Summer Reading...
 

Political books are rather popular these days. Walk into any Barnes & Noble, and you can find a table near the front that's home to dozens of hardback new releases, all on political topics, and all with a partisan or ideological bent. It's all fine and good to get political ideas from television or news, but books are where the better developed ideas are.

So, what are you reading?

I'm reading:

Reason, by Robert Reich
Big Lies, by Joe Conason
Blinded by the Right, by David Brock

Good to see you're trying to get a balanced reading.

I always ensure I read both left and right leaning material so I can better decide where I lay and prevent the whole lies stated so many times it becomes truth stuff *coughmoorecough*.

I'm currently reading Plan of Attack (I'm almost done with the bloody thing...) and am 3/4's through Tour of Duty. I also just finished reading Jennifer Government, a hilarious satire of a future "corporate republic".

I recently finished "The Gun and the Olive Branch: The Roots of Violence in the Middle East" by David Hirst. Fantastic book. Right now I'm on "Oslo and After" by Edward Said. Next I'm going to start on Ian Pappe.


SLM3

Just finished "Plan of Attack"
I have "The Rise of the Vulcans" started but put it on the back burner for Charles Kuralt's "A Life on the Road".
Time for some back-to-grass-roots populism. It's good to pay some attention to the lives of the citizens as well as those in the limelight, I think.

Rise to Revolution.

Not a political book per se, but a good novel on the American Revolution to remind me of what this country was built on.

Thanks Testudo, I've been looking for just such type of book!

Is it Rise to Revolution or Rise to Rebellion?

Goddamn it!!!

That's the SECOND TIME I've mis-named that frickin' book :D

It is Rise to Rebellion :cool:

It is a great book, following the seeds of the Revolution up to the Declaration of Independence (I don't think that can be considered a spoiler, right :D). There's a sequal called The Glorious Cause which follows the entire war.

Man, a flame and a moore bash in one post. Talk about going above and beyond the call of duty.

You're right that none of those three books are conservative leaning, but don't let that convince you that I don't hear the other side. I've got about twenty conservative websites bookmarked, and I read 3 or 4 of them daily.

The Reich book has a superb reading list in the back, conservative and liberal. I'm planning on going through several of the books it lists. Here are a few of the names in the conservative section:

Bennet, Bork, Hayek, Rand, Podhoretz, Buckley, and Goldwater.

To be perfectly honest, I'd much rather read some of those than read some of the right wing literature out there today. I find that the books written by conservative talk show hosts (radio and television) are particularly heavy on politics and light on thought.

hayek is interesting, i would recommend his stuff. von mises too.

the other conservatives on that list might be worth reading for anthropological interest, but thats about it (william bennet is a tough call though--i would suggest skipping him.)--i have worked through alot of stuff while trying to find some reason to take conservatism seriously, and i havent found anything in any of their work....

but good luck, maybe you'll fare differently.

as for ayn rand: she is easily, and by a long distance, the worst writer i have ever encountered anywhere.

you would do better reading that mistress of purple prose, anne rice, because no matter the shortcomings of her books (think the vampire trilogy) she can be entertaining in short bursts (enough to keep you going) and at least there are not people out there who confuse her with a Great Thinker.

atlas shrugged....the fountainhead--both made me think about driving tacks into my hands and how it would be better than reading her pretentious, vacant hackwork.

i would keep her stuff around for a period when the weather is about as mediocre as you can imagine, your car is broken, there is no beer left, you are stuck someplace that bores you stupid and for some reason feel like compounding the situation by reading some long turgid overrated piece of shit book.
she is perfect for that.

About to jump into this :
http://img35.photobucket.com/albums/...c6494_full.jpg

why?