Hi, welcome to the Lake.
Let’s talk about the past year in Book Salons.

I must say krugman was a pleasure, an honor, an education, I believe he is at the top of my list

He was great and requested to be here as soon as he received the award.

Have to admit that with all the good books available, I most enjoyed the ones like The Young Dick Cheney where laughter was part of the result.

We need more laughter at the lunacy sometimes.

Any books on your radar that you think FDL should be looking at?

Yes we do.

Bev,

Thanks for inviting me to host Dr. Riki Ott here, early in December. She was very excited about the questions that came up, and hopes to have more to share with fdl in 2009, about the 28th Amendment.

Oh thank you, Bev, for everything. I love the ones where the author really gets in and answers questions, interacting with the pups.

And I am lovin’ the movie night addition to the Book Salon line-up.

You are the best Bev. It is always wonderful to read the Salon chats and especially a treat to participate.

And there are so many good ones upcoming, can’t pick a favorite out of that list.

Thank you for Hosting - it was a great salon. I find a lot of authors enjoy the salons after the fact, not as scary as they thought.

Thanks so much Bev for all the amazing work you do to bring us these book salons. I know from the ones I’ve hosted that you really make the authors feel welcomed and ready to meet our readers - and they love the discussions that ensue.

Bravo for Bev!

It was especially nice and helpful of you to have a pre-booksalon diary/primer.
Oh, you. Good teacher, you are.

Thank you, I enjoy the Book Salons, too.
Lisa is great, finding the movies and hosting them.

it has been a great book salon year bev - thanks to all the hard work you put into it each week.

what was the salon that was most surprising to you?

also bev - how do you select the books for salon?

hi bev - thanks for all you do.

my mistake, i thought chris hedges was going to be here today.

… but i do have some requests (not just suggestions) for next year:

jeremy scahill - blackwater (or anything else he would like to talk about - would just really like to have him here to discuss his reporting)

joe stiglitz - his most recent is the three trillion dollar war, but i’d really like to talk about his book before that one, making globalization work

ali abunimah - one country

Hard one -
Gov. Madeleine Kunin - was great about women in politics.
Lowell Feld and Nate Wilcox - funny with the Cheney book.
Mahvish Rukhsana Kahn - about her interviews in Guantanamo.

I take recommendations from you for books. Publishers have figured out my address and send books all the time. Authors have emailed FDL and told us about themselves. Walking through book stores. Many different ways.

Hi Bev. Thanks for this post!
My suggestion may not be relevant for a Book Salon, though it may, but I would really love to see Arundhati Roy here at the lake sometime.
Her books are excellent, I follow her writing when I can find them in Indian media online. She is one who has been just excellent where the Iraq War is concerned and has been dead on right since the invasion.
She’s one of my personal hero’s and it’d be amazing to have the Lake host her some day.
Thank you for asking.
:)

Reading the book salons has been a great learning experience. I love the flow and ebb of questions and answers, and the specific dynamics that every author bring.

One author who surprised me was mister Begala, often, I’d be throwing a shoe at CNN, but my opinion of him changed greatly that day.

One guest I found useless was mister Woodward, felt like he was sitting on a mountain of cash, scoffing at the masses questions.

Thank you so much for a wonderful year, Bev.

Thank you, I’ll look for Arundhati Roy’s books. They sound interesting.

You are right, the ebb and flow of the discussions. I never know where they will go or what will be revealed by the author.

Although it was a close race, I think Mark Penn actually wins the “Most Useless Author Visiting Book Salon” award.

But Woodward was competitive in that category.

heh - working on my next informative lecture, I am, about being denounced in front of a joint session of the Alaska Legislature for being an “anti-Semite,” for writing music describing the people of Gaza and their defenders.

I am reading Riki Ott’s book right now and wonder what she has to say about the Tennessee toxic fly ash spill. It’s being compared to the Exxon Valdez spill. The TVA lies about safety and making everyone whole and safe ring differently as I read “Not One Drop”. I wouldn’t be inclined to believe them, but as I read Dr Ott’s work I know not to believe these corporatists and their lies.

.

