Login HereIt's the last FDL Book Salon of the year and it's been quite an exciting year. Through mutual friends at Drinking Liberally, Pachacutec asked if I could help with finding and scheduling the FDL Book Salon. I've been here in the background since July working with the authors and hosts.
I was born in Berkeley, California, grew up in Marin County, Black Point if you are familiar with the area. I am happily retired, (at an early age), after 32 years with the federal government. So my writing skills are tending towards the bureaucratic. I was a Security Electronics and Telecommunications Program Manager, for the Federal Bureau of Prisons most of the time. In the 1970's I worked on nuclear weapon system electronics, ICBM's, for the US Air Force. I ran inmate crews at Terminal Island in the 1980's, (a federal prison in Los Angeles - what a name), saw a lot of "bad" public figures come and go. Then had the good luck to come to Washington DC to work in the Headquarters of the FBOP from 1990 to 2005. I did everything from electronics to frequency management (yes, I understand the process of procuring frequencies for the use of the government).
Pach says all this makes me a logistics goddess, but I think he's just scared of me, what with me running inmate crews and all. But putting the Salons together has been fun!
Our FDL Book Salons this last year covered many author and subjects. Upcoming authors can be found by clicking on the Book Salon tab.
Now I'd like to hear from you. What was the best Book Salon? What subjects are most interesting? What would you like to see more of? Ideas?
Thanks for all the support of the FDL Book Salon - you made it Great!!
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Welcome -
Thank you for all you work. I lurk during a lot of the discussions and learn a lot.
Bev, It’s a huge job you have. I don’t know how to thank you enough.
Here is a partial list of this year’s books
Aaron Barlow - Rise of the Blogosphere
Daniel Brook - The Trap: Selling Out
Robert Frank - Falling Behind
Sandy Horwitt - Feingold: A New Democratic Party
Drew Westen - The Political Brain - Hosted by Jim Himes
Allan Ornstein - Class Counts
Linda Perlstein - Tested: One American School Struggles
Dan Gilgoff - The Jesus Machine
Charlie Savage - Takeover: The Return of the Imperial Presidency
Mark Schapiro - Exposed: The Toxic Chemistry of Everyday Products
John Dean - Broken Government: How Republican Rule Destroyed the Legis/Exec/Judicial Brances
Paul Krugman - The Conscience of a Liberal
Bob Harris - Who Hates Whom
Valerie Wilson Plame - Fair Game: My Life as a Spy
Mark Penn - Microtrends: The Small Forces Behind Tomorrow’s Big Changes
Alex Steffen - WorldChanging: A User’s Guide to the 21st Century
Greg Anrig - The Conservatives Have No Clothes
Susan Faludi - The Terror Dream
Naomi Wolf - End of America
Dahr Jamail - Beyond the Green Zone
Todd Gitlin - The Bulldozer and the Big Tent
Naomi Klein - The Shock Doctrine
Christine Pelosi - Campaign Boot Camp
John Anderson - Follow the Money
Juan Cole - Napoleon’s Egypt
Norman Solomon - Made Love, Got War
Jon Chait - The Big Con
Bob Drogin - Curveball
Mike Hoyt - Reporting Iraq
General Wesley Clark - A Time to Lead
David Bornstein - How to Change the World: Social Entrepeneurs
Bruce Levine - Surviving America’s Depression Epidemic
I lurked for years, too.
I’d like to thank Jane, Pach and FDL for the
chance to help out.
Now - about the books.
What did you like?
She’s does an awesome jobe. Just amazing, and we could not make this successful without her.
She’s made it possible for us to do two per weekend now.
(Um, Bev, about those handcuffs. . .)
Hi Bev. Thanks for telling us about yourself and for taking the Book Salon reigns. (telling, spelling)
I think my favorite Book Salon(s) were the John Dean conversations. And I’m really looking forward to the Craig Unger chat next weekend. While we all know the outline of the stories he tells about the religious right and the neocons, he fills in all the background with fine detail and great, almost gossipy stories about the players.
Without hesitation, I can say Dahr Jamal - Behind The Green Zone and the two Naomis , Klein’s Shock Doctrine and Wolf’s End of America, were my favorite books this year.
I didn’t read John Deans book but it was great to have him back.
