As someone who has been reading Arianna’s books since the 1980s when she was still Arianna Stassinopoulos, I think that “Third World America” is her most compelling and important work to date — and it is an important work. Her vantage point mediating between the insular political realm and a vast, interconnected online communications world has given her unique insights into the chasm between political groupthink and the way that ordinary Americans experience current events. This book offers a clear, concise warning to those who think an uptick in the stock market for a few days means our economic worries are behind us.

Paul Street’s new book, The Empire’s New Clothes, closely examines the first year of the Obama administration, critically evaluating it within a context of strong liberal-Democratic support and fierce – even hysterical right-wing opposition. Barack Obama is seen very differently by Americans. Many see him as a symbol of how far America has come since the days of openly-supported racial segregation and the terroristic violence directed against the black community. Others see Obama as a dangerous “socialist/Marxist” who is threatening the American middle class and crippling future generations with “big government” and “unsustainable” debt.

Barry Eisler’s new novel, Inside Out, is a spy thriller that takes off from the past years’ headlines about missing CIA torture tapes. But it is something even more: it is one of the most politically astute novels of our generation. No other work of fiction has pointedly posed the alternatives for those who would seek political change in the United States in the 21st century. And what are the possibilities in a system where conspiracy is impossible because “everyone is complicit”? Political nihilism, revolutionary adventurism, martyrdom, or subornation by the Establishment.

In his new book, Eaarth: Making a Life on a Tough New Planet, Bill McKibben portrays the dire environmental conditions that a generation ago seemed like abstract predictions of what our grandchildren might endure. In much of his previous work the environmental journalist and activist aimed to wake people up to the existence of climate change before it was too late.

The thing that always makes me go gyarrggghhh about Republicans’ worship of Ayn Rand (and, indeed, Ayn Rand herself) is their refusal to recognize that they are the pro-parasite party. They’re so outraged by the thought that somewhere in America a poor person might be getting a few government crumbs – for free OMG – that they don’t notice or care that the GOP has been giving corporations taxpayer-funded turkey dinners for decades, long before Obama decided to keep Dubya’s gravy train rolling.

Max Blumenthal charts the Republican Party’s descent into religious madness, as it transmogrifies from “I Like Ike” into “Ultimate Fighting Jesus”.

Some folks might have qualms or questions about our having a Republican on FDL for a book salon. Not me. It’s high time we started talking to one another about the issues, rather than talking past each other in a political frenzy. Especially regarding issues which in years past were supposedly held above the political fray: national security, intelligence matters, and the rule of law.

The world Eric Lotke has created in 2044 is a progressive’s nightmare. Almost every exasperating trend we see today has been extrapolated to its logical extreme: Mindless fear of terrorism is used to manipulate the populace. Giant conglomerates control the economy, the news media, the government, and even the cops. Small businesses and entrepreneurs are ruthlessly crushed by cutthroat pricing, lawsuits, and police brutality. There are no unions in sight, and employees have no rights or recourse. The class divide has grown and calcified, with the poor living in near-shantytown squalor while the rich live in lavish mini-skyscrapers and never interact with commoners.

Charles Pierce explains in hilarious detail how America’s cranks launched the war on expertise.

Looking at the bookshelves of company and battalion commanders in Baghdad and Mosul during the spring of 2007, I saw about as many copies of Tom Ricks’ Fiasco as I did the Bible. It seemed practically subversive. Fiasco is an account of how thoroughly the U.S. military, enabled by the willful blindness of the Bush administration, misunderstood the nature of the occupation of Iraq.