Department of Book Reports: Banned Books Week

We are nearing the end of this years Banned Books Week, sponsored by, amongst others, the American Library Association and the American Booksellers Association, all as part of the effort to bring attention to those who would ban books.

Of course there has always been those that would ban books. The Catholic Church had its Index. The Nazis staged public book burnings. Ulysses was banned for US import until 1934. Both Lady Chatterly's Lover and Naked Lunch were banned in Boston. Mayor Palin, almost immediately after assuming office, wanted to know how to go about banning books in her hometown burg. It makes one wonder why.

Books can be dangerous. Many contain ideas. Sometimes unpopular ideas. Ideas that may make one think. Ideas that engage and transform us. Ideas that set off our imaginations. Ideas that can change the way we see the world. Ideas that may make decide to help change the world for the better. Clearly books can be subversive. And we can't have that! An informed and imaginative people could do incredible things.

The blogosphere has done a good job this week of alerting us to this week. The General linked activities revolving around Banned Books week in Second Life here. Crooks and Liars has covered it well, too. I'm sure I'm missing others. What is your favorite Banned Book? Do you have any stories about censorship and the banning of books in your locality?

In the meantime, enjoy this favorite tune of démocommié™™™™™©®ç au courant.


This book report was brought to you by the soon to be resurrected Jackson Street Books
top photo: thnx boingboing.

Department of Book Reports: And, We're Back!

Well, we have Big News this week! Jackson Street Books has flung open it's doors once again! We have moved all the cartons of books into the house and are madly unpacking, even as you read this. You may now once again order books through biblio.com, abe.com, www.jacksonst-books.com, or by simply sending us an email to info@jacksonst-books.com And, hey! If you're going to the beach, you better stop by and see us!

While we do have 5,963 books listed, this is only about a third of the books we actually have, so if you are looking for an out-of-print treasure, or a cheap paperback copy, we'll look around and let you know if we have it. We can special order titles for you, and we will carry copies of the books that are on the General's Bookshelf. New or Used, we can get it for you.

The virtual bookstore at Second Life has been great fun and promises to be an exciting venue for show-casing authors. Dano is now DJing occasionally, and our events can be found at Thinking Liberally. Really, it's easy! If you can watch youtubes, your computer can probably handle doing Second Life, what are you waiting for? We'd love to see you there!

So, what's on your nightstand? I've been reading Wintergreen, by Robert Michael Pyle ( Houghton, used paperback $5.00 ) and his most recent award winning volume, Sky Time in Gray's River: Living For Keeps in a Forgotten Place by Robert Michael Pyle ($20.00 Signed First Edition, Houghton Mifflin) It's a naturalist's take on SW Washington, a good intro and history of our new region. I'm a native of SW WA, and my other favorites have included A Good Rain by Timothy Egan, and Sarah Canary by Karen Joy Fowler. My question this week, what book(s) best inform where you live or would love to live?

As always, lovely books can be found at your favorite independent bookstore.

Teaching proper values

Dear Mrs. Claybrook,

The article* in the Tri-City Herald prompted me to check into these homosexual books that you are attempting to have locked up. Like you, I was appalled. King and King and My Two Uncles send a very dangerous message to our children, a message that homosexuals should be afforded dignity.

Tolerance is becoming a real problem in our society. When I was a kid, we'd beat the living hell out of any kid who was called a homosexual. It didn't matter if it was true--in fact, we never believed it to be true, because we knew that it was impossible for anyone to be a homosexual in our nice little God-fearing Mormon community--it only mattered that someone had called him a homosexual. That was enough for a stomping.

Today's kids aren't blessed with that kind of cultural guidance. Television and bleeding heart liberals tell them that it's OK to be a homosexual. Now you hear of kids who dare admit their orientation in public. They are no longer afraid of getting beaten.

We need to change that before all of our children succumb to the siren song of homosexuality. I say burn these books about tolerance and bring back the beatings. We need to do it for the good of the children.

Thank you for doing your part.

Gen. JC Christian, patriot

Article requires registration. Here's part of it:

Kristine Claybrook doesn't want to be surprised when she reads to her two children in the public library and finds gay-oriented characters or themes in a book.

"We feel the library should be a safe place for our children to browse without being exposed to this sort of lifestyle," said the 26-year-old mother. Her strong faith in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints anchors her and her family's values, she said.

