Q3, 2007 Nonfiction Book Suggestions

Chris OConnor

Anyone else want to chime in here with your opinion? We should put the next poll up during this weekend and we could use some more feedback on the current book suggestions.

Mad, I will read up on those other two books right now.

MadArchitect

Here is a review of the book you suggested, from Foreign Affairs magazine.

And EzCode Parsing Error:=]http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/africa_today/v049/49.2elkins.html ]here[ is a review of "The Mask of Anarchy", which says that Ellis' discussion of the religious component is problematic. If that's true, then we may be better off using a book that doesn't make so much of an emphasis on religion.

JulianTheApostate

If you're interested in African history, you might want to read this book:

The Fate of Africa: From the Hopes of Freedom to the Heart of Despair by Martin Meredith

Though it's excellent, at 700 pages it wouldn't be an appropriate BookTalk selection.

Dissident Heart

Interventions by Noam Chomsky

"Chomsky is a global phenomenon . . . perhaps the most widely read voice on foreign policy on the planet."-The New York Times Book Review

Interventions is Noam Chomsky at his best.

Not since his all-time best-selling title, 9/11, published in the Open Media series in 2001, have readers had a timely, short, easy-to-read, affordable Chomsky. Unlike 9/11, Interventions is a writerly work-a series of more than thirty tightly argued essays aimed at various aspects of US power and politics in the post-9/11 world. While critical of US military interventions around the globe, each piece in the book is in itself an intellectual intervention aimed at raising public ire about the consequences of US use of power at home and abroad.

Interventions' subjects span from 9/11 and the Iraq war to Social Security and Intelligent Design, South America and Asia, the Israeli occupation of Palestine and the election of Hamas, Hurricane Katrina, and the US concept of "just war."

According to BusinessWeek, "With relentless logic, Chomsky bids us to listen closely to what our leaders tell us-and to discern what they are leaving out. . . . Agree with him or not, we lose out by not listening." Chomsky's Interventions delivers what readers want: an accessible set of skeleton keys for opening up a wide range of global issues dominating today's political landscape.

Since 2002, the New York Times Syndicate has been distributing op-eds written by the pre-eminent foreign policy critic and scholar of our time, Noam Chomsky. The New York Times Syndicate is part of the same company as the New York Times newspaper, and while readers around the world have had a chance to regularly read Chomsky’s articles, the New York Times newspaper has never published a single one. Only a few regional newspapers in the US have picked up the Op-eds, such as the Register Guard, the Dayton Daily News, and the Knoxville Voice. Internationally, the Op-eds have appeared in the mainstream British press including the International Herald Tribune, the Guardian, and the Independent. Now, City Lights Books has just published a complete collection of these 1000 word Op-eds in a single book called Interventions.

RaulRamos

The Chomsky suggestion is one I would love to read.
Here goes another one: The Ethics of What We Eat: Why Our Food Choices Really Matter (Peter Singer)

Publishers Weekly:

Quote:
Ethicist Singer and co-author Mason (Animal Factories) document corporate deception, widespread waste and desensitization to inhumane practices in this consideration of ethical eating. The authors examine three families' grocery-buying habits and the motivations behind those choices. One woman says she's "absorbed in my life and my family...and I don't think very much about the welfare of the meat I'm eating," while a wealthier husband and wife mull the virtues of "triple certified" coffee, buying local and avoiding chocolate harvested by child slave labor, though "no one seems to be pondering that as they eat." In investigating food production conditions, the authors' first-hand experiences alternate between horror and comedy, from slaughterhouses to artificial turkey-insemination ("the hardest, fastest, dirtiest, most disgusting, worst-paid work" ). This sometimes-graphic exposé is not myopic: profitability and animal welfare are given equal consideration, though the reader finishes the book agreeing with the authors' conclusion that "America's food industry seeks to keep Americans in the dark about the ethical components of their food choices." A no-holds-barred treatise on ethical consumption, this is an important read for those concerned with the long, frightening trip between farm and plate.

Audiofile:

Quote:
If Rick Adamson ranted and raved his way through this treatise on the ethical and economic repercussions of eating animals, it would be easy to ignore. But he delivers it so objectively that he gives the issue even more gravitas. This work, by a Princeton ethicist and an animal rights activist and writer, demonstrates why Americans should take a hard look at the food they eat. Even if it were possible to ignore the facts of factory farming's cruelty to animals, the listener can't ignore the environmental and economic impact of food production. It's also a good handbook for conscientious shoppers trying to figure out labels like "certified humane," "fair trade," and others. This book could change your life.

Dissident Heart

Frankly, I think Booktalk would look extremely inviting to new members and guests if we had Noam Chomsky and Christopher Hitchens as our two quarterly reads. Readers familiar with either author are well aware of the current conflict between the two: as well as their long history of support and mutual admiration prior to 9/11. I think having their two books and names side by side will attract a great deal of attention and people will say, "Well, I wonder what the hell these folks at Booktalk are up to"... .. .


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