I review books on the United States for Foreign Affairs; that means every couple of months a huge box of books arrives at the stately Mead manor and I go through piles of books trying to decide which ones to read for review. It's a lot of work for not much product; the "capsule" reviews are about 200 words each. That's much the same length as the book reports I used to write for Mrs. West back in the third grade; if I'd known how important this literary form was going to be to my future career,...