The Leaders We Deserved (and a Few We Didn't): Rethinking the Presidential Rating Game13 reviews Alvin S. Felzenberg Basic Books, 2008 Fresh, unconvential take on presidential ratings + Interesting, Educational...and Somewhat Biased + Truth in Ratings + Move Over, Arthur Schlesinger! + A Fun and Very Informative Book             The Uprising: An Unauthorized Tour of the Populist Revolt Scaring Wall Street and Washington11 reviews David Sirota Crown, 2008 Excellent Read + Read this book! You will learn something new from reading this book. David Sirota provides first hand accounts of populist movements around the US. I learned about the Working Family Party in New York and fusion. I also got a new perspective on Washington driven faux uprisings vs. real uprisings. The book ...             Obscene in the Extreme: The Burning and Banning of John Steinbeck's the Grapes of Wrath3 reviews Rick Wartzman PublicAffairs, 2008 Likely to Become the Defining Work on the History of Labor and Farming in the Valley in the 1930s + Excellent study of the attempted banning of a classic + Great, but I wish it were longer Was the "Grapes of Wrath" a nonfiction work disguised as a novel? Apparently, the County Board of Supervisors in Kern County California thought just that. The book, and Steinbeck, irritated them to the point that they decided to ban the work and prohibit its sale from bookstores (not that there ...             Energy Victory: Winning the War on Terror by Breaking Free of Oil54 reviews Robert Zubrin Prometheus Books, 2007 A promising and powerful vision of the future. Highly recommended! + A MUST READ Whether you're interested in your pocketbook, your safety, or your environment, this book should be on your Must Read list. Zubrin does an excellent job of summarizing the horrible current energy situation and of outlining a viable plan for world prosperity and energy independence. The ...             Unaccustomed Earth119 reviews Jhumpa Lahiri Knopf, 2008 A Perfect 10 + Book of short stories - Cover to cover without a break? + It was so good, it made me cry + Rich with detail and complexity, these short stories are novels that end too soon + Emotions will linger long after you've finished the book             Just How Stupid Are We?: Facing the Truth About the American Voter42 reviews Rick Shenkman Basic Books, 2008 Just How Stupid Are We? by Rick Shenkman + Something to Think About As an immigrant of the 1950s, and now a naturalized citizen, the book was an eye opener for me from the perspective of history of our country. Being a political "junky" and a moderate, it was reasonably possible for an individual like me to predict the future of the country from the last 50 years ...             Raptured: The Final Daze of the Late, Great Planet Earth (Kiss My Left Behind series)6 reviews Earl Lee See Sharp Press, 2007 A one, two knockout! + Raptured + Spirits lifted! + Hilarious! + Wow!!!             Under The Eagle's Wing: A National Security Strategy of the United States for 2009 (Speaker's Corner)2 reviews Gary Hart Fulcrum Pub, 2008 A Sane Path to the Future + Path to success for the next administration Once again, Senator Hart gives a very understandable outline for a sensible national security strategy for the next president. I hope Senator Obama reads it well. This and Senator Hart's other recent books are the best, since George Kennan's work that led to the "containment policy," to clarify a ...             Manufactured Landscapes: The Photographs of Edward Burtynsky8 reviews Lori Pauli, Michael Torosian Yale University Press, 2003 Manufactured Landscapes + dramatic + Art & patience I viewed the original exhibition at the National Arts Gallery in Ottawa a few years back. The images are breathtaking, unnerving and awe inspiring.             You Are STILL Being Lied To: The NEW Disinformation Guide to Media Distortion, Historical Whitewashes and ... Russ Kick The Disinformation Company, 2008 A must-have revised and expanded edition of The Disinformation Company's classic anthology, You Are STILL Being Lied To contains more than a dozen all-new essays from contributors like Norman Solomon, Graham Hancock, Alex Jones, John Major Jenkins, Robert Bauval, Richard DeGrandpre, Alexandra Bruce, John Hogue, Gregory Davis, and Scott Creighton on topics ranging from the misleading marketing ...             God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything802 reviews Christopher Hitchens Twelve Books, Hachette Book Group, 2007 logical, but superficial to some extent + Reason and Free-Thought Can Prevail Over Dictums I read "God is not great" relatively quickly, despite many thoughts rushing throung my head while I was reading. I am happy I read this book, which is one of many recently published in the never-ending polemics between believers and atheists. I feel that it is hard to review a book so popular, and ...             Barack Obama: This Improbable Quest6 reviews John K. Wilson Paradigm Publishers, 2007 A Great Book + Get to know Obama + What makes Barack Obama a skilled politician? I am 68 years old and I have never been as excited about any politician since John F. Kennedy. This man has integrity . I really enjoyed reading this book. John K. Wilson kept my interest and curiosity.             How The Rich Are Destroying the Earth (Foreword by Greg Palast)21 reviews Hervé Kempf Chelsea Green Publishing, 2008 Revolution in the air + Clearly written, concise and provcative + Old Environmental Issues Updated I watch a lot of documentaries and read books on this same theme, so most of what he discusses I was already aware. I thoroughly enjoyed his writing style and appreciated the concise way he got his point across. I think this is the perfect book to give as gifts due to its content and size. It does ...             The Next Government of the United States: Why Our Institutions Fail Us and How To Fix Them Donald F. Kettl W. W. Norton, 2008 This book exposes the reality that our twentieth-century government is no match for twenty-first-century problems and proposes a solution. In this timely and compelling book, Donald F. Kettl demonstrates how the process of governance has fallen out of sync with the problems the government is trying to solve. Pick almost any recent domestic concern—waging a war, protecting our food supply ...             50 Facts That Should Change The USA Stephen Fender The Disinformation Company, 2008 Are Americans being told the full story about what's going on in the United States today? In this book, you'll learn hard facts that will open your eyes and minds to a very different reality than the official versions. Following the popular 50 Facts That Should Change The World , this new book puts our nation under the microscope, telling us that: The United States of America is a country ...             This Page Intentionally Left Blank - Just Like the Paychecks of the Workers3 reviews Robert S. Swiatek Aventine Press, 2007 Imaginative and Funny + This Page Intentionally Left Blank + Swiatek Uses Straight Talk to Unravel Tangled Web of Injustice This book tells the truth about America today in a folksy, entertaining style. Swiatek exposes all the ways in which middle-class people are getting the short end of the stick, with an emphasis on our mind-numbing and health-devastating world of work. Politics are also fair game for Swiatek's ...             The Strange Death of Republican America: Chronicles of a Collapsing Party9 reviews Sidney Blumenthal Union Square Press, 2008 the sooner . . . the better + Two Strange Deaths + Hope it is true! + Blumenthal succeeds again! + The Title is Great             Trainwreck: The End of the Conservative Revolution (and Not a Moment Too Soon)8 reviews Bill Press Wiley, 2008 Informative, and a "need to read" for all Americans + Did not hit the jugular + Corporatism, not conservatism. + The truth always hurts             Crunch: Why Do I Feel So Squeezed? (And Other Unsolved Economic Mysteries)13 reviews Jared Bernstein Berrett-Koehler Publishers, 2008 Sociology is Not Economics + Debating Dad - We are Crunched but is the world improving? + Good Counterpoint to the Neo-Con Side but not Fully Convincing + Ecoomic Realities 101 + America's Sick Economy Explained             Goodnight Bush: A Parody59 reviews Gan Golan, Erich Origen Little, Brown and Company, 2008 Excellent teaching tool! + GOODNIGHT BUSH & CO. + Good night Bush is Hello hilarious! + Brutally funny take on the Bush years