Go to the mobile version of this Web site.

Login | Contact Us | Site Map | Paid archives | Electronic edition | Subscription Questions | Extras

THORN: Politics front and center in book world

By Patti Thorn, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)

Published February 8, 2008 at 12:05 a.m.

Text size  
Local author Joy Hakim tackles the history of science in acclaimed series.

Photo by The Rocky / 2002

Local author Joy Hakim tackles the history of science in acclaimed series.

More Books

More stories »

Super Tuesday has come and gone, but in my world, politics will be the order of the day until November. Politically oriented books continue to pile up on my desk like so many hanging chads.

While many seem worthy of discussion, especially this year, only so many can be reviewed in these pages before they quickly crowd out everything else.

What to do with them all?

Well, if nothing else, we can at least let you know what's out there. Beginning today, I'll run a list in this space from time to time of some of the titles we simply don't have room to review. Look for the heading "Politics in print."

Meanwhile, if you're curious about what's coming in, the titles seem to fall into several categories, including:

* Books critical of the Bush administration and the legacy it will leave (the latest big title is The Bush Tragedy, by Jacob Weisberg).

* Titles about the religious right's influence - or waning influence, as some contend - on American politics (e.g., The Great Awakening: Reviving Faith & Politics in a Post-Religious Right America, by Jim Wallis).

* A growing group of titles questioning the fairness of our elections (How To Win an Election: Confessions of a Republican Operative, by Allen Raymond with Ian Spiegelman).

* Books about where the Democratic Party is going wrong.

* Books about where the Republican Party is going wrong.

* Books about where America is going wrong.

In other words, most of these titles are as pessimistic as a Clinton supporter at an Obama rally. But no need to despair about how to keep track of them all. Without further ado, here is today's installment of . . .

Politics in print

A few political titles of late that we aren't reviewing but that may be of interest:

* Truth and Consequences: Special Comments on the Bush Administration's War on American Values, by Keith Olberman (Random House, $24.95)

* How Would Jesus Vote?: A Christian Perspective on the Issues, by James Kennedy and Jerry Newcombe (Water Brook, $16.99)

* Gaming the Vote: Why Elections Aren't Fair (and What We Can Do About it), by William Poundstone (Hill and Wang, $25)

* Fear and Courage in the Democratic Party, by Glenn Hurowitz (Maisonneuve Press, $14.95)

Good reason for joy

Local author Joy Hakim continues to earn kudos for her ability to turn information normally reserved for textbooks as dry as the Mojave into exciting reads filled with lively stories and down-to-earth prose that makes difficult concepts easy to grasp.

Hakim is the author of A History of US, a wonderful series of American history books used in middle school classrooms across the country and sold in bookstores. More recently, she's taken on the history of science in the series The Story of Science, three books published by Smithsonian.

The latest in the series, Einstein Adds a New Dimension, recently won USA Book News' 2007 award for best book in the general science category. And last week, The Washington Post ran a feature on Hakim's science series, noting its growing popularity among teachers. In the story, Hakim made an impassioned plea for giving kids quality reads.

"Feed kids Cokes and french fries and you get an obesity crisis," she told the reporter. "Feed them mental junk food and you get nonreaders and poor thinkers."

If you ask me, that's pretty good food for thought.