Think of how easy it might have been to understand Arianna Huffington's bloggy animus toward Tim Russert if there were a book out chronicling all the sordid details of their decade-and-a-half-long secret feud. (There is.) Every gossip-mongering gadabout should know the full backstory on every spat, falling out, and long-running mutual antagonism in media. Below are the volumes no shelf should be without.

Call us sentimental, but when you're reviewing the closing chapter in Pulitzer-winning American author Philip Roth's decades-long love affair with himself (aka Nathan Zuckerman), it's less than classy to suggest his literary climax has so failed you that the man ought to investigate erectile dysfunction drugs. Was Michael Weiss really all that surprised by Exit Ghost's "self-referential, filth for the sake of filth" nature? It's Roth, for chrissakes. We think recent Dartmouth grads yearning for National Book Awards of their own would really do well to keep their Roth reviews out of the tabloids until they've produced something slightly longer than blog posts and freelance pieces for Slate. (Uh, yes, we will make every effort to heed our own advice—until it's slightly more profitable to part with our own integrity, at which point we will gladly excoriate our own dirty narcissistic heroes for a $125 and a byline.)