BOOK CLUB: Call for a Co-Cat-Herder and A Resolution re: March Book

[crispini]

All,
I have done a pretty sloppy job riding herd on the nominations and starting the poll for the new book this month. (I've been busy IRL, but that's no excuse.) It's the end of January and I haven't managed to get the new poll started for the new book, and we have FOURTEEN nominations (too many to poll on) and I'm a little lost about what to do next.

Anyhoo, nobody died and made me queen of the Book Club :evilgrin: and I could use a co-chair or if someone else would like to be the new cat-herder in chief, that'd be fine by me too.

I would like to respectfully submit the following requests for your consideration:

#1. New cat-herders, please nominate yourselves! :)
#2. WRT the March book, the noms are a mess. We can't poll with 14 and we can't poll with three (the number that have three people seconding them). I propose we toss them all and redo the noms, limiting people to ONE nomination. And encouraging people to second books, because that will determine, if there are more, what gets on the poll.
#3. And I have new amended timeline guidelines here:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=209&topic_id=365&mesg_id=1076

thoughts?

Thanks so much!

[Viva_La_Revolution]

1. crispini, can you post the list of 14....

pretty please?

[crispini]

2. Wups, thanks for the reminder.

A poll can only accept 10. Thus, the dilemma.

1-- TaleWgnDg: "Crimes Against Nature" by Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.
who is an environmental attorney as well as an environmental activist. Kennedy gives fantastic insight and information about GWBush's environmental catastrophe. It's done with factual information backed up with sources, cites, and endnotes.
**seconded by Tafiti
**seconded by Fleurs du Mal
**seconded by AZDemDist6

2-- Dem Bones Dem Bones: "Imperial Hubris" by Anonymous
About why the U.S. does not understand Osama bin Laden's motivations and why we will not succeed in establishing democracy in the tribal Islamic society of Afghanistan, or fare much better in Iraq.
**seconded by DebJ
**Seconded by 48percenter

3--katinmn: Garrison Keillor's "Homegrown Democrat"
**seconded by CitySky
**seconded by OrwellWasRight

4-- OMG: "Chain of Command : The Road from 9/11 to Abu
Ghraib" by Seymour Hersh
**seconded by Dem Bones Dem Bones

5-- Dem Bones Dem Bones: "American Dynasty" by Kevin Phillips
(about the Bushes)
**seconded by DebJ

6-- Dem Bones Dem Bones: "Against All Enemies" byRichard Clarke
about the screw ups, and the right things done by, four different American presidents that led us to our current situation
**seconded by DebJ

7-- Tesebria: "Charlie Wilson's War" by George Crile
Great book b/c it is funny, however horrifying, and very revealing about how government really (?!) works
**Seconded by crispini

8-- mike6640: "The Blind Watchmaker" by Richard Dawkins
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0393315703/qid=1 ...
It is a thesis on evolution and the complexity of life, one step at a time. Dawkins does a pretty good job quoting and rebutting the 'creationist' arguments.
**seconded by Tesibria

9-- Fleurs du Mal: "Freedom Evolves" by Daniel Dennett
**seconded by Tangledog

10-- HuckleB: Confessions of an Economic Hit Man by John Perkins. Confessions is simply something that doesn't come along very often. This book should be required reading for every American. Period. Anyone who even begins to wonder why we are in Iraq, why we ousted Allende, why we foment uprisings against Chavez, and on and on and on can no longer wonder, once they have read this book. It's a first-hand account that leaves no question behind.
**seconded by CitySky

11- OrwellwasRight: Wealth & Democracy--Phillips
**seconded by CitySky
Most American conservatives take it as an article of faith that the less governmental involvement in affairs of the market and pocketbook the better. The rich do not, whatever they might say--for much of their wealth comes from the "power and preferment of government." So writes Kevin Phillips, the accomplished historian and one-time Washington insider, in this extraordinary survey of plutocracy, excess, and reform. "Laissez-faire is a pretense," he argues; as the wealth of the rich has grown, so has its control over government, making politics a hostage of money. Examining cycles of economic growth and decline from the founding days of the republic to the recent collapse of technology stocks, Phillips dispels notions of trickle-down wealth creation, pricks holes in speculative bubbles, and decries the ever-increasing "financialization" of the economy--all of which, he argues, have served to reduce the well-being of ordinary Americans and government alike.

