BOOKS BOUGHT:

• Watergate—Thomas Mallon
• Assholes: A Theory—Aaron James
• The Summer of Naked Swim Parties—Jessica Anya Blau
• Drinking Closer to Home—Jessica Anya Blau
• Bedsit Disco Queen—Tracey Thorn

BOOKS READ:

• Assholes: A Theory—Aaron James
• How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia—Mohsin Hamid
• The Wonder Bread Summer—Jessica Anya Blau
• Note to Self—Alina Simone

I can tell you for a fact that when you pick up a book called Assholes: A Theory, and you notice that there is a chapter entitled Naming Names, your heart starts to beat a little faster—or it does if you fear you might have done something to bring yourself to the attention of the author of the book, philosopher Aaron James. You have never met Aaron James, you don’t think. (Except what if you did, somewhere, and didn’t afford him the respect he deserved and still deserves, and snubbed him, like an asshole? And, just to be clear, you the Snubber would be the asshole in this hypothetical situation, not James the Snubbed.) Nevertheless, could writing books and columns and scripts be enough for James to decide that you were worthy of inclusion? Not that the act of writing automatically makes you an asshole—although there is, of course, a compelling argument to be made that, actually, it kind of does—but writing things that Aaron James might have found objectionable in some way, or giving an unguarded and obnoxious interview when tired and/or drunk, could well earn an Asshole Academy Award nomination. And then you take a little peek, before buying the book, and you see the names of Noel Gallagher, Rush Limbaugh, Richard Dawkins, Henry VIII, Julian Assange, and Dick Cheney, and you think, What kind of asshole thinks he’s famous enough to be included in a list of famous assholes? You feel terrible. You notice a chapter entitled Newer Asshole Styles, and you check to see whether the mortifying solecism you have just committed is indeed an indicator of a newer asshole style. There is a section entitled Delusional Asshole. Is this you? Oh, god. Kanye West is in there. But maybe you should go in there with him, for daring to think that you’re as famously delusional as Kanye West…

You will notice two things about Aaron James’s little book. The first is that one cannot write about it without using the word asshole over and over again, just as James was unable to write the book itself without using the word over and over again. This relentlessness induces a mild hysteria: there are striking references to “cable news assholes,” “artist assholes,”...