Books: Children, Eat Your Trash!

Johnson calls this principle the Sleeper Curve, for the Woody Allen movie in which future scientists discover the health benefits of junk food. Everything Bad is not junk criticism; it is a brisk, witty read, well versed in the history of literature and bolstered with research--for instance, even as electronic media have supposedly "dumbed down" society, IQs in the developed world have been increasing three points a decade for a century. Johnson, it turns out, still knows the value of reading a book. And this one is indispensable. --By James Poniewozik