She is shocked the Mid-Columbia Library District has put books such as King & King and My Two Uncles in its children's section. She believes the books, which address issues facing families that include homosexuals, should be kept in a separate section of the library.

She and other like-minded mothers have discussed the issue since one of them first came across one of the books in January.

"She was just appalled," Claybrook said. Since then, she and her husband Paul have written complaints to the 11-branch district, which has 67,460 registered users and an annual circulation of nearly 1 million items.

Pepper Schwartz, a University of Washington professor of sociology, said the debate over gay issues intensifies when it involves children.

"I respect the intense urge to protect one's children," she said. "But in this case, I think parents may be whipped up in a conservative frenzy. I really don't think there is any danger of any sort."

Since Heather Has Two Mommies, by Leslea Newman, was published in 1989 there has been criticism about such books being shelved in children's sections of libraries.

The Mid-Columbia Library district has six copies of King & King and five copies of My Two Uncles at its 11 branches.

"It's trying to push this kind of lifestyle on people," Claybrook said. "It doesn't coincide with the majority of the (Mid-Columbia's) population, which is conservative."

Schwartz disagrees: "I don't think children are at risk because (the books) are on the bookshelf. ... The jump from reading a book about tolerance to trying homosexuality is not clear to me."

Schwartz, co-author of the book Ten Talks Parents Must Have with Their Children about Sex and Character, said the controversy boils down to a question of values. She said similar controversies arose from the civil rights and women's rights movements.

Rev. Eileen Lindner, deputy general secretary for the National Council of Churches, said it's a freedom of speech issue, and as long as a work doesn't meet the legal definition of being obscene, it's protected speech.

As for the books in question, she said they are attempting to help children understand an issue and tolerate children around them who might have a nontraditional family. The books, she said, don't advocate gay marriage or promote gay lifestyles.

Department of Book Reports: Books for Soldiers

The Department of Book Reports was going to take a quiet day off, but I came across this diary from our Second Life friend Stormbear. If any of you are able to donate to his most worthy cause, Books for Soldiers, we'd be grateful.



If you are unfamiliar with BFS (Books For Soldiers), it is a registered 501(c)(3) tax-deductible charity that sends books, DVDs and other care package items to US troops serving overseas. (DONATE)

I started sending books to soldiers during the first Gulf War - many of my friends from college were in the National Guard and were called up for duty. I rounded up a bunch of old books from friends who were still here and mailed them to the Gulf. After 9-11 I knew I wanted to do the same thing again, but I knew I couldn't do it all by myself, so I put together a self-serve website to get the job done.

The way it works now is a soldier goes to the website and fills out the form on the front page and tells us the title of the books (dvd or whatever) they want. That request goes into our database of requests that is viewable by our army of volunteers. The volunteers read the requests and they fill the requests. "Oh yeah, I have that Stephen King novel, I can send it to that soldier in Kabul!" If a volunteer cannot fill the request, the charity's home office will. BFS has all the problems of a small charity and a dot com start-up.

Initially I thought this would be a nice 6 week experiment and the troops would come home soon after. That didn't happen.

Six years and over half a million care packages later, BFS is facing closure. Last year we shipped around $2.9 million worth of aid and are set to do around the same this year. But it will be the last time unless we can raise $74,000 - the balance left to raise for this year's operational budget and it has to be raised by December 31st. Corporate funding dried up in 2007, we have already hit up the Fortune 500, VFW, American Legion, Masonic Lodges and every other group you can think of. But now it is your turn.
-------
But that is just Christmas. After that, we simply do not have the funds to stay open in 2010. Actually, we don't have the funds to maintain operations to the first week of January.

Joseph-Beth bookstores are holding a series of events to help Books for Soldiers. For more information about this and other community programs or author events at Joseph-Beth Booksellers, call 216.691.7000 or visit www.josephbeth.com.

Fall Fundraiser: Please give if you can.
Paypal

Department of Book Reports: Banned Books Week

Image via ABFFE

For the past thirty years, the last week of September has been Banned Books Week, a celebration of the Freedom to Read and the First Amendment, and this year is sponsored by the American Library Association, the American Booksellers Association, American Booksellers Foundation for Free Experession, the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund, the PEN American Center, among others. Libraries and bookstores across our great land will have displays of the many books that have, at one time or another, been suppressed in some fashion.

