This really fries me. I barely have enough time to read the damn thing each week anyway. And I normally get it on Wednesday, six days after publication, which is bad enough. But the issue two weeks ago was delayed an extra full week, meaning I got it two weeks after publication. With two issues arriving at once last Wednesday, I have extra chunky reading this week. Good thing I have an airplane flight on Thursday.

The sleuths at That's Beijing magazine are here with the skinny behind the delay. From their weekly e-mail update:

A recent issue of The Economist ran a long review of Jung Chang's new biography of Mao (Mao: The Unknown Story), which review you will look for in vain in copies of The Economist bought in Beijing.

Well, it's not much information, but at least it's an explanation. For the record, my subscription, which is administered and delivered by the China State Publications Bureau, an organization clearly steeped in the up-to-the-minute, go-go culture of fast-breaking news, did include the review.

Jung Chang is the author of the popular memoir, Wild Swans. The Mao book looks interesting, if a bit polemical. The review recounts several of the allegations leveled at Mao in the book. It won't be much you haven't heard before. But let us say that it seems unleavened by any recognition of Mao's statesmanship, such as it was. Some axe-grinding is audible.

The Economist's website is subscription only (and my state-administered print subscription doesn't include the normal complementary web access - I won't make that mistake again). However, The Times, of the UK, has a lengthy review here, if you're interested.

Just another one of the small burdens of life under the gaze of the nanny.