This year’s Book Salons have been wonderful. Where else can you find an opportunity to chat with such esteemed authors, laugh with them about their work, and commiserate with them about the publishing world and their work process? No where else but here are authors so candid and eager to discuss their books & their work.

Sometimes, though, I think we learn more from the unanswered questions than those answered (looking at you, Mark Penn!).

All in all, a wonderful year — and here’s an end-of-year toast to our hostess with the mostest: Bev! Thank you, Bev, for all your hard work making these weekend afternoons a success!

I’m amazed you haven’t heard of her. When you get time, go here and see her speak at a church in Harlem the summer after the invasion. It’s amazing, she discusses her then recent book and you’ll benefit from watching this. I did. And it was 2003!
Please, DO watch this. I reference this vid in the sig line of all my emails.
Please, treat yourself, then look into her books.
They are each and every one simply astonishing.
Thanks.

Bev, thanks for arranging these book salons. I love them.
I’d love to see some more fiction, like K.C. Constantine. That’s a pseudonym.
And while I’m wishing, how about Azar Nafisi, author of Reading Lolita in Tehran. That’s not fiction but it is hard to classify.

Riki is now a blogger because of FDL, it was her first on-line chat. Now we should encourage her to write for Oxdown.

I suggest Amy Goodman. Her latest is Standing Up to the Madness.

You know, after watching videos of the debris along the river bed, downstream from the dam, the same thought occurred to me. I guess the images are similar.

not useless!

i learn a lot from authors like woodward and penn.

i second siri on roy.

I want to pop in and express my deep gratitude for FDL book salon, Jane, Bev and all the great hosts. I love coming here and participating/reading in real time all the great questions and answers.

For the best community on the web, FDL gets my vote.

Thanks, selise! So few people even know who she is.

Thanks bev.

Dakine, I might have been out that weekend.

Using search, I’m getting 1150 results, can someone point me to Penn’s appearance and unskillful dodging?

you sure about that? well, maybe in america, but she has readers all over the world!

She’s a sharp witted tongue, that one. She doesn’t get enough exposure in the US imo.

bev - one thing in particular i want to be sure to thank you for is letting us ask hard questions. i really, really like that softball questions are not required.

i’ve had discussions, or tried to start discussions about her and/or her work and have had to explain who she is.
I’m certain she’s internationally known, but a LOT of the educated circle I socialize with have no idea who she is, and ditto many email contacts.
Am I in a bubble or what?
Yeah, I’m certain!

True but the information learned is probably not the information the authors wanted us to learn.

But no exposure is true of any critical thinker in this country.

Wow! Being denounced for supporting Rachel Corrie is outrageous. I read about her death when it happened. It’s so hard to get any recognition for her off the ground here. Good for you, ET!

i agree. i have to dig thru the toobz to find her current stuff, and I KNOW she’s active.
I WISH she’d come back and do a tour of the US! You can find current articles here (Outlookindia.com). I’d really love to know what she’s doing, what she’s into now and into the future.
It would be outstanding to be able to converse with her.
I’m just a huge fan and have been for some time.

FDL is know for real discussions of the topics. The authors really enjoy the exchanges and remark on the quality of the questions and comments.

Bev - thank you SO much for all the work you’ve done bringing us these salons. They are a reader’s dream come true, to be able to talk directly to the authors of these great books.

Clarke - Krugman - so many others. Just dazzling.

We really appreciate what you are doing - thanks!

I am sorry we missed Studs Terkel.

Yes to Amy Goodman

I thought the discussion on Micro Lending was great. This man is making a lot of women’s lives livable.

I’m just a huge fan and have been for some time.

Really? Coulda fooled me. *g*

Yes, that was really interesting and hopeful.

WHAT???!!
D’I gush or something?????

Arundhati Roy on DN 15 Dec.

Many of us owe our “education” on all things legal, political, etc. to Jane, Marcy, Christy, Ian, et al. I’m planning on passing the bar eventually, just based on what I’ve learned here. ;)

I’ll watch after the salon, thanks.

Thanks. i read that about 2 weeks ago, i think. she did that article after the Mombai attacks and had a really fascinating interview with AG.
Thanks tho, SouthernDragon.
You’re so on top o stuff!
:)

Prolly make a better attorney than what we’ve been subjected to, FDLers excluded.