What are some of these tomes? Some examples:

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee has been challenged many times, including in 1980 by the Vernon Verona Sherill New York School District as a "filthy, trashy novel". I've read it a few times, and I guess I missed that part.

Alice Walker's The Color Purple has also been challenged and banned. The Souderton PA School District banned it as "smut" in 1992 as inappropriate 10th grade reading.

Ulysses by James Joyce was banned from the United States, England and Ireland for obscenity during the 1920's and not because it was deemed "too long".

Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov was banned as obsecne in France from 1956-1959, England in 1959, and Argentina that same year. Florida's Marion County had its DA office look into the book for ideas of incest and pedophilia.

Even winning Nobel Prize in literature does not keep a writer from censorial minds. Toni Morrison's Beloved has also been challenged many times. In 2007 two parents objected to the use of the book in an AP high school English class because it addressed issues of bestiality, racism and sex. The Principal of the school ordered it replaced by Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter, which, of course, has nothing to do with sex. Other Nobel Prize winners whose books have been banned include John Steinbeck (both The Grapes of Wrath and Of Mice and Men); Ernest Hemingway (For Whom the Bell Tolls...did the Earth move for you, too?); William Faulkner (As I Lay Dying); and F. Scott Fitzgerald (The Great Gatsby).

This past Monday the School Board of Monarch, Kansas voted to end the ban in the school library of Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse Five. Kind of. The kids cant really check it out, but it is available in certain portion there for their parents to check it out for them. The Vonnegut Library has made an offer to help kids decide for themselves.

These obscene books are available from Jackson Street Books and other fine independent bookstores.

What are your favorite banned books?

Department of Book Reports: Odds & Ends

One of the pleasures of re-opening a brick and mortar store is that customers bring us some of their books to trade-in. The customers, of course, get some credit and can add to their own libraries inexpensively, and we, the booksellers, get to replenish our inventory and get reminded of some good books and discover books that have flown under our radar since our storefront hiatus.

Among the books we have recently received includes David James Duncan's fine family saga, The Brothers K. Duncan, the author of the acclaimed The River Why, tells the story of these brothers, brought up on a farm, by a father who had hoped to have a baseball career, but was thwarted in his youth. Set during the fifties and sixties, the book has many fine moments and when I read it a few years ago, I couldn't put it down.

Stephanie Kallos is the author of the perennial book club favorite, Broken for You, and her new novel, published in 2009, Sing Them Home, absolutely slipped by us. Another family saga, set in Nebraska, she tell the story of the Jones siblings whose young lives are irrevocably changed by the strange disappearance of their mother during a tornado in 1978. They are brought back together by the sudden passing of their distant father decades later, leading to self-discovery and insight.

SeattleTammy is enjoying Lincoln Child's Deep Storm, which was published a couple of years ago. Child is probably best known for his collaborations with Douglas Preston, and are well-written thrillers. Deep Storm is about a scientist investigating the mental illnesses suffered by a crew that seems to have discovered links to the ancient world of Atlantis.

Douglas Brinkley's The Great Deluge: Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans and the Mississippi Gulf Coast, is the highly regarded inquiry into what happened on August 29th, 2005. At great length, Brinkley delves into the devastation and the human cost of the tragedy. He conducted many, many interviews with the survivors, providing a history written at the human level.

Finally, we have seen a copy of Arundhati Roy's The God of Small Things come into the store. Originally published in 1997 and winner of the Booker Prize. the book is yet another family portrait, focusing on the lives of two fraternal twins, raised in Kerala, India. The events of the novel take place between 1969 and 1993, and describe and limn the lives of these two as well as the lives they touch. Roy, herself, has become a great human rights activist. To date this is her only novel.

So, what are you reading? And what do you hope Santa will bring you to read this year?
And DemoCommie, we are still awaiting the advance copy of your cookbook.

If you're in the neighborhood today, stop by for a gingersnap.






These books are available at Jackson Street Books and other fine Independent bookstores.As always, books ordered here will have a freebie publishers Advance Reading Copy included as a thank you to our blogosphere friends.

Sherman's march to Seattle

My inner Frenchman is embarrassed to admit that he hasn't read any of Sherman Alexie's books, but he's a big fan of his films, Smoke Signals and The Business of Fancydancing. And he's also excited to hear that Alexie is going to sign books at Seattle Dan's and Seattle Tammy's place, Jackson Street Books.

