I deleted a few posts that weren't on topic.

Maybe we need to select a non-fiction book to start April 1, 2012 as opposed to March 1st. There aren't enough suggestions or apparent interest in a new non-fiction discussion right now.

I'm convinced we'll see a massive increase in traffic once the new site is launched and hopefully that means we will have more book suggestions and better book discussions.

Here is a suggestion that would definitely get us talking and probably debating.

The World America Made

Book Description

What would the world look like if America were to reduce its role as a global leader in order to focus all its energies on solving its problems at home? And is America really in decline? Robert Kagan, New York Times best-selling author and one of the country’s most influential strategic thinkers, paints a vivid, alarming picture of what the world might look like if the United States were truly to let its influence wane.

Although Kagan asserts that much of the current pessimism is misplaced, he warns that if America were indeed to commit “preemptive superpower suicide,” the world would see the return of war among rising nations as they jostle for power; the retreat of democracy around the world as Vladimir Putin’s Russia and authoritarian China acquire more clout; and the weakening of the global free-market economy, which the United States created and has supported for more than sixty years. We’ve seen this before—in the breakdown of the Roman Empire and the collapse of the European order in World War I.

Potent, incisive, and engaging, The World America Made is a reminder that the American world order is worth preserving, and America dare not decline.

About the Author
Robert Kagan is senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and a columnist for The Washington Post. He is also the author of The Return of History and the End of Dreams, Dangerous Nation, Of Paradise and Power, and A Twilight Struggle. Kagan served in the U.S. State Department from 1984 to 1988. He lives in Virginia with his wife and two children.

I'm glad to be back on this site! The book suggestions sound terrific. I would like to also suggest my recently published BREAKING THEIR WILL: SHEDDING LIGHT ON RELIGIOUS CHILD MALTREATMENT. It's the first book to take a journalistic approach to religiously motivated child abuse and neglect in the U.S. It's available in paperback and on Kindle and is published by Prometheus Books. Thank you, again, Chris, for suggesting I query PB. They have been great. But I will happily engage in a discussion about another book. Now that BTW is done, I again have time to read.
Regards,
Janet Heimlich

Gabor Mate's book "In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts" is also about childhood/pre-natal abuse, neglect, etal. It is concerned with hunger, physical and psychological abuses which are often 'religious' in nature, but especially wartime disruptions which starve and frighten mothers, whose bodies flood fetuses with adrenaline and construct their brain patterns in such a way as to handicap them in the formative years after they are born. Such children are pre-conditioned for a life of exclusion, excitement seeking and intellectual confusion. Dr. Mate (who is a survivor of Nazi occupation) traces these malformed brains to most social dis-ease, including ADD/ADHD (which he suffers from) and addictions ranging from drug and alcohol abuse to workaholics and others who neglect or fail at intimate relationships.

Mate, an addict himself, is a fine writer and lecturer able to explain complex studies from often ignored sources (they don't fit in with the pill industry) and offers simple but difficult solutions to most of our problems, should any buracracy/politician ever seriously decide to deal with them. The solutions are difficult only because they require genuine care for our mothers and children, and an end to cultural violence. "All war," Howard Zinn reminded us, "is war against children."

Mate treats many addicts at a state-run clinic in British Columbia. He would include the War on Drugs, Poverty, Crime and cancer among those which harm women and children. Wars have powerful people interested in keeping them unresolved because there is so much endless profit, and we, conditioned by fear, must have something done about it.

Janet, your book will definitely be on the poll when the poll thread goes up in a week or two. Thanks for the suggestion.

Chris, some good suggestions so far. I'd still like to see something from the history or political science genres. Can you add one or two from the last poll we did a couple of months ago?

This looks like an interesting one, a lot of independent chapters. In addition to the examples below, check out the table of contents on Amazon

This Will Make You Smarter: New Scientific Concepts to Improve Your Thinking
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/006210 ... d_i=507846

What scientific concept would improve everybody’s cognitive toolkit? This is the question John Brockman, publisher of Edge.org, posed to the world’s most influential thinkers. Their visionary answers flow from the frontiers of psychology, philosophy, economics, physics, sociology, and more. Surprising and enlightening, these insights will revolutionize the way you think about yourself and the world.

