This looks like a fun book about a journalist who ends up in some pretty wacky countries and situations. Hopefully it's not a "chick flick" of a book.

Clever titles are even better if they work on more than one level. I've read some of this, but it could use an "executive summary," cause it's pretty dry reading. Even though I can be a dick when it comes to pointing out useless and/or annoying speech patterns in others, I couldn't bring myself to finish this. There appears to be an updated version out now. Maybe I'll check it out.

After hearing about this book on NPR, I decided I would remember to eventually read it. The author talked about how his father always steered him away from the army, and also about his initial antipathy towards his assignment. But after being given unrestricted access to West Point students and learning much about what goes on in their classrooms, he declares the army to be "absolutely american."

Prison soap jokes are funny because it's not me getting ass spelunked. This is a comedy piece about how CEOs who get caught can survive in prison. I don't remember where I heard about this book, but it stuck in my mind, for obvious tragic humor reasons.

Jeet Kune Do is the martial art invented by Bruce Lee, made up of moves taken from other martial arts and stripped down, improved, and perfected. This book is Bruce's discussion and description of his invention.

A conspiracy theorist's look at many events of the past century. I don't remember why this caught my attention, but it looks like a fun read. Ah yes, the Disinformation people, authors of the book that calls you stupid: "Everything You Know Is Wrong".

Publishers Weekly says: If a copy (often unread) of The Name of the Rose on the coffee table was a badge of intellectual superiority in 1983, Eco's second novel--also an intellectual blockbuster--should prove more accessible. This complex psychological thriller chronicles the development of a literary joke that plunges its perpetrators into deadly peril. The narrator, Casaubon, an expert on the medieval Knights Templars, and two editors working in a branch of a vanity press publishing house in Milan, are told about a purported coded message revealing a secret plan set in motion by the Knights Templars centuries ago when the society was forced underground. As a lark, the three decide to invent a history of the occult tying a variety of phenomena to the mysterious machinations of the Order. Feeding their inspirations into a computer, they become obsessed with their story, dreaming up links between the Templars and just about every occult manifestation throughout history, and predicting that culmination of the Templars' scheme to take over the world is close at hand. The plan becomes real to them--and eventually to the mysterious They, who want the information the trio has ``discovered.'' Dense, packed with meaning, often startlingly provocative, the novel is a mixture of metaphysical meditation, detective story, computer handbook, introduction to physics and philosophy, historical survey, mathematical puzzle, compendium of religious and cultural mythology, guide to the Torah (Hebrew, rather than Latin contributes to the puzzle here, but is restricted mainly to chapter headings), reference manual to the occult, the hermetic mysteries, the Rosicrucians, the Jesuits, the Freemasons-- ad infinitum . The narrative eventually becomes heavy with the accumulated weight of data and supposition, and overwrought with implication, and its climax may leave readers underwhelmed. Until that point, however, this is an intriguing cerebral exercise in which Eco slyly suggests that intellectual arrogance can come to no good end.

A worldwide puzzle chase recommended to people who enjoyed The DaVinci Code, except the people are looking for the pieces of a chess set that can control the ENTIRE WORLD.

Recommended as a more confusing work by an author who looked interesting to me. I've seen this movie and am now more interested in reading this. Up the list you go!

I'm even more interested to read this book now that I've read We The Living by Ayn Rand, because it sounds like this book is studying the possibility that what happened after Red October might happen again after the fall of Communism, albeit on a smaller scale: that the greedy and hypocritical old leaders, or similarly motivated people might be able to take the reins of a country struggling to rebuild itself.

Tolkein created a complete new world in his literature. A fantasy world of good and evil, easily distinguishable, which looks more and more appealing these days when it's harder and harder to tell them apart. The Silmarillion is part of the backstory for Tolkein's more famous trilogy, and it's interesting reading. I've read part of this, and I pick it up again from time to time. It's a bit allegorical, not surprisingly, as it is a tale of the beginning of the world coming from a Catholic.

Dueling is, historically, a very simple way to settle an argument. The one who doesn't die is obviously right. This book is about dueling in Germany, and why the custom survived longer there than anywhere else. It's really dry historical reading, and the author is a bit sesquipedalian, using a foot-and-a-half-er for its own sake, but some of the history is interesting. I've read some of this book, and pick it up every now and then, when I'm in an odd mood.