Jackson Street Books News Flash: Sherman Alexie to Read on April 1st!

Jackson Street Books is pleased to announce that Sherman Alexie will read and sign copies of his new book, Flight, on Sunday April 1st from three to five p.m. We are co-hosting this event with The Seattle Children's Playgarden project, of which Sherman is the honorary Chair for their Help Us Grow capital campaign. Details of this project can be found at www.childrensplaygarden.org. Although donations will not be solicited at the event (though feel free to make contributions!), the project will be looking to develop their contact list. Sherman's website can be accessed at
http://www.fallsapart.com/.

Please join us. Light refreshments will be available. The event is free and open to the public. Though we don't normally require tickets, we would ask for RSVP's so we know approximately how many people to expect. If you can't make the event, but would still like copies of the book, feel free to contact us.

Jackson Street Books
2301 South Jackson Street Ste. 210
Seattle, Washington 98144
206-324-7000
206-324-7001 fax
www.jacksonst-books.com

Department of Book Reports 48: Our Top Ten for ‘07

SeattleTammy and I have been doing the book reports for almost a year now. We certainly enjoy doing them as we love talking about books. We decided that this, the last week of the year, a summation was in order. After all, we are often stopped by the troops in the streets and the most frequently asked question we get is “What were your favorite books this year?” So I will list my top five and then ST will list her top five.

The criteria I use in selecting from many fine books I read this year is “Would I read this book again?” The books below are all books I hope to re-read:
Tree of Smoke. This is a literary tour de force that would bear many re-readings
Heyday. Kurt Andersen’s masterful tale of America in 1848.
Soul Catcher. Another historical novel of Ante-Bellum America.
End of America. Naomi Wolf’s wake-up call to creeping fascism.
The Nine. Jeffrey Toobin’s incisive look at the recent Supreme Court.
~SD


At the top of my annual list is River, by Lowen Clausen
The Book of Lost Things, by John Connolly. One I'm going to re-read every year.
Surveilence, by Jonathan Raban. On my TBR stack: Waxwings.
Nail Through the Heart, by Timothy Hallinan
Shadow Killer, by Matthew Scott Hansen
~ST


Best Calendar of the Year: The Lovely Mistresses of George W. Bush We have a few of these left, we'll give a troop discount of 20%!

I'd like to thank Miss Poppy for once again stuffing my stocking with lots of Baby Jeebus Goodness™®©!

democommie™™™™®© will be in charge of this weeks' survey. Tell him your favorite reads from this year.


These books are available at Jackson Street Books and fine Independent Bookstores everywhere!

Department of Book Reports: Wicked Bugs

Wicked Bugs: The Louse that Conquered Napoleon's Army and other Diabolical Insects by Amy Stewart (Algonquin Books, $18.95) This handsome little volume matches Wicked Plants, Stewart's book that I reported on a while back. Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill is one of those presses that produce beautiful and fascinating books. They are a joy to touch and hold.



Bugs! They're everywhere! It's estimated there are over one million species of insects, and perhaps ten quintillion insects alive on the planet right now. As this public service announcement shows, there are probably bugs in your house right now!

Stewart sets out over 100 bug biographies, in her disconcertingly cheerful stories. I love how she lets the basic story speak for itself, which will have you sneaking a look over your shoulder and scratching.


Do wicked bugs include spiders and other noninsects?

In this case, yes. An entomologist will tell you that the term "bug" refers to a subset of insects in the order Hemiptera that has piercing and sucking mouthparts. But most of us use the word to describe any number of tiny slithering and crawling creatures, and that's how I'm using it here. Spiders, worms, centipedes, slugs, and scorpions all made it into the book.

Yikes! did you know there are stinging caterpillars that can kill you? There are 6 kinds of bugs that could be eating your books right now? (The best cure for that, from Desiderius Erasmus the Dutch humanist, "books, to be saved from the worms, must be used.") 9 inch centipedes! After reading about the lice, flies, worms, and midges that can infest the human body, I scarcely shuddered at the spider chapters.

I highly recommend this to all armchair Nature enthusiasts, and your niece/nephew, who has odd science fixations... You'll both love it!