Daniel Kahneman on the “focusing illusion” • Jonah Lehrer on controlling attention • Richard Dawkins on experimentation • Aubrey De Grey on conquering our fear of the unknown • Martin Seligman on the ingredients of well-being • Nicholas Carr on managing “cognitive load” • Steven Pinker on win-win negotiating • Daniel C. Dennett on benefiting from cycles • Jaron Lanier on resisting delusion • Frank Wilczek on the brain’s hidden layers • Clay Shirky on the “80/20 rule” • Daniel Goleman on understanding our connection to the natural world • V. S. Ramachandran on paradigm shifts • Matt Ridley on tapping collective intelligence • John McWhorter on path dependence • Lisa Randall on effective theorizing • Brian Eno on “ecological vision” • Richard Thaler on rooting out false concepts • J. Craig Venter on the multiple possible origins of life • Helen Fisher on temperament • Sam Harris on the flow of thought • Lawrence Krauss on living with uncertainty

I found David McCullough's Johnstown Flood a fascinating book. It comes in hardcover, paperback, audio, kindle editions. Amazon gives the book 4.5 stars from 123 customers. The Amazon link is amazon.com/Johnstown-Flood-ebook/dp/B00 ... B000QTD642. Amazon writeup on books says...

Amazon.com Review
The history of civil engineering may sound boring, but in David McCullough's hands it is, well, riveting. His award-winning histories of the Brooklyn Bridge and the Panama Canal were preceded by this account of the disastrous dam failure that drowned Johnstown, Pennsylvania, in 1889. Written while the last survivors of the flood were still alive, McCullough's narrative weaves the stories of the town, the wealthy men who owned the dam, and the forces of nature into a seamless whole. His account is unforgettable: "The wave kept on coming straight toward him, heading for the very heart of the city. Stores, houses, trees, everything was going down in front of it, and the closer it came, the bigger it seemed to grow.... The height of the wall of water was at least thirty-six feet at the center.... The drowning and devastation of the city took just about ten minutes." A powerful, definitive book, and a tribute to the thousands who died in America's worst inland flood. --Mary Ellen Curtin

Review
John Leonard The New York Times We have no better social historian.

And the customer review by "BeachReader", voted by 193 or 202 people as helpful says...

McCullough relates the history of the South Fork property on which the dam and lake were located, including the purchase of this property by rich men from Pittsburgh, among them Carnegie, Frick, Mellon, and Horne. They formed the South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club, a mountain resort, and built a clubhouse for use by members. Sixteen members also built large "cottages" around the 350-acre lake that had been formed by the earthen dam which was first built between 1840 and 1850. When these men bought the property in 1879, the dam had been totally neglected so "repairs" were made. Unfortunately, no engineer had anything to do with these repairs, which consisted mostly of throwing junk, branches, rocks, and hay against the dam. During this time, the outlet pipes at the bottom of the dam were removed and sold as scrap. Other ingredients in this recipe for disaster were the pipes that were put in near the dam to prevent fish from leaving the lake. These would also, it was found later, allow debris to build up and cause water to spill over the dam more easily.

The inevitable occurred in 1889, on Memorial Day, when a huge storm caused the lake to rise above the dam. With no outlet pipes to lower the level of the water, the water poured over the top, at the center. The dam soon gave way, allowing the contents of the huge lake to rush 15 miles down the mountain, destroying everything in its path, including the town of Johnstown.

When McCullough describes this wall of water descending the mountain and the destruction that occurred, the picture he painted was beyond belief. The torrent of water brought with it livestock, houses, trains, tracks, machinery, barbed wire and everything else that was in its path.

In the face of such complete chaos and horror, level heads prevailed. The day after the flood, townspeople held a meeting at which it was decided that a "dictator" was needed. Arthur Moxham was subsequently chosen and he immediately set up several committees to take care of removing dead animals and wreckage, setting up morgues and temporary hospitals, deputizing a police force (which cut out tin stars from cans found in the debris), handling finances, and obtaining supplies.

At 4 PM this same day (Saturday), emergency supplies, 80 volunteers, and 30 police left Pittsburgh on a 20-car train after wagons had been sent out throughout the city to collect supplies for Johnstown.

The next day, burials started. One out of three bodies was never identified--over 600 unknowns.

During this time, more trains arrived--one 11-car train from Pittsburgh contained nothing but coffins and 50 undertakers; another from the governor of Ohio was filled with tents. There were 27,000 people in the valley who had absolutely nothing, and providing for their physical needs was of paramount importance. Contributions, not including goods, eventually totaled $3.7 million, with only about $70,000 donated by the rich industrialits who owned the resort.

The National Guard was called in to try and keep order since thousands of people had come to help, and also to gawk. On Wednesday, Clara Barton arrived with her newly formed American Red Cross and 50 doctors and nurses. She was 67 and a bundle of energy and organization. Within days, she had organized hospital tents, hotels with hot and cold running water, and kitchens. She rarely slept and never left for five months!

Over 2200 people died in the Johnstown Flood and no responsibility was ever assumed by the members of the South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club, and none of the lawsuits against the club was ever won in the courts.

This was an incredible account of a horrific event in our nation's history.

Sure, lindad_amato, I'll add the most popular books from the last poll to the new poll.

Hello! <is confused> Did ya guys pick a book for March? Twas hoping to join in this month.