The Haves and Have-Yachts: Dispatches on the Ultrarich
Nimbly reported ... The only part of Osnos’s book that has not been published before is an introduction that is not even 10 pages long, which feels a bit like cheating. Still, I grudgingly concede that this is about as good as a work of this sort could be ... Regrettably timely.
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There is something unconvincing about turning these pieces into a topical anthology ... This feeling deepens when you realize that some of the book’s sermonizing material about how Osnos’s hometown lost its Yankee propriety also appeared in his opprobrium-rich 2021 book Wildland: The Making of America’s Fury ...
The Haves and Have-Yachts is journalistic: descriptive, not prescriptive. It’s a prestige romp in the aloof mode of The New Yorker —a style that keeps passions at a minimum ... Memorable.
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If you enjoyed the gaudy 'let them eat wedding cake' drama that was Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sánchez’s wedding in Venice, this is the book for you. It is a field guide to the super-rich. You already knew they were different from you and me—but you had no idea quite how different ... Evan Osnos, a writer for The New Yorker, gained access to the world of the 0.00001 per cent and reports on their thinking and behaviour, their manners and delusions. Sure, it’s not the toughest beat but a hoot to chronicle—and even more fun to read ... There is plenty of serious analysis amid the tales of the rich behaving badly ... Those who want Osnos to go beyond chronicling the super rich’s proclivities and write a manifesto on how to run them off the road for good will have to look elsewhere. This is a field guide, not a how to manual ... The writing is better than the usual field guide, as you’d expect from a New Yorker chap ... The only irritation is the number of stories and interviews that are anonymous—but that goes with the gilded territory.
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