Bookview's April Edition is Posted

By Alan Caruba

For those of you who are avid readers, my monthly report on new non-fiction and fiction, Bookviews.com, is posted for April and is filled with news about many new books you may not read about in the mainstream media. All manner of topics are covered, from politics to history, cookbooks to those about health, business topics, and some excellent new novels.

Below are "My Picks of the Month"

My Picks of the Month

I love reading history and for anyone trying to figure out the trends occurring worldwide there is no better way of understanding what is occurring now. Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty by Daron Acemoglu and James A. Robinson ($30.00, Crown) addresses and answers questions that have stumped the experts for centuries. Acemoglu is the Killian Professor of Economics at MIT and Robinson is a political scientists and economist, an expert on Latin America and Africa, teaches at Harvard. The book is a hefty tome, but reads smoothly as the authors explore why some nations are wealthy and others are poor. One example is the border between the U.S. and Mexico. Some nations have had several revolutions without any real change in the way they are governed. Egypt is such an example. The authors address the question of whether America’s best days are behind it and whether China authoritarian growth machine is sustainable. Without giving away any secrets, the answer to the question of growth and failure is freedom. Put this book on your reading list this year. Charles Goyette has written Red and Blue and Broke All Over: Restoring America’s Free Economy ($25.95, Sentinel, an imprint of the Penguin Group) takes a look at our present crisis from a libertarian point of view and, not surprisingly concludes that the increasing size of government, crony capitalism, and too much spending has brought us to the brink of a financial crisis even greater than what occurred in 2008. It is a thought-provoking book and very timely. Sometimes you cannot improve on an author’s own description of what he has written. I am a fan of James D. Best’s novels based on the old West and the early days of the American Republic, so I was not surprised that he turned his hand to non-fiction to write Principled Action: Lessons from the Origins of the American Republic ($13.95, Wheatmark, Tucson, AZ, softcover). “Prior to 1776, world history was primarily written about kings and emperors. The American experiment shook the world. Not only did the colonies break away from the biggest and most powerful empire in history, they took the musings of the brightest thinkers of the Enlightenment and implemented them. The Founding of the United States was simultaneously an armed rebellion against tyranny and a revolution of ideas-ideas that changed the course of world history. Principled Action shows how the Founders built this great nation with sacrifice, courage, and steadfast principles.” There is no more important time in our present times to learn the how and why of the founding of our great republic. This highly readable book is a very good place to start.

I keep wondering if it is going to take another 9/11 for Americans to wake up to the threat of Islamo-fascism that exists within our very midst? Peter Feaman has written The Next Nightmare: How Political Correctness Will Destroy America ($14.99, Dunham Books, softcover) with a foreword by Congressman Allan West. It is a short read, but it is one that makes clear how the failure to recognize the spread of Islamic fanaticism within the nation continues to pose a threat to our society, noting how the number of mosques has gone from around fifty after World War II to more than 1,200 today and that many, if not most, are centers for radical Islamism, including recruiting efforts inside America’s prison population. How Americans cannot witness the assault by Muslim communities on European nations and not understand that it can and will happen here is suicidal. Put this one on your reading list! Of course, not all Muslims are plotting terrorism and Irshad Manji’s book, Allah, Liberty and Love: The Courage to Reconcile Faith and Freedom ($16.00, Free Press, softcover) reveals how, within Islam, many of its faithful are yearning for a reformation and greater tolerance of other faiths. The author gained notice with her bestselling book, “The Trouble With Islam Today”, and she makes her case for the need for change. She teaches “moral courage” and that is necessary for change from within and for the willingness to speak out against the imposition of Sharia law by terrorism that intimidates its victims and encourages its perpetrators. The United States has had a long history of dealing with the Middle East dating back to President Thomas Jefferson’s decision to respond to attacks on American ships by Barbary pirates (“to the shores of Tripoli”). In 1866, American missionaries founded a small college in Beirut, Lebanon that would later be renamed the American University of Beirut. Under the leadership of four generations of the Bliss and Dodge families, it became an influential institution of higher learning. It’s story is told in American Sheikhs by Brian VanDeMark ($25.00, Prometheus Books). Far more than just a family saga, it is the story of how the university graduated countless leaders, legislators, ambassadors, educators, scientists, doctors and businessmen whose lives and accomplishments played a significant role in the modern history of the Middle East. Anyone who loves to read history will enjoy this book.