Bev - thanks so much for all the hard work on the Book Salon, and to Jane and Christy and Pach and all the gang.
And my favorite was, of course, the “Broken Government” Salon with John Dean.
My pleasure to jump in - or was I pushed?
John Dean was great and very generous with
his time and comments.
Ok, now each mention will elicit a “How could I forget that one?” response. Loved the Naomi’s, too. They are both brave women, knowing they are huge targets for the right, yet not backing down
Bev, thanks for all your hard work this year. Book Salon has been an unqualified success, most notably by doubling its per-week appearances!
My favorite Book Salon, for sheer perversity, was the Christine Pelosi event. Never have I read a more boring, pedantically written book. Never have I privately lamented the fate of any candidates who take Pelosi’s book to heart. And never have I had so much fun watching us try to be nice, and try not to scare someone away!
It was a hoot.
But for learning and excellence, the Naomi Klein Salon was the best.
PS What are the odds of having Mr Olbermann on again, this time to discuss his new Special Comments book, which drops, I think, this week?
man, I missed so many because of work but I loved nami kline, I loved valery wilson, I loved john dean, I loved wesley clark
I would love to see thom harman come here and pimp his books…I am pretty sure he’d jump at the oportunity and it would really help the site since his radio station is amazing and I’m sure he’d talk about his appearance here before the date…and his appearance would help him and his broadcast as much as whatever book he wanted to pimp
Thank you so much for all you have done there behind the scenes.
It’s great for you to step out from behind the curtain and take a well deserved bow.
Valerie’s was far and away my fave but folks here already know that.
(blushing)
Oh, yes, Dahr. I’ve subscribed to his newsletter and re-read his book since.
I neglecteed to let you know how much your work is appreciated too, I didn’t even know what your name was but I sure appreciated what you’ve done for my intelectual growth
Actually I’m awaiting a response from him.
If people want to contact him through his MSNBC address to encourage him, who am I to get in the way?
Worst book salon guests Penn & Pelosier /s.. with a hat tip to Clark because they wouldn’t answer fair questions.
Krugman (I think) says all politics is driven by economics. I’d love to see Paul Hawkins and Amory Lovins come discuss their new book Natural Capitalism.
I started to do a post and it got messed up.
to recap:
Thanks for the greart work, Bev.
Loved Valerie Plame. Not Wes Clark. Like stuff on The Law and Labor issues.
Don’t like eggheaded authors so much as down to earth ones.
I thought Suzanne was missing handcuffs the other night.
I second the motion for Amory Lovins.
Many thanks to Bev for all of her hard work — she is one more person who is helping to fix this crazy world we live in.
Are people interested in any other subjects? Music? Pop culture? Motherhood and parenting issues? Anything?
Chime in.
And John Dean, too.
Yes, but it was not unexpected to see him turn-tail and scram in less than an hour.
Come into the Lake, better bring your game. Scoping out territory for Hillary won’t cut it here.
Do you have any suggestions for new books, authors for this
upcoming year?
Any ideas for Book Salon?
Maybe cooking, healthy eating, etc?
Sports. Good idea to have some people on that arten’t, like, newsy.
Ah, if we had not lost Halberstam.
Well, I tried to ask fair questions. Not my fault he wouldn’t answer when I got stat geeky with him.
as I mentioned, I would love to see thom hartman here
Just not the fucking Yankees.
Neal Sheehan would be good.
get art rust jr here to do some of his sports books, he is clearly entertaining
Just a thought. Not sayin’ it’s a good one. But it’s a thought. Ever consider to every now and then get someone from the other side in for a knock-down, drag-ut ? Or does FDL not want that? I mean, I can understand not wanting to give a platform to a black hat. they have enough of ‘em.
Yankees, Giants, Knicks, Rangers.
I was thinking the same thing
I know progressive authors would jump at the oportunity to speak on a civilized concervative blog because we believe our case, I think there might be a concervative that believe their case and come here
we would be nice…promise
KO can do sports, too.
Should the Book Salons be edgier?
I believe they are very honest conversations now.
Also, Phil Beidler
http://www.as.ua.edu/english/0.....dler_p.htm
American Wars, American Peace: Notes from a Son of the Empire. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2007.
