New York Times hack columnist David Brooks returns to the ranks of the unreadable with what might be generously termed pop psychology. Usually, though, the practitioners of that art start off with something real, like substance abuse, divorced women, or Snooki, and let it rip from there.

But a true faux intellectual like Brooks doesn't bother with stupid boring things like facts. Instead, he just makes s*** up. This time, his insufferable yet banal observations are based not on reality, but on a couple of stick figures he creates and then populates with whatever qualities he thinks he can spin out into a book.

You can plow through several hundred pages of clichés about Harry and Louise and their children Alvin, Simon, and Theodore if you like. We'll save the $27 and instead wonder why it is that Brooks is treated like a serious thinker. It must be because he's one of the few supposedly conservative intellectuals who doesn't believe that America is in the grip of a Kenyan socialist/international Jewish conspiracy. The next time you hear someone refer to Brooks as "distinguished," you'll know what they're distinguishing him from.

Unlike the book just dismissed, this one makes us sad. We always kind of liked Caroline Kennedy, because she was the smart one who cared about ideas, like human rights and justice. And she was willing to date Jewish guys, whether or not they were junkies. Perhaps she didn't walk in beauty, but she walked self-effacingly in the service of good causes.

So what the hell happened? Maybe her interest in poetry was sparked by her inability to express herself in words when she was asked intrusive questions like "Why do you think you'd be a good Senator?" We haven't read that much modern poetry written by women [You haven't read any, actually – Book Review Intern][That will do – Book Review Ed.] but we don't think that Sylvia Plath, Adrienne Rich, Elizabeth Bishop or [Note to intern: Put in names of three more women poets here. Also no cinnamon in the cappuccino this time. – Book Review Ed.] regarded the physical attractiveness vel non of a woman or indeed her surroundings as the core concern of their work.

She can't possibly need the money, can she? Could her relatives have squandered several hundred million dollars? Couldn't she figure out a less demeaning way to generate some pelf, like designing shoes and selling them on QVC? That would be a beautiful thing. 

Cookbooks supposedly written by celebrities frequently grace the ranks of the unreadable, but here's a special shout out for one supposedly written by someone who obviously hasn't been able to keep down anything she or anyone else cooked since oh we'll guess 1978.

Not only is the idea of a cookbook by a bulimic with a nutty preoccupation with colon cleansing inherently dubious, she gets unreadable bonus points for attempting to forestall any obvious criticism by invoking her dead father, in the title no less.

Well, we all have fathers and Gwynnie's is not the only one who's died. This sad but not remarkable fact did not send publishers flocking to our door offering cookbook deals, perhaps because our packager did not pepper our proposal with heartwarming stories about all the magnificent Thanksgiving dinners we tossed at our country house or our favorite family-style recipes for enemas. In fact, the whole idea of a cookbook with Gwyneth Paltrow's picture on the cover is, well, nauseating.