Just out this month is the second edition of a terrific compendium of facts, The Handy Religion Answer Book by John Renard, PhD, ($21.95, Visible Ink, softcover) that provides a world of facts about the different faiths; what people believe and how their faith profoundly influences the way they act. It provides descriptions of major beliefs and rituals worldwide. This publisher also offers The Handy Science Answer Book ($21.95) now in its fourth edition. These books are treasuries of knowledge that will make you the smartest, best informed person in the room! For folks who like to find a lot of information in one spot, there’s International Affairs by Davis K. Thanjan ($22.95, Bookstand Publishing, Morgan Hill, CA, softcover). Nation by nation, the author has accumulated the most recent information with an emphasis of U.S. foreign policy and foreign relations. The result is a quick, short analysis of each nation’s economic and strategic importance in relationship to U.S. interests. It is a prodigious piece of research that puts the data at your fingertips and for anyone who wants to understand America’s position in the world today, it is filled with insights that would require tons of research that, happily, the author has done for you..

This is a political year and there are some 600,000 public offices up for election throughout the nation. Though it is not widely known, the majority of Americans self-identify as politically conservative. For them Craig Copland has written the 2012 Conservative Election Handbook: Everything You Need to Know to Elect Conservatives from Dog Catcher to President ($14.95, available in various e-reader formats at www.conservawiki.com and elsewhere). This is an excellent book that covers all aspects of planning, running, and winning an election. (It’s even available for free if you are a conservative running for office.) While its purpose is to elect conservatives, this book is so thorough that, it must be said, a liberal candidate would benefit just as much from it. I have seen a number of such books over the years and this qualifies as one of the best.

Animal lovers, particularly of horses, will love The Rescue of Belle & Sundance: One Town’s Incredible Race to Save Two Abandoned Horses by Birgit Stutz and Lawrence Scanlan ($22.00,Da Capo Press.) The horses had been abandoned on Mount Renshaw in Canada’s British Columbia province. Everything was fine until winter set in at which point a four-person effort to save them turned into a village-wide, week-long mission to dig a path off the mountain through six feet or more of snow to create an 18-mile descent to safety. It is a delightful story that is well worth reading. In December of last year I recommended The Elements: A Visual Exploration of Every Known Atom in the Universe by Theodore Gray. It was rather pricey in its hardcover edition, but now for those who love science and learning, it is available in softcover for $19.95 (Black Dog and Leventhal Publishers) offering gorgeous photos of the 118 elements in the periodic table, packed with information about the building blocks of the universe. This is the kind of book that, in the hands of a young or old exploring mind, opens entire new vistas to our world, stimulating one’s sense of wonder.

Like everyone else, I like to dress fashionably and, frankly, have not given it much thought. Jessica Wolfendale and Jeanette Kennett have and the result is an interesting book, Fashion—Philosophy for Everyone ($19.95, Wiley-Blackwell, softcover). This is not one of your usual fashion books on what’s hot and what’s not. It is a serious look at the subject by two scholars, an Assistant Professor of Philosophy at West Virginia University and a Professor of Moral Psychology at Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia. Together they explore the strong connection between fashion and the aesthetic of an era, the difference between the servile and sensible fashionista, the politics of individual style and fashion choices, and much more. It is a book for the intellectual fashionista and, believe it or not, a lot of fun to read. What I know about woman’s fashion you could put in a bug’s ear, but fortunately Dr. Jennifer Baumgartner, a practicing clinical psychologist and wardrobe consultant has written a book to help the fashion-challenged in time for the new spring line. You Are What You Wear: What Your Clothes Reveal About You ($16.00, Da Capo Press, softcover) provides insights into the way your choices reflect inner struggles, fears, desires and dream. Her book’s nine chapters diagnose nine distinct shopping complaints and wardrobe mistakes from failing to dress one’s age to being a slave to labels. For anyone who approaches the purchase of new clothes either buying and spending too much or with a certain sense of dread, this is definitely the book to read!

