Tag: Books
Panetta to Pen Memoir
$3 million
Amount of deal Leon Panetta, the former defense secretary and director of the Central Intelligence Agency, has struck to write a memoir, the New York Times reports. Said Panetta: “I have seen Washington at its best and at its worst. My goal is to give readers the opportunity to go behind the scenes and learn the lessons of how our democracy works, and sometimes how it fails to work.”
Thank You, Ray Bradbury
I don’t try to describe the future. I try to prevent it.
— Ray Bradbury, author of Farenheit 451, The Martian Chronicles, The Illustrated Man, and numerous short stories and other works, who died on June 6 at age 91. Bradbury also said, “Death doesn’t exist. It never did, it never will. But we’ve drawn so many pictures of it, so many years, trying to pin it down, comprehend it, we’ve got to thinking of it as an entity, strangely alive and greedy. All it is, however, is a stopped watch, a loss, an end, a darkness. Nothing.”
Marco Rubio Says He Used to be a Mormon
Not since Justin Bieber’s biopic, “Never Say Never” has an autobiography been so premature. But first-term Sen. Marco Rubio isn’t letting lack of material keep him from writing a full-length, in-depth look back at his life: all 41 short years of it.
Rubio’s main accomplishment so far has been being born at the right time with genes for attractiveness steeped in his parents’ ideology as Cuban emigrant, right-wing anti-Communists.
The book, reportedly titled, “An American Son,” will acknowledge Rubio’s personal story line deficit of triumph over adversity by drawing heavily on his parents’ lives. That includes their decision to leave Cuba after the Vegas-style excesses of the Batista regime began to fade, and before Castro came to power.
Rubio spokesperson: ‘His faith journey was part of the pitch to the publishers’
It also reveals his father’s role in a plot to overthrow the Dominican Republic’s dictator, Rafael Trujillo, when the elder Rubio was 18.
But perhaps one of the most interesting tidbits to surface will be Rubio’s admission that when he was 8-years-old, his parents began practicing Mormonism.
The White House Just Can’t Keep a Secret
If we wanted this event to be a secret, we probably wouldn’t have invited the press corps to cover it, release photos of it to Flickr or post a video from it on the White House website.
The White House, quoted by Politico, reacting to assertions made in a new book called “The Obamas.” The book claims the president and first lady threw an Alice in Wonderland themed Halloween party on the down-low, hoping to avoid Marie Antoinette comparisons during the recession.
Read a Banned Book This Week
If you need a suggestion for what book to read to celebrate National Banned Books Week, this site has them.
Banned Books Week is the only national celebration of the freedom to read. It was launched in 1982 in response to a sudden surge in the number of challenges to books in schools, bookstores and libraries. More than a thousand books have been challenged since 1982.
Oddly, according to a map posted at the site, most of the clusters of censorship have been along the Northeastern corridor and in the more “civilized” areas of the Midwest.
While some new books joined the Top Ten list of challenged books in 2009 (And Tango Makes Three by Peter Parnell and Justin Richardson, which acknowledges homosexuality, and The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky, which includes drug use, violence, and yes, homosexuality), plenty of old standards continue to irk…someone. These include the highly regarded classics To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger, and The Color Purple by Alice Walker.
Of course, we actually don’t mind that one book series made the list. That would be Twilight by Stephanie Meyer. Don’t tell my 12-year-old niece, but it’s O.K. with me if you don’t read those.
Obama’s New Book to Debut After Midterms
While he’s been bailing out banks and car manufacturers, fighting two foreign wars, reforming health care and Wall Street, and playing a little B-ball and golf, President Barack Obama found time to pen a children’s book that’s set to premiere Nov. 16 — after the midterm elections.
With Dreams From My Father and The Audacity of Hope, Obama already has two books under his belt, and his newest is titled Of Thee I Sing: A Letter to My Daughters. Random House’s Alfred A. Knopf Books for Young Readers will initially print 500,000 copies of the 40-page children’s book.
The book profiles 13 prominent figures in American history, among them George Washington, Jackie Robinson and Georgia O’ Keefe.
Proceeds from sales will be used to create a scholarship for children of fallen and disabled American soldiers.
Coulter’s Book Sales Collapse
The best thing anyone can do for Ann Coulter is give her attention, including even — or maybe especially even — negative attention. So it is with some reluctance that that we publish this story, but it is irresistible:
Coulter’s latest book, Guilty: Liberal “Victims” and Their Assault on America, is something of a misfire by Coulterian standards. Of course, what constitutes a disappointment for Coulter would be a mega-hit for most authors; in its two months on sale, Guilty has sold 100,500 copies, according to Nielsen BookScan (a number that only reflects around 70 percent of actual sales).
Right-wing groups usually pump up book sales of screed-writers like Coulter by buying thousands of copies in lots and the distributing them as freebies to donors. This paltry showing could be a sign that these groups are experiencing budget shortfalls in the wake of the Republican rout in Washington last year.
Gillibrand Selection Could Leave House a Little Redder
New York’s next senatorThe Senate’s gain might be the House’s loss. By selecting Rep. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) to replace Hillary Clinton, New York Gov. David Paterson might have given Republicans a new House seat.
Gillibrand — an odd mix of gun control foe and gay rights advocate, anti amnesty for immigrants and pro alternative energy — carried her heavily Republican upstate district, something more typical Democrats might not be able to do.
Gillibrand will take the Senate office Sunday.