Late Thoughts on an Old War: The Legacy of Vietnam. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2004.
In what sense “edgier”? I think they should be polite. I’m always on my best behavior and it’s a good change.
Pach, being an old lady with young children, I would love to see parenting issues discussed. Our world has changed considerably since I was young, and even though “Plus ca change, plus c’est la meme chose” (imagine I have figured out how to insert the proper accents grave and egue) there is plenty of uncharted territory to discuss.
Also agree, Hartmann and Olbermann (Germann?) would be fine additions to the schedule
done!
off topic but please to consider the following
from here
the lake is a powerful place, we might be able to help him win with a little bit of a roots project, maybe he even wants to stop by and have a chat
I thought the entire series was great! The most stimulating for me was Bornstein, and the most dissatisfying was Levine. (Maybe there’s a proximity effect, as I remember those two most vivdly.)
As far as suggested topic areas, I would love to see more sports (e.g., Michael Lewis would be awesome), more hardcore legal/judicial analysis, more history, and more real science (much more rigorous than Schapiro and Levine).
I would be more than happy to do the leg work to identify suitable books/authors in these areas, if the powers-that-be think it would be a good idea to expand into those areas.
Not bein’ a wise guy here… Are there any civilized conservative blogs ? I’m serious.
depends what you mean by edgier, I don’t want us to loose our civility that’s for sure but I sure wouldn’t mind having a legitimate alternative point of view
I have said time and again, progressives are very closely aligned to real concervatives
but concervatives don’t know that
hey bevW, have you thought about thom harman?
How about Jared Diamond, to talk about his book Collapse?
(Can’t get this to work as an embedded link, but you should be able to copy it into the address bar):
http://www.amazon.com/Collapse.....0670033375
They should be very polite, but also very rigorous. I think the balance has been pretty reasonable.
If by “edgier” yopu mean having edgy authors who are not afraid to trash a commentor, that’s be great. Most of us can handle it. Bring ‘em on.
If Diamond would be willing, I agree that Collapse would make a great book salon.
FDL is looking at Tom’s books.
I really don’t know, all we hear about are the neo fascists, aren’t there real concevative blogs out there that don’t repeat the talking points as if they are marionettes?
YAY!!!!
man, I LOVE this man, a more passionate, articulate constitutional scholar you will find nowhere
Don’t know. Anybody?
Marionettes don’t talk. YOu must mean dummies ;~)
Anybody got an email address for Keith?
kolbermann@msnbc.com bounces back now.
There are sites like Positive Liberty (www.positiveliberty.com) that attract a lot of principled conservatives, but I don’t know how well they would like being labeled a Conservative Blog.
It’s Thom Hartmann
when the applet opens paste in your link, then hit enter
then with your cursor on the response box, just go back four characters so you are inbetween the html / arrow
One of the things we need when we have authors is good blog style writers to introduce the works.
So, if you have a subject area expertise and like to read, and if you feel comfortable writing in a blog medium (it’s very unlike other media), then send us an email along with subject areas that might interest you.
Who knows: you might end up hosting a Book Salon someday.
well then, what I meant to say was “principled” republican.
I would love to see some of them here that’s for sure
The Volokh Conspiracy law blog has some very intelligent conservative bloggers.
One of the “selling points” I use to authors who have never
blogged before (there were a lot) - is that:
Firedoglake is one of the most influential and most quoted progressive blogs,
hosts a weekly Book Salon. Featuring carefully selected titles of interest to the blog’s loyal and highly engaged community, the Book Salon promotes titles through a two week discussion and reinforces this promotion with an ad linking to the book’s Amazon.com page.
The FDL audience is the reason we get good authors to come to the Lake.
i wouldn’t particularly want to see sports. nor would i want authors known to trash the commentors. civilized conservatives could be ok, but i’d prefer to have authors who are progressives and books that educate us. would enjoy seeing environmental books and health related books and prefer that the majority of salons be like they have been.
thanks for asking us and for the awesome job you’ve done in 2007!
but marionettes is so much more the pejorative
We’re smart. we eally are. Well informed. If they don’t wanna come, fuck ‘em, I say.
Dinner time, Gotta run. Bev, great job and thanks to everyone involved.