The Magical Mental Exercise Called Reading

By Alan Caruba

In 1942 my parents purchased a home in a picture-postcard suburban New Jersey community and the first improvement they made was to have bookshelves installed on the rear wall of the living room along with more in one corner. They had brought a lot of books with them and anticipated reading many more.

The living room was a library. An indelible memory of mine was of both parents reading. My father was a graduate of New York University, having worked his way through while attending night school. Mother occasionally lamented not having attended college, but Mother also taught in the adult school of the community for three decades and authored two books in addition to many magazine columns.

An authority on haute cuisine and wine, she garnered honors from the British and French Sommelier Societies, as well as from Germany. She was profiled in The New York Times. The word for a person like Mother is autodidact; a fancy way of saying self-taught.

Earlier and well into the 1930s through the 1950s Americans devoured books and often spent precious dollars to purchase sets of the Harvard Classics—we had them—and either the Encyclopedia Britannica or Americana—we had the latter. The Book of the Month Club was very successful as was a magazine called Reader’s Digest.

I was reminded of this by a very entertaining new book, “Blue Collar Intellectuals: When the Enlightened and the Everyman Elevated America”, authored by Daniel J. Flynn. The introduction begins with a reflection on popular culture, “Stupid is the new smart.”

This isn’t, however, just another lament about the sad state of present-day education or popular culture. Instead, it is a look back at America in the pre-World War Two era up to and beyond when television began to occupy the time many used to devote to reading books. Ironically, Flynn notes that television played a powerful role in popularizing several of the people he identifies as intellectual icons.

“For much of the twentieth century,” wrote Flynn, “there was a concerted effort among intellectuals to spread knowledge and wisdom far and wide. Correspondingly, many regular people took full advantage of the great educational effort. The idea was that America depended on having a well-rounded, educated citizenry.” This was not a new idea because from its earliest years Americans valued knowledge for its own sake.

“Twentieth-century America witnessed a democratization of education, unparalleled in human history,”says Flynn. I mentioned that my Mother taught gourmet cooking in adult schools. This was a phenomenon that began after World War Two. In addition to the GI bill that encouraged returning servicemen, mostly still young, to attend college, adult schools sprang up in communities as a way to quench the thirst for knowledge among the parents of those in college who, because of the Depression and the war, had not had the opportunity to acquire a higher level of education.

Common among the intellectual icons that Flynn identifies as having made learning popular was that all of them came from humble, often hardscrabble beginnings. They were not the children of wealth and privilege. They were people who knew what it meant to work for meager wages, but yearn for great achievement. All were denizens of local libraries and veracious readers. Of those who became members of the faculties of distinguished institutions, their roots gave them a unique advantage whether the topic was history, economics, or literature. They had lived in the real world.

The “blue collar intellectuals” included Will and Ariel Durant, co-authors of “The Story of Civilization” that included eleven-volumes by the time they were completed. Another was Mortimer Adler who authored “The Story of Philosophy” and, in 1940, “How to Read a Book” which became the second best-selling book of that year.

Milton Friedman transformed economics while teaching at the University of Chicago for thirty years starting in 1946. He would win a Nobel Prize. “Friedman understood that economics wasn’t merely about numbers. It was about people.” His book, “Capitalism and Freedom”, challenged many of the New Deal liberal policies when published in 1962. As Flynn put it, the book “highlighted the disconnect between the intentions of do-gooders and the atrocious results of their deeds.”

I can still recall reading Eric Hoffer’s “The True Believer” some years after it was first published in 1951. Working as a longshoreman, a strike in 1946 gave Hoffer the time to begin writing the book and another in 1948 gave him the time to finish it. It has never gone out of print and it took the reclusive Hoffer from a modest life he greatly preferred to meeting with presidents. The book was about mass movements and was his response to the two worst of the last century, Communism and Nazism. His own lifetime of reading is reflected in this and other books he subsequently wrote.

