Recently in Books Category

A coworker asked me for reading advice the other day and I was left to suggest the non-fiction I happen to be reading at the moment.

Whenever books come up in conversation I'm always reminded that I just don't read enough fiction.

Right now I'm reading Kingdom Coming by Michelle Goldberg, Everything Bad is Good for You by Steven Johnson and Communicating Design by Dan Brown (not that Dan Brown, this one).

Booooorrrriiinnngggg

Not really but it isn't fiction. When I worked at AU, Rob Boston's passion for fiction and literacy inspired me to keep up with my reading. I never read as much as I should but since moving to LA its only gotten worse.

So I'm sending up this flare: Help me read more fiction!

Tell me about the best books you've read lately. I'm desperate. I don't care if its new or really old. And what the heck, recommend non-fiction too.

A few years ago my mom saw a book at the Bradley bookstore and was intrigued by the story. She bought it, read it, and was moved by the incredible personal journey of the author. The book was just a little memoir but it stuck in her memory.

Last week she was listening to Fresh Air with Terry Gross and became captivated with Senate candidate Barak Obama's tale of his life. She looked at my father and said "that sounds familiar."

She ran upstairs and pulled this book off the shelf. Looking at the cover she realized that the book she read all those years ago was Dreams From My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance by Barak Obama.

At the time he was a law professor interested in exploring and telling his story about his search for racial identity. My mother described the book to my father, at the time she first read it, as a profoundly well-written and genuine work.

If your conservative friends and family are feeling a little left out as you get to enjoy all of our fun liberal Bush-bash lit, St. Martin's Press has the solution. Their Thomas Dunne imprint has agreed to pay arch-conservative columnist Pat Buchanan around $500,000 for an anti-W book to be titled "Where the Right Went Wrong."

The book is expected to hit shelves in early August to coincide with the Republican National Convention where Buchanan will serve as a commentator for MSNBC. The New York Post reports that Buchanan will "will blast the Bush Administration for behaviors both domestic and foreign. He is particularly scornful of the U.S. foreign policy that has "ignited a war of civilizations" with the Islamic world."

Buy it as a Labor Day gift for the conservative in your family, they will appreciate the irony.

\x82\xC4\xFAI put my arms around him yes and drew him down to me so he could feel my breasts all perfume yes and his heart was going like mad and yes I said yes I will Yes.\x82\xC4\xF9

A great book? Yes it is Yes.

Again Krugman's column is just what the doctor ordered. For those not keeping track of world events here is the rundown of late: Step 1) small piece of inconclusive evidence located, Step 2) Bush makes big pronouncement, Step 3) Blair nods along, Step 4) British newspapers break intelligence failures, Step 5) Blair threatened domestically, Step 6) US criticism minimal. Rinse and repeat.

Paul Krugman just gets better with every column. This guy is my new hero.
Goal: Write like Paul Krugman.

WMD hide and seek, cooked intel, dog wagging, and Showtime docudrama: Waggy Dog Stories by Paul Krugman, well worth the read.

This past Friday morning signaled a new age in the land of samfelder.com. Julie and I began receiving the New York Times 7 days a week. I cannot begin to explain how wonderful it feels to get up early to read the paper.

This morning's paper came with a gem of a Paul Krugman column. "[T]he people now running America aren't conservatives: they're radicals who want to do away with the social and economic system we have, and the fiscal crisis they are concocting may give them the excuse they need." Paul Krugman congratulates the Financial Times of stating the obvious.

by Wilfred Owen
First Published in 1921

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of gas shells dropping softly behind.

Gas! Gas! Quick, boys! - An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;
But someone was yelling out and stumbling,
And flound'ring like a man in fire or lime . . .
Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.

In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues, -
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.

[The title is from a line of Horace Odes Book III Ode II - "It is sweet and honourable to die for one's country." or "What joy, for fatherland to die!"]

A Red-Blue Terror Alert by Paul Krugman outlines the inability of the Bush administration to alter their views to adapt to a new world. In the words of Jonathan Chait of The New Republic, Bush is a 9/10 President and hasn't changed anything but his popularity since September 11, 2001.

Meanwhile the economy continues to flush itself down the toilet and the Bush administration weakens oversight. A whopping 108,000 jobs were lost in March adding to the 2.4 million lost over the last two years. Oooh those tax cuts feel good and helpful, let's get some more o' that trickle down action! As Mr. Krugman states in another Op-Ed piece "the recovery can't officially stall since it hasn't officially begun: the committee that rules on such matters still hasn't declared the recession that began in March 2001 over."

Does this mean that there is hope for a Democratic candidate in 2004? While it is far to early to say much of anything here is what we know: Karl Rove is prepping for a post-war Bush = war hero campaign, John Kerry is starting to stand up to the Republican attack dogs (unlike them he actually has military experience), Dean got a book deal and is beefing up his staff, and Edwards heads to Iowa and is as handsome as ever.

A Reckless Path in the Washington Times by Paul Craig Roberts
Will Bush be impeached? Will he be called a war criminal? These are not hyperbolic questions. Mr. Bush has permitted a small cadre of neoconservatives to isolate him from world opinion, putting him at odds with the United Nations and America's allies.

OCCUPATION: No Model for This One in the Washington Post by Ret. Gen. Wesley Clark
He had been a hero in World War I, and a very young Army chief of staff. As a retired general, he accepted an appointment to the Philippines and was later recalled to active duty. As the commander there, he suffered the humiliation of early defeat and the loss of his force. He fought back, later accepted Japan's surrender, and, as the supreme commander of the occupation forces, set out to remake a nation. And he largely succeeded.

DISSENT: Antiwar and Postwar, Too? You Bet in the Washington Post by Robert Kuttner
What does an antiwar movement do with a war likely to be over in a matter of weeks? Plenty, it turns out.

War Is Personal in the New York Times by Bob Herbert
The sudden loss of life, as seen in reminders direct from the battlefield, is not given nearly enough thought when we consider going to war.

The West Has Given Saddam The Role He Always Longed For in the Manchester Guardian by Said Aburish
The Iraqi dictator's brutal successes may now appear greater in retrospect.

Only Iraqis Can Decide in the Manchester Guardian by Neal Acherson
If the US denies Iraq democracy and independence, its freedom will be bought with blood.