Whatcha reading?

Here's a list of some books I'd like to read in the near future.

"Overthrow, America's Century of Regime Change from Hawaii to Iraq"
Stephen Kinzer

I saw Kinzer interviewed on BookTV and this sounds like an excellent chronicle of the how, why, and consequences of America's largely corporate driven medling in foreign governments over the last century.

"American Theocracy : The Peril and Politics of Radical Religion, Oil, and Borrowed Money in the 21stCentury"
Kevin Phillips

Phillips is a great author and historian who happens to have been a former Republican strategist who predicted the ascendtion of the Republican party in his "The Emerging Republican Majority", which makes this book and his last, "American Dynasty : Aristocracy, Fortune, and the Politics of Deceit in the House of Bush" (which I've read) all the more credible.

Phillips clearly sees the hypocrisy, greed, and deceit of the Republican leaders and the corporate interests they serve which he helped to gain power.

Misquoting Jesus : The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why
Bart D. Ehrman

Should be interesting. I saw this author interviewed as well and the book explains a realistic view of the origin and numerous re-jiggerings the Bible has undergone over the ages and how it's used to reflect the desires and hangups of whomever happens to be the one pointing to the Bible as a basis for what they want to impose on all of society by political means.

"The Assassins' Gate : America in Iraq" George Packer

By all accounts, a hard-eyed and informative examination of just how we ended up in the quagmire in Iraq.


Those are but a few of the books on my "wish list", and I hope to get my hands on a copy sometime soon, though the libraries on the Illinois side are notorious for being jam packed with conservative screeds by the likes of Ann Coulter, Bill O'Reilly, and disgraced toe sucker Dick Morris, a guy who's been dead wrong in everything he's ever written, while having only a relative handful of books critical of the administration. (A few of which are only there because I requested them.)

For instance, the Moline Library at one point didn't possess a copy of an Al Franken book which had at the time been on the NY Times bestseller list for a couple months, but had several obscure and largely unnoticed books trotting out all sorts of malicious garbage against the Clintons, Gore, and Kerry. Go figure.