Flynn ends with a look at Ray Bradbury, best remembered as a science-fiction writer, but like the others of a humble origin, beginning in Waukegan, Illinois in 1920. His books, “Fahrenheit 451”, “Something Wicked Comes This Way”, and “The Martian Chronicles” cemented his reputation. Flynn says that “the threat to the life of the mind comes not as much from people who burn books as from people who don’t read them.”

So, when you’re commuting to work, on a lunch break, or when a hundred or more television channels offer you nothing worth watching keep a book at hand. Some of them will become lifelong companions.

Editor’s note: To keep up with the latest in non-fiction and fiction, visit Caruba’s monthly report at http://www.bookviews.com/
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© Alan Caruba, 2011

Borders Bites the Dust

By Alan Caruba

The obituary for Borders Group, the competitor of Barnes & Noble bookstores, Amazon.com’s bookselling operation, and scores of independent bookstores around the nation, appeared in the July 20 edition of The Wall Street Journal.

There was a time if you were the owner of a great paddlewheel boat on the Mississippi, you were golden. Passengers and goods moved in both directions. By the standards of the day, you were a very wealthy man. Then the railroads began laying track, connecting cities, towns, and finally the two coasts. Riverboat use dried up; often literally as they were abandoned if they got beached on a sandbar.

Henry Ford put a lot of blacksmith shops, stables, farriers, carriage makers, and horse traders out of business with his Model A, little black car. Pretty soon towns and cities were laying roads and highways as fast as they could to keep up with Americans who took to driving cars with a passion that has not ceased.

It is a mark of how out of touch with reality Barack Obama is that he keeps babbling about high speed train travel when even the government-owned Amtrak has never made a profit since it was organized in 1971. Despite the miseries inflicted on Americans by the TSA, people still get on planes to do business in Des Moines or visit the folks in Sarasota.

New Technology Drives Out Old Technology

New technology drives out old technology and Borders specialized in one of the oldest technologies going back to the days of Johannes Guttenberg in 1452 and his use of metal moveable type with which to print books. The Chinese had invented moveable type much earlier, but used wooden type. Books, however, have remained essentially the same, printed on paper, often illustrated, piling words upon words to convey information or just to entertain with a good story.

Despite the loss of 10,700 jobs and the closing of its many locations, the loss of Borders is not the loss of people who love to read books and buy them, too. Even the Barnes & Noble chain is looking for a buyer and I suspect its days may be numbered. Amazon.com revolutionized the way Americans bought books in the Internet age, but many people still favor the local bookstore and they may actually enjoy a bit of a revival once the two big chains are gone.

For some fifty years I have had a particular vantage point from which to watch the book market. Many years ago I was a fairly regular contributor to Publishers Weekly, the primary trade magazine for the book trade. It was and still is filled with the excitement of discovering new authors and tracking the established ones. However, it is the business of the book trade that is its focus.

I have been a book reviewer for so long I can actually boast that I was a founding member of the National Book Critics Circle in 1974. There are awards named after the people I knew who helped found it, Ivan Sandrof and Nona Balakian, both delightful and both deceased.

For me, books are about my self-education and entertainment. I like sharing news of them in my monthly report, Bookviews.com, but I have felt no need to rub shoulders with fellow reviewers, most of whom—like myself—do not make a dime. You may have noticed that the book sections of most daily newspapers have long since disappeared, the Dodo birds of literary criticism.

The best news of recent times is the phenomenon of the Harry Potter series which actually enticed young people to read, to grip a book in their hands, turn the pages, and sigh when they had reached the end. And, of course, one can always read a book again!

The new gadgets, Kindle, Nook, whatever, are just another way to read books. Someone still has to write them and someone has to take a gamble and publish them. Increasingly, that someone is the authors themselves. Here, too, modern technology allows one to have books printed on demand so you need only order as many as you require depending on sales.