For some reason I can’t get that bozo saying “firelakedog” that day, on M$NBC I think, out of my head.

I can flat work a search engine.

Rick Sanchez on CNN.

Plus nothin’ gets between me and my daily Democracy Now! fix.

lol
one of the best!, you are SD.
HANDS DOWN!

Thanks. What a clueless dweeb.

Ah, it was a bit over a year ago, 10/27/2007 but here’s the Mark Penn Book Salon

Mark Penn’s “Microtrends” — hosted by Tom Schaller (October 27, 2007)

A classic!

But alas, that was 2007, and no one could live up to (or down to) the standard set by Penn during 2008. Word must be getting around . . .

Even so, it’s been a great year, Bev! I’ve enjoyed hosting a number of the chats, and participating in many more. There’s always so much to chew on. Thanks for all you do to make these chats happen!!

I had a history teacher in high school who focused on how to research written material. Search engines perform the same function as the old library subject card files, only more sophisticated.

This has been fun.

But I want to thank all of you for all your support and questions all year long.
Also - a big thanks to all the FLDers in the back room - that really make this happen for me.

To all - THANK YOU !!
Happy New Year

Thanks Bev.

Peace to thee and thine.

Namaste

Not only do the authors have a great time here, some of them who are new to blogging find themselves immersed in a terrific new world. I’m thinking of Madeleine Kunin and sending thanks to all you backstage folks who made her debut here possible.

Dakine, Peterr, just found it myself, thanks.

Bev, thank you for the gift of your work with the Book Salons.

Happy New Year to all! Thank you Bev, for a fun salon. And special thanks to all the backstage folks who keep things running smoothly. :)

Hey, Yer Lateness, how ya doin’?

I would love to see Rory Stewart here to talk about his Turquoise Mountain Foundation and his book The Places in Between and Greg Mortenson to talk about his IKAT foundation and his book, Three Cups of Tea. Also, Khaled Hosseini, to talk about both of his novels and his work with the UN. Thanks!

i HAVE Three Cups of Tea, but have not read it yet.
Thank you for these wonderful suggestions, Dru!

Wow, Penn was thouroughly trounced with facts and language from the better writers here. Yes, absolutely useless, like watching a spinning toy.

Quebecois @ 71 ~ :))

Let’s think about some fiction, maybe The Elegance of the Hedgehog?

There have been a few fiction the past year; The Young Dick Cheney and Apocalypse How were both fiction plus there was at least one Sci-fi book IIRC.

Thanks so much for FDL Book Salon, it’s can’t miss internet for me.

I think of this invaluable service to our civic life and my personal growth every time a MSM commentator lets loose with yet another self-serving swipe against bloggers.

FDL Book Salon exemplifies the open examination of viewpoints and facts that the corporate media recognizes as the job they dare not or cannot do.

I look forward to your wonderful efforts in 2009!

Good on you! I wonder why you were called anti-Semetic by a member of a Catholic Church? A Church that like all the other ‘Christians’ calls for the end times…the extermination of the Jews? That, I would say is the true ant-Semitism. If the US preachers, politicians, etc. could figure out the difference between a Jew and a Zionist, we would all be better off. There are a lot of anti-Zionist Jews in Israel, the US, and elsewhere around the world.

He lists his Vietnam service..he helped kill and Rachael fought for peace. Says it all, don’t you think? Informative means STFU, but in nicer words? Go get them!

This song is for you because I know that you ‘Won’t Back Down’.

http://jp.youtube.com/watch?v=.....re=related

Julia is upstairs!
Caroline Kennedy - “I have to work twice as hard”

Bev, you’re remarkable - I don’t know how you manage to be diplomatic and engaged, but you do a really good job, and I’m glad you’re here doing it.

I want http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_van_Creveld to discuss any or all of his books, the war in Iraq, the situation in Israel, and or the Art of War!

Follow ups with different authors we have had before would be good I want Ed’s opinion on Obama’s green energy plan. I want the economic guys to weigh in on Obama’s economic plans.

Swopa is upstairs!
Iraqi Politics Moves Toward a Post-Occupation Phase (Perhaps Too Soon)