Despite its eye-catching title, Grossed-Out Surgeon Vomits Inside Patient! is actually a fairly serious look at the history and phenomenon of tabloid newspapers. Having worked for nearly all the supermarket tabloids, Jim Hogshire is in a good position to know his subject, and he neither spares the tabs their due skewering, nor succumbs to the mainstream press’s penchant for dismissing these checkout-stand mainstays. Pointing out the impact of these widely circulated journals and their conservative political slant, Hogshire makes a strong case for the tabs reflecting and reinforcing a number of popular trends. Although the book suffers a bit from lack of footnotes and loose editing, it’s solid and enlightening, and reveals some surprising things about where the tabs come from, how their stories are researched (and often how they are fabricated), and who reads them.