One of the most interesting trends for me is the way many authors of really good novels have simply bypassed the mainstream publishing houses. With a printer and an Internet site, plus word of mouth, a book can generate enough sales to often be published later by the same publishing house that might have earlier rejected it!

So, goodbye Borders. No doubt those lost jobs will add a digit or two to the nation’s growing unemployment rate and those stores will be rented out to tattoo parlors, nail salons, and others.

But not goodbye to books! If television bores you silly, try reading. Your brain will thank you.

© Alan Caruba, 2011

In the Conservative Reading Room

By Alan Caruba

With Christmas around the corner, it’s probably a good idea to look at some books that conservatives would enjoy and from which they would benefit.

Decision Points by George W. Bush ($35.00, Crown) is, of course, receiving a great deal of attention as the former president gives interviews to promote it. Reportedly 4,000 people showed up at a book signing opportunity in Houston to purchase it (already heavily discounted at Amazon.com). The book is a useful insight to why W did what he did at the time he did it. What emerges is a man who is comfortable in his own skin and with his beliefs. As he says, he will be gone by the time history makes a judgment of his performance in office, but for now the book provides an understanding of what it means to live history and make history one day at a time. Intelligence analysis is not always correct. Threats to national security must be evaluated. War, says W, is always the last option on the table. The publisher has printed 1.5 million copies. It will likely be a bestseller.

Rules for Radical Conservatives by David Kahane ($25.00, Ballantine Books) is a stab at conservartive humor. Liberals assume that conservatives have no sense of humor, but that is not true. Anyone who has listened to Rush Limbaugh knows and enjoys the laughs he serves up along with pithy comment. Kahane has penned a wickedly funny expose of what actually goes on in liberal enclaves. Those who read the National Review are already familiar with him and know the name is a nom de plume. Trying to figure out who he really is has become a parlor game of sorts. His is the persona of an insufferable Hollywood liberal inadvertently spilling the beans on their intentions to “transform” the nation. This book arrives just in time to savor the retaking of the House by the Republican Party and glimpse some hope of doing the same in the Senate and White House in 2012. Until then, it will prove entertaining for the right-winger in your life.

Selling Out a Superpower: Where the US Economy Went Wrong and How We Can Turn It Around by Ronald R. Pollina ($26.00 Prometheus Books) Are you still wondering why America and its economy are in decline? Then this is the book you must read. Economics may make your eyes glaze over or even just sound boring, but this extraordinary book by a man who has worked for decades with companies seeking to relocate or find a State congenial to their growth will prove to be a shocking explanation of what is wrong with the economy. I guarantee you that it is not boring. For example, I bet you do not know that in 1968 there were 62 lobbyists in Washington, D.C., and that today there are 34,000! They outnumber member of Congress and their staffs by a margin of two to one. By 2008 they were spending approximately $8.2 million for influence every day. Few represent the majority of Americans in the middle class. And that is why the real median household income in America has stagnated for more than a decade. The farther the nation has drifted from the constraints of the Constitution, the greater the central government has grown, strangling the economy with massive regulation, rising levels of taxation, and literally driving companies and the jobs they provide offshore. No single book I have read this year comes close to explaining what has occurred and what must be done to avoid a bad, sad future for the current and next generation of Americans.

The Patriot’s Toolbox: Eighty Principles for Restoring our Freedom and Prosperity is a guide that can be had by going to http://www.teapartytoolbox.org/. Directed at members of the Tea Party, it has eight chapters, seven of them previously published by The Heartland Institute as booklets in a series called “Legislative Principles” and one written specifically for this book. I heartily recommend this guide that will bring the reader insight and information regarding areas of concern and action that include health care, energy and the environment, school reform, privatization, and much more. The Institute is a non-profit, free market advocate for reform. It has been a major factor in the demise of the global warming hoax, sponsoring a series of international conferences that brought together the world’s leading scientists and others to debunk this fraud. The book was distributed to 34,000 candidates for public office and nearly 20,000 civic and business leaders, Tea Party activists, and Heartland supporters. They book can be requested for free, but I would urge that you support the Institute with membership or a donation you can provide.

The Energy Imperative by Phil Rae and