Keep up the great work
At the risk of speaking a bit of heresy, I wouldn’t mind an occasional fiction author along the lines of Lawrence Block, Tony Hillerman, Sue Grafton, Robert Parker or such. Mystery detective or Sci-fi/fantasy types who have created re-curring characters or universes.
But that’s just me.
I can’t type, but…………..
someone mentioned this last night or earlier today on these threads and it looks very interesting:
The Secret History of the War on Cancer by Devra Davis.
I’d like there to be a pre-Book Salon thread, in which we could warm up the discussion before the author arrives. That would allow us to have smart, concise, foolly-speel-cheeked questions ready and waiting.
How about Al Gore?
Has Jeremy Scahill been a guest? I would love more updates on his Blackwater work. Or Greg Palast?
man, we wouldn’t let him leave
i never buy books but read PDFs if they available.
I usual enjoy the book salon discussions
What about William R. Gibson and any of his dystopian novels? He has a blog on which he has mentioned that his latest work of fiction, Spook Country, was unbelievably paralleled by current US events.
I mostly lurk here at FDL but among the book salons that I read, two that I especially remember were the ones by Mike Farrell and Valerie Plame Wilson. They have all been fascinating.
Dakine — Tony Hillerman’s a lifelong liberal Democrat and a neat guy in general. He’d love it here!
One of the good outcomes from the Book Salon has been the
surprise and thanks from the first time author-bloggers and
experienced authors. They all said they had a good time and
had fun. Some have asked if they could stay later with you.
Guess they will come to the internet again.
i’ve been thinking it’d be nice to read the host’s intro 10-15 minutes before the author actually came on. To be able to absorb it and follow whatever links there are before we’re engaging with the author.
Barbara Kingsolver!!
BevW thank you for introducing yourself and for all the work you have done to make the Book Salons so remarkable. In addition to the favorites already mentioned, Elizabeth de la Vega was terrific. For future ideas, I would find more books about impeachment, imperialism and the history of Afghanistan to be instructive.
How could I forget? Mike Farrell was a wonderful guest.
xebecs and greenwarrior, those are both excellent suggestions. Second them.
That would probably be enough — 15 to 30 minutes. However, I was thinking of something earlier in the day, or the day before — perhaps in parallel (during the same time slot) with a regularly scheduled post.
Jim Wallis. Two of his recent books were God’s Politics and The Soul of Politics. We’ve allowed the right to co-opt religion and I think it’s a mistake. I realize there are a lot of virulently anti-religious FDL’rs, but maybe having someone who doesn’t just preach, but actually works for social justice would be good.
I’m only a baseball fan, but seriously, when Olbermann was local sportscaster here in LA, I watched him just for his shining intelligence and signature snark. I’d be here no matter what he wanted to discuss.
I think he has also won awards for his fairly accurate portrayal of life in and around the reservations.
I remember him when I lived in Wilmington / San Pedro CA - on a
sailboat. Keith was the one everyone watched.
Carmen - I have been reading FDL since June 05, and commenting since May of 06. And your suggestion that there are “virulently anti-religious” here is not in my experience. I know a lot of folks here that cringe when God and public Policy intersect, and especially when dogmatic interests trump those of secular governance.
I for one would welcome Mr. Wallis to Book Salon.
As an atheist FDLer, one subject I don’t understand, but need to, is how religious people think and what they expect out of their political life. Good books on religion & politics would be welcomed by me.
Thanks for your effective work. my favorites same as above–the naomis, dean, plame.
Agreed, i’d like to see Diamond on Collapse or one of his other books, even the earlier 3rd chimpanzee. how about Lynn Margulis? E O Wilson, maybe. how about Wendall Berry? Donna Haraway! i’m reading an interesting book right now by Maryanne Wolf, Proust and the Squid: the story of science and the reading brain (good overview, runs from history of writing systems to child development).
i also agree i’d like to see some literary work — William Gibson is a great idea. how about Marilynne Robinson?! or how about this. . . let someone stand in for Victor Hugo or Dickens or. . . it would be great fun.
please, no sports, no cooking, no cheezy self-helps. . .and despite one of the comments above, bring on the really wonderful, complex writers, thinkers.
we’ll go mad if we have to look without relief at the minute-by-minute polls and idiotic repub commentators for the next year.
thanks so much.
