Was your main beef with Britney and Lynne Spears' 2001 novel A Mother's Gift that it eventually drew to a close, rather than continuing on for an infinite number of pages, seemingly writing itself even as you read on, forever adding new chapters to the lives of musically gifted teenager Holly Lovell and her birthmarked mother, Wanda, whose "ugly red scar on the side of her face...makes people who don't know her turn away"?

This week's New Yorker features a 7600 word profile of Leon Panetta, Obama's choice to lead the CIA. Most notable among those 7600 words: Panetta's been wondering the same thing many have about the depths of Dick Cheney's dark soul.