out of idle curiosity (are women’s reasons for lying really different from men’s?) and would have put it straight back down (the writing is shockingly bad), but I was struck by the bold amorality of Ms. Barash’s approach: “I neither condemn nor condone the lies women tell,” she solemnly declares. Turns out that’s a lie. In fact, she thinks fibs are fab. Here’s the final sentence of her book, the sum of the wisdom she’s squeezed from “extensive personal interviews with women and experts in the field of psychology and counseling”:

“In my research for Little White Lies, Deep Dark Secrets, I’ve come to recognize lying as an inestimable weapon in the female arsenal as women search for personal retribution and satisfaction.” Inestimable weapon? Female arsenal? Personal retribution? Looks like the gender wars are heating up.  read more »

Louis Auchincloss’ fans will be happy to celebrate his 90th birthday later this month with The Headmaster’s Dilemma, a novel that puts his grand total at more than 60 books of assorted fiction and nonfiction.  read more »