(formerly known as Ga; when the system changed it would not accept a two-letter name.)
well said. i’m not virulently anti-religious either. nor am i even anti-religious. on the contrary. i am anti the antics of our current administration and its minions who have used their religion in service of class warfare and the destruction of our country. amen.
eCAHN, imho, religious people and non-religious people (atheist or agnostic or spiritual-but-not-religious) want much the same things for vastly different reasons: Justice, Peace, Hope, however those are manifest and however they are otherwise described. YMMV.
Newtonusr, I’m not engaged on every post, but there have been a number in the past 2 weeks, mainly when Romney and Huckabee have been the subject that the anti-religious comments have been made. My experience of FDL is one of intelligence and tolerance generally, but I’m just saying there is a wide variety of religious beliefs here, and I would hate to have a guest disrespected. Again, let me say, that FDL and the moderators do an amazing job of keeping things civilized.
Try Buddhism without Beliefs
by Stephen Batchelor
In this wonderful, concise introduction, Batchelor has captured the essence of the Buddha’s teachings . By going directly to the source and peeling away the accumulated dogma of various traditions, he makes Buddhism relevant for our time. He shows how, despite the Buddha’s wishes, over time Buddhism became a religion and an institution unto itself. Of course, rigid doctrinaire thinkers like Bob Thurman will see red when they read Batchelor’s simple wisdom, which eliminates the need for hocus-pocus and a priestly class. Batchelor even questions the need for belief in karma and reincarnation, long accepted as essential Buddhist beliefs.
Batchelor presents his ideas in simple, but not simplistic, prose, with easy-to-grasp examples. His credentials as a Buddhist and a scholar are beyond reproach, and while others may disagree, no one can question his seriousness and authority. Unlike self-styled gurus and flim-flam artists like “Lama Surya Das” (Jeffrey Miller), Batchelor is not interested in self-aggrandizement; merely in conveying his ideas.
Wendell Barry, another great choice. He was an early proponent of the concept “Think Globally, Act Locally”.
I hope you FDL has a chance to host Robert Parry.
Being anti-religious is quite different from being anti-Mormon or anti-fundamentalist.
How about Howard Zinn? He would be fabulous, too.
But many religious people seem to want some sort of intergration, rather than compartmentalization, between their formal religious beliefs and their politics. That’s what I’m interested in learning about.
yes, howard zinn.
Teddy - I just Dugg your post, “Lunch at the Drake Diner with Rudi“. Led to a great discussion!
Suggestions: Barnett Rubin, Noam Chomsky, Arundhoti Roy, Robert Fisk, Sebastian Junger, Khaled Hosseini, Tom Robbins.
This is probably the best book I read in 07
Empire’s Workshop—Latin America, the United States, and the Rise of the New Imperialism by Greg Grandin, 286 pages; excellent book about how Latin America was the wet test for what W is doing in the Middle East
Now that sounds very interesting.
Also Jonathan Alter and Tamim Ansary.
I’m interested in the intersection between religion & U.S. politics. Since there aren’t many Buddhists in the U.S., the book you suggest, while it sounds interesting, is not what I was talking about.
Yeah, talk about history repeating itself. Pretty amazing stuff, especially for me. I’m a history moron (except for books I’ve read on particular history subjects in the last decade). And even though I lived through all the U.S. proxy wars in Latin America, I was too busy with work & childrearing to really know what was going on. Grandin even points out how the Rs marshaled the Christian fundamentalists to infiltrate the countries in a nonmilitary way.
Thanks Bev for all you are doing. Great work!
For best book salon, I would have to vote for John Dean, who answered every single question.
Tho having Olbermann on was amazing too. I think we got around to talking about his book eventually.
eCAHN, this was written a long time ago, but Elmer Gantry will tell you all you need to know about it. Sinclair Lewis wordy and dense, lots of people just can’t get past that, but he is spot-on in this case.
It Can’t Happen Here is also worth reading.
And thank you, Bev, for sharing something about yourself with us today. It’s always fascinating to learn about fellow ‘pups in their pre-Lake days. Thanks!
(Yes, I know it is a cheap shot and there are people of faith who aren’t like that, but that is exactly how I feel about the leaders of the evangelical movement and the sheep who follow them)