In case you can’t get enough Richard Pipes, Jay Nordlinger has a review of his recent autobiogrpahy (Vixi: Memoirs of a Non-Belonger) in the currennt issue of National Review (subscription required). Here is Nordlinger’s take:
It is stirring to be in the company of this mind — Pipes’s, not Butler’s — for 250 pages. They are filled with immense learning and insight. They are leavened, too, by humor and idiosyncratic asides. The story of his marriage to Irene, a tall and warm beauty, is touching. And I happen to find touching Pipes’s notorious stubbornness — often a kind of righteous stubbornness. He tells a funny tale about having to visit the Soviet Embassy after Brezhnev died, and being asked to sign the condolence book. Trapped, he thought fast: and did sign his name, but completely illegibly.
If I wasn’t completely behing on my reading I would be tempted to pick this one up and move it to the top of my reading list.