Wicked Bugs and Wicked Plants are available at (Jackson Street) Books On 7th andfine Independent bookstores everywhere. Visit us on Facebook Jackson Street Books.

Department of Book Reports: Books for Summer Reading

I am currently finishing a long, yet fascinating book on How Rome Fell, and I will report on it when I have finished. Suffice it to say that along with a good history of late Rome, it also examines the notion of Empire.
So this week I wanted to point at some books that I am anxious to read this summer. Unfortunately, unless you have some odd tastes in literature, none of them seem to be books to be read at the beach.

First up is Moving Millions: How Capitalism Fuels Global Immigration (Wiley $27.95) by Jeffrey Kaye. In full disclosure, I need to say that folks at Wiley were kind enough to send me a copy gratis, and that the author is an old friend of mine. And if you are fans of PBS' Newshour, you may remember Kaye as one the show's special correspondents. Immigration is certainly an on-going and important isssue in our daily politics, and this book promises to be a great contribution to the debate. Basically Kaye contends that Coyote Capitalism, the notion that human labor is like any other natural resource and "supplies" are shifted to whereever there is a need, is practiced by both businesses and governments. And these workers are "pushed out, pulled in and put on the line", without regard for the economic consequences, or for communites, or for the individuals involved. I will devote a full book report to this very soon.

From the editors of the blog Crooks and Liars, Over the Cliff: How Obama's Election Drove the American Right Insane (Polipoint $16.95) is an examination of current right wing thought and how in spite of all evidence to the contrary, all sorts of politcal memes are believed by these folks. The book's authors are John Amato and David Neiwert; I reported on David's book The Eliminationists here last year. Over the Cliff has just been released and I look forward to reading it, long having been a fan of C and L.






Recently published in March, Michael Lewis' The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine (Norton $27.95) tackles the current economic collapse and how it happened. Lewis' previous books, such as Next and Moneyball, were well-researched, incisively written and explained in words that those of us without backgrounds in the field could understand and grasp. (I personally love Moneyball, which is about baseball and stat geekdom...right up this long-tme fantasy baseball league player's alley). I expect The Big Short to equally illuminating.




Finally, both Seattle Tammy and I both love the novels of Don Winslow. I first discovered him when I read The Death of Bobby Z, and went on to read both his earlier novels and his most recent ones, including Power of the Dog, which is one of the best thrillers I've ever read. His new novel, Savages (Simon and Schuster $25.00), is due out in July. It apparently involves a threesome of Laguna Beach marijuana kingpins who happen to run afoul of a Mexican drug cartel. One of the three is kidnapped and held for a large ransom, which the other two agree to pay, but come up with an alternative plan for her release. Nothing is ever straight forward in a Winslow novel.

So, what are you reading this summer?

These books are available from Jackson Street Books and other fine Independent bookstores.As always, books ordered here will have a freebie publishers Advance Reading Copy included as a thank you to our blogosphere friends.

Department of Book Reports: Mexico

Some time ago, both SeattleTammy and I reported on a fine history book we both loved, Gods, Gauchupines and Gringos: A People's History of Mexico (paperback $24.95). The publisher, Editorial Mazatlan, has been busy since, producing two new books that are equally enticing.




Magic Made in Mexico: Live Your Dream....in Mexico (Editorial Mazatlan $17.95) is written by Canadian native Joanna van der Gracht de Rosado. The first section is a memoir that tells the story of how, as a young woman, she came to Mexico, fell in love and married a Mexican national, and how she adjusted to a new manner of life in Merida, a town located in the Yucatan. She follows that with an alphabetical series of chapters on tips for living in Mexico for the non-native (A is for Attitude, H is for Heat, S is for Settling In and so on), each of which gives good advice along with fun and funny anecdotal stories of her own. She closes with a nice, and very brief history of Mexico, the Yucatan and her hometown. She includes a good recommended reading list..I know it is good because she listed two of my favorite author's books, Graham Greene's The Power and the Glory and The Honorary Consul.


The other book of note and new from Editorial Mazatlan is Ray Acosta's Revolutionary Days: A Chronology of the Mexican Revolution (hardcover $29.95). Obviously this book is of great use to any student of Mexican history. But it also reads well as a narrative for the interested reader of the events leading up to, and nearly a day by day account of the Revolution itself as it occurred from 1910 onwards. As one would expect of a scholarly work, there is a good bibliography, and an alphabetical list of names of those central to the period. And there is a lot of them.