Celebrities, public personalities, heroes, whatever you want to call them. Viewing someone as more than a regular person, as a Hero or as someone with a higher understanding has never appealed to me. It seems to leave one open to specific applications of Plato's Truth Virus until the individual is left with no valuable knowledge of his own. I don't really know what this book is about, but its author, Gerald White Johnson -- a respected journalist, seems to me to be in a great position to comment on the phenomenon.

I've got another rather boring book on dueling on my to read list that I pick up every now and then, but this promises to be a rather lighter treatment of the subject.

Jack Ryan's son is the main character in this modern-day terrorist thriller. I've always enjoyed Tom Clancy's writing because however probable his scenarios are or how chillingly accurate they turn out to be, they're always thought provoking and exciting. I expect much the same from this book.

Al Franken never struck me as much besides a comedian, but apparently he's politically-minded enough to write a book.

Dubya as Commander-In-Chief... what was he like? What did he do? I don't really remember what this book is about, but that's why it's in the 'to read' section.

Described as "the best American novel to come out of WWII," this book caught my interest a while ago, but I never picked up a copy and started reading. So one day when I see this post again, I will!

A good conspiracy theory is entirely plausible. But when reasonable doubt turns into a myriad of books about something that is still happening, there's something going on. In the information age, the old quip to the effect of "people will believe a big lie more easily than a small lie" holds its own with large media conglomerates wielding their influence and information distribution channels with impunity. I hate people who don't play fair (especially corporations who file "fuck off" lawsuits), and this book might add a few more people to that list.

Recently, I've been reading a lot about history, and I've read several mysteries about history, but those didn't take place in the past as this one does. The genre is described as inspired by The Name Of The Rose, which is also on my list.

This is another book on my inflammatory populist reading list. Not much else to say about it. Yet.

How did I miss this book? I've read and enjoyed several of Scott Adams' office satires, but this one slipped under my radar until I noticed some of Moore's more recent works about Dubya & the gang. Looks like a hoot!

The first in two (so far) of Mike Moore's attacks on The Man Who Is Not Necessarily White Or The Police and who likes to oppress anyone who chases their cheddar, so to speak. Woop, woop, that's the sound of the police.

Satire is great because it makes people laugh. Most of the time, when people laugh, they're laughing because they're happy. But when reading recent populist satire, the laugh generated is bitter and from disbelief evaporating. Most people aren't crooks. Most people play fair. This book isn't about most people. Jim Hightower's raucus "Don't mess with Texas style" is sure to amuse and inform.

I've read several books recently about Saudi Arabia and the history surrounding that region. But last night when I was reading Foundation, there was an analogy that stuck with me and just now seemed to perfectly describe the US-Saudi relationship that has developed: A horse is enemies with a wolf. The horse cannot kill the wolf. After many weeks of antagonism, the horse seeks outside help. He talks to a man and suggests that they team up against the wolf. So the man asks one thing of the horse: lend me your speed, and I will help you kill the wolf. So the man saddles up the horse and gets his gun and with the man's gun and the horse's speed, they kill the wolf. Then the horse is happy, thanks the man and asks him to get off of his back now. Which of course he doesn't, he just digs in the spurs...   horse == United States wolf == energy crisis man == Saudi Arabia gun == Saudi oil speed == American mass market

Why do politicians lie so much when truth is the obvious, simple, and acceptable alternative? Because the Bush Administration has deined that it had any oil-driven economic motive going into Iraq, that has become the charge against them. Who cares if we want to make sure that oil can't be used as an economic weapon against us? That sounds pretty reasonable to me. Say what you mean.

Book looks interesting. Excerpt from publisher's summary: This is a story of heroes: Nancy Floyd, who tried to bring down the New York terror cell but paid for her efforts with damage to her career, and Ronnie Bucca, who tried to alert the FBI to the security threat to New York City from al Qaeda but paid for the agency's negligence with his life on 9/11. It is also a story of the power of evil: Lance offers a chilling chronicle of how one man -- the elusive mastermind Yousef -- managed to defeat the entire American security system in what Lance calls "the greatest failure of intelligence since the Trojan Horse."

Aristotle was some old philosopher. Ayn Rand derives some of her logic from him, so I figured I'd read his work. It's a huge book, but I'll finish it eventually.