12-- hfojvt: "Social Security: The Phony Crisis"
**Seconded by stevebreeze

13--Maddy McCall: Will D. Campbell's Brother to a Dragonfly.
**seconded by rhite5
It's about growing up in the south during Jim Crow from the white perspective, and it details the events that led him to be a founding member of MLK's Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC).
Simultaneously, while he was fighting for black civil rights (he was with the Little Rock nine when they tried to integrate Little Rock high school), he was trying to nurse his brother through drug
addiction. I PROMISE that this book will not disappoint. Please trust me on this book. Please. Everyone to whom I have lent it has said that it was life altering, as far as their perspective on
race relations in the South. The stories of white progressives are rarely told. Will D. Campbell deserves hero status.


14-Tesebria: The Silent Takeover: Global Capitalism and the Death of Democracy, by Noreena Hertz. Another book I just got on the strong recommendation of several friends. "Fast becoming the central text of the antiglobalization movement," according to Christian Science Monitor
**seconded by rhite5

[CrispyQ]

3. My top three:

1. The Blind Watchmaker

2. Wealth & Democracy

3. Imperial Hubris


BTW, what is the February book?

[crispini]

4. Here 'tis

"Running On Empty - How The Democratic and Republican Parties Are Bankrupting Our Future and What Americans Can Do About It" Pete Petersen

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=209x561

So what do you think about toss these nominations and calling a redo for March?

[CrispyQ]

5. Agree. Every month has a new nom list. ~~eom

[crispini]

6. Well, girlfriend, looks like you and me are the only ones

who are paying any attention here, since we're the only ones posting in this thread. Why don't we just pick the March book ourselves and start fresh on nominations for April right now?

There's not much interest in the book club here, it seems to me, but honestly, I'd like to keep it up even if it's only you and me posting. I am a big ol' fiction HO and I will read nothing but fiction if you give me the chance -- so I need the nonfiction book club to force me to read this stuff!

And do you think you could help out with the book club duties? It's mostly just starting threads when they need to be started! That would rock, I'm getting so distracted with RL these days.

cheers,
C


Edited to add: Of the three you've mentioned, I'd be most interested in "Imperial Hubris," for the extremely lazy reason that I've already got it and I've been meaning to read it for months and haven't read it yet. :evilgrin:

[Coexist]

7. I'll second Homegrown Democrat

if that will help - I love Keillor and then you will have 4 books with which to poll. Is that a good solution, or did you wand to go with Hubris instead?

[crispini]

8. Wow! Someone else posting in this thread!

Do you think it's too late to put up a poll? if we did it today and left it up for a week, people would only have a week or two to go get the book. That was my only concern, and why I suggested just picking one.

[Coexist]

9. To poll or not to poll!!

If it were me, I would just go ahead and announce the book. But I am always doing things like that, and pissing people off. You choose, I will go along with whatever- they all sound like good selections.

Cheers!

[stray cat]

11. I really liked Imperial Hubris

However, Homegrown democrat might be a nice change of pace after running on empty

[CrispyQ]

13. I really don't care what book we read. I learn something from all of them.

And I agree, I'd like to keep the club going, even if it's a club of two. And, I'd be happy to help you out. Send me a message & let me know exactly what you'd like me to do.

[crispini]

15. You've got mail.

Or you will in a minute! :)

[EC]

10. I vote for Homegrown Democrat

since I have just started reading it anyway...

For next month how about Collapse-Jared Diamond
about how societies choose to fail or succeed

[stray cat]

12. The Impossible takes a little longer

Is a new book that came out of essays to survive and motivate us during the Bush years. Has anyone read it yet?

[Betsy Ross]

17. The Impossible

I read it and enjoyed it. I picked up a line from Jim Wallis that I now use frequently: Hope is believing in spite of the evidence, then watching the evidence change.

In the same vein, I started reading Studs Turkel's "Hope Dies Last." I can only take so much of "Chain of Command," and similar stuff. I think we all need a little uplift, encouragement now and again.

[crispini]

14. OK, since we have had more feedback, let's go ahead and poll.

Let's just use the top three from the old nomination list, since everyone seems to be interested in those three. Then we can restart the nominations afresh for the April book.

[Lithos]

16. Suggestion

Create a sliding vote scale. Everyone gets three votes, a first place a second and a third. The first place counts as 5 points, second as 3 points and third as 1 point. Add them together. Most points win. In the case of a tie, number of 1st place votes is used as a tie breaker.

You can extend this out a bit (4 or 5 votes) as needed.

L-

[crispini]

18. Kind of like instant runoff voting?

We couldn't do that with a poll, could we? Hmmmmm.

Interesting idea. What does everyone else think? We could try it out for the April book?