All three books are available at our online store, or in historic downtown Hoquiam.
Visit us on Facebook Jackson Street Books. Order books at Jackson Street Books and other fine Independent bookstores.As always, books ordered here will have a freebie publishers Advance Reading Copy included as a thank you to our blogosphere friends.

Department of Book Reports: There's still time to ship, but it might cost ya...

Those clever folks over at Indie Bound have written my favorite slogan for the holiday season: "Books. Because a scented candle never changed anybody's life."

It has amused me to see that giving used books as gifts is now acceptable, although bookstores are tipped to possible givers by their pleas of "Is it in pristine condition?"

The Pacific Northwest Booksellers announce the short list of nominees for the annual awards. There is an "I told you so! moment".
American Buffalo: In Search of a Lost Icon by Steven Rinella of Anchorage, AK; Spiegel & Grau,
The Art of Racing in the Rain: a Novel by Garth Stein of Seattle, WA; Harper ...earlier version
Conquistador: Hernán Cortés, King Montezuma, and the Last Stand of the Aztecs by Buddy Levy of Northern Idaho; Bantam Books,
The Eleventh Man by Ivan Doig of Seattle, WA; Harcourt, Inc.
The English Major by Jim Harrison of Montana; Grove Press
Guernica: A Novel by Dave Boling of Tacoma, WA; Bloomsbury
The Jewel of Medina: A Novel by Sherry Jones of Spokane, WA; Beaufort Books
Little Hoot by Jen Corace, Illustrator, of Seattle, WA; Chronicle Books
Selected Poems: 1970-2005 by Floyd Skloot of Portland, OR; Tupelo Press
Shopping for Porcupine: A Life in Arctic Alaska by Seth Kantner of Kotzebu, Alaska; Milkweed Editions
Wild Beauty: Photographs of the Columbia River Gorge, 1867-1957 by Terry Toedtemeier and John Laursen of Portland, OR;
The Northwest Photography Archive & Oregon State University Press
The Wink of the Zenith: The Shaping of a Writer's Life by Floyd Skloot of Portland, OR; University of Nebraska Press

As always, lovely books can be found at your favorite independent bookstore. Jackson Street Books might just have what you're looking for. If you don't see it, do ask . We have many boxes to unpack.

Gifts to celebrate the birth of our Lord

A repost.

Support the people who fight in the Glorious Conservative Christian Cultural Revolution. Please buy your holiday gifts from the General's readers and other friends of the Francosphere.

Books

Most of these books are linked through my Amazon Associates account, but if you'd rather support an independent bookseller, call or email JG commenters SeattleDan and SeattleTammy at Jackson Street Books, (206) 324-7000.

Before the Storm: Barry Goldwater and the Unmaking of the American Consensus by Rick Perlstein (It's out of print, but you can email him for a copy). I've read it. It's a fantastic book.

Cable News Confidential: My Misadventures in Corporate Media by Jeff Cohen (Great book, especially p. 187)

The Lifelong Activist by Hillary Rettig

Over Here: An American Expat in the South of France by Randy Lofficier

Scary: A Book of Horrible Things for Kids by Joaquin Ramon Herrera (Check out his blog too. I love it.)

The Scopes "Monkey Trial" by Anne Janette Johnson

The Sinner's Guide to the Evangelical Right by Robert Lanham

Strawberry Days: How Internment Destroyed a Japanese American Community by David Neiwert (Other great books by David: Death on the Fourth of July: The Story of a Killing, a Trial, and Hate Crime in America and In God's Country: The Patriot Movement and the Pacific Northwest.)

DVDs

Red State: The Movie

This Divided State

Helping others

Give the gift of life.

Other

National Character Counts Calendar by Attaturk and Watertiger (see Kathryn Jean Lopez naked!)

Miss Poppy Dixon's gifts for your inner Christianist.

Books written by friends in the Francosphere and friends of the Francosphere

Again, most of these books are linked through my Amazon Associates account, but if you'd rather support an independent bookseller, call or email JG commenters SeattleDan and SeattleTammy at Jackson Street Books, (206) 324-7000.

