BRICs on the Beach
Thursday, August 30th, 2007 by Hugh KennedyIt’s summer, I’m told, and this year we packed up the dogs as well as my sister and her son (my brother-in-law was in waiting for my niece’s arrival back from doing the Silk Road thing in China), and headed for Inverness, Nova Scotia. The beach there is pretty swell, but you have to be willing to drive 14 hours from Boston to get to it.
I was determined to do a bit of beach reading, and after finding even a pop psychology book on happiness too demanding to compete with the waves and sun, I turned to the latest Vanity Fair. After the first 168 pages of ads, the editorial lurched into view. There was a wonderful story on Rudy’s new wife called “Terror Alert,” and then, right at the opening of a big puff piece on Brazil, a short essay from A.A. Gill. Only 500 words or so, but some of the best non-fiction I’ve read all year. Right there, in the middle of Gisele Bündchen’s cleavage, was a brilliant distillation of the BRIC countries: (more…)

