White Guys Can't Jump...Or get their books reviewed in AM/New York?

What's this, a full page of book reviews.

Who would't want to find out what's best in SUMMER READING.

According to Melissa Kravitz, it's books by Daniela, Roselle, Kristen, Nicole, Jennifer and Uzma.

ALL WOMEN.

But let's not start getting all PC about it. At least ONE of them is a "woman of color." Right? Writes Ms. Kravitz:

"Every summer needs at least one solid Jane Austen classic retelling..." and Uzma's "retelling of "Pride and Predjucide" set in Toronto delivers. Poet Ayesha Shamsi fights the traditions of her Muslim family, unwilling to be place in an arranged marriage..."

Yes, that's certainly "SUBWAY BOOK CLUB" reading.

All you ladies on the D-train, shout your opinions over the noise and the panhandlers and the "watch the closing doors" announcements."

Give Melissa Kravitz credit for considering a book about Muslim traditions one of the "great escapes" of the summer.

"Patsy" by Nicole Dennis-Benn, in case you are a little tired of reading about Muslims every day in the newspaper, is about a woman who gets to "leave her native Jamaica and emigrate to America." That's subway reading, although you could just ask the person next to you on the train to Queens how she enjoyed Jamaica and emigrating to America.

Want some other ethnic diversity? Roselle's book is about a girl who "after her agoraphobic mothers' death...wants to reopen her grandmother's legendary restaurant and help save the Chinatown of her youth before gentrification completely obliterates the neighborhood." Yes, those damn white people. Who needs their diversity in Chinatown?

Melissa also has picked out the "debut novel of Florida-based librarian, writer and ravioli tweeter Kristen Arnett." Yes, "RAVIOLI TWEETER." Her book "takes readers to the hot and sticky climate of Florida." Who wouldn't want that?

Another book is a "coming of age" saga...as if that's anything special and...but why go on?

The IMPORTANT thing is that a full page is devoted solely to WOMEN. This is ok. Very PC. Because, well, MEN were dominating the literary world for too long, from Ernest Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald to John Steinbeck and Herman Wouk. Women could only get in there if they wrote trashy crap for other women..."Peyton Place" and "Beyond the Valley of the Dolls." There's been a great shortage of women writers, if you forget about Agatha Christie, P.D. James and all the Feehan and Robb types who turn out several books a year. You can also forget about J.K. Rowling and pudgy E.L. James. If you can. Their books are stacked pretty high at Barnes & Noble.

Oddly, the page you see in AM/NewYork doesn't say "CHIC LIT" on the top, it just says BOOKS, which implies that a reviewer MIGHT want to have something for everyone, even a guy looking for the next Philip Roth, Ross Macdonald or Jim Carroll. But no, those are all white guys, and besides, we know the stereotype. White guys can't jump, and they don't reach for a book when they can reach for a beer. White guys. There should be a bounty on 'em. Somebody (female) should write a book about how awful white guys are. Melissa Kravitz might review it.