Crashing the Gate by Jerome Armstrong and Markos Moulitsas Zuniga

The dKos Trollhouse Cookbook by 42 and grndrush

FUBAR by Sam Seder

Hell in a Handbasket" by Tom Tomorrow

Hostile Takeover: How Big Money and Corruption Conquered Our Government--and How We Take It Back by David Sirota

How Would a Patriot Act? Defending American Values from a President Run Amok by Glenn Greenwald

Is That a Politician in Your Pocket: Washington on $2 Million a Day by Micah Sifray and Nancy Watzman

Kosmos: You are Here by Steven Darksyde and Mark Sumner

Lapdogs by Eric Boehlert

Sweet Relief: The Marla Ruzicka Story by Jennifer Abrahamson

Prisoner of Trebekistan: A Decade in Jeopardy! by Bob Harris

The Politics of Truth by Joseph Wilson

Wait! Don't Move to Canada: A Stay-and-Fight Strategy to Win Back America by Bill Scher

What's Liberal About the Liberal Arts?: Classroom Politics and "Bias" in Higher Education by Michael Bérubé

CDs

In the Year of Storms, composed by Stirling Newberry

XaoS, composed by Sterling Newberry

DVDs

Offerings by Brave New Films:
Iraq for Sale
Walmart: The High Cost of Low Price
Outfoxed
and more..

If you'd like to be added to this list, please leave a comment.

Gifts for the Frenchmen and Frenchnotmen in your life

Support the people who fight in the Glorious Conservative Christian Cultural Revolution. Please buy your holiday gifts from the General's readers and other friends of the Francosphere.

Books

Most of these books are linked through my Amazon Associates account, but if you'd rather support an independent bookseller, call or email JG commenters SeattleDan and SeattleTammy at Jackson Street Books, (206) 324-7000.

Before the Storm: Barry Goldwater and the Unmaking of the American Consensus by Rick Perlstein (It's out of print, but you can email him for a copy). I've read it. It's a fantastic book.

Cable News Confidential: My Misadventures in Corporate Media by Jeff Cohen (Great book, especially p. 187)

The Lifelong Activist by Hillary Rettig

Over Here: An American Expat in the South of France by Randy Lofficier

Scary: A Book of Horrible Things for Kids by Joaquin Ramon Herrera (Check out his blog too. I love it.)

The Sinner's Guide to the Evangelical Right by Robert Lanham

Strawberry Days: How Internment Destroyed a Japanese American Community by David Neiwert (Other great books by David: Death on the Fourth of July: The Story of a Killing, a Trial, and Hate Crime in America and In God's Country: The Patriot Movement and the Pacific Northwest.)

DVDs

Red State: The Movie

This Divided State

Helping others

Give the gift of life.

Other

Miss Poppy Dixon's gifts for your inner Christianist.

Books written by friends in the Francosphere and friends of the Francosphere

Again, most of these books are linked through my Amazon Associates account, but if you'd rather support an independent bookseller, call or email JG commenters SeattleDan and SeattleTammy at Jackson Street Books, (206) 324-7000.

Crashing the Gate by Jerome Armstrong and Markos Moulitsas Zuniga

The dKos Trollhouse Cookbook by 42 and grndrush

FUBAR by Sam Seder

Hell in a Handbasket" by Tom Tomorrow

Hostile Takeover: How Big Money and Corruption Conquered Our Government--and How We Take It Back by David Sirota

How Would a Patriot Act? Defending American Values from a President Run Amok by Glenn Greenwald

Is That a Politician in Your Pocket: Washington on $2 Million a Day by Micah Sifray and Nancy Watzman

Kosmos: You are Here by Steven Darksyde and Mark Sumner

Lapdogs by Eric Boehlert

Sweet Relief: The Marla Ruzicka Story by Jennifer Abrahamson

Prisoner of Trebekistan: A Decade in Jeopardy! by Bob Harris

The Politics of Truth by Joseph Wilson

Wait! Don't Move to Canada: A Stay-and-Fight Strategy to Win Back America by Bill Scher

What's Liberal About the Liberal Arts?: Classroom Politics and "Bias" in Higher Education by Michael Bérubé

CDs

In the Year of Storms, composed by Stirling Newberry

XaoS, composed by Sterling Newberry

DVDs

Offerings by Brave New Films:
Iraq for Sale
Walmart: The High Cost of Low Price
Outfoxed
and more..

If you'd like to be added to this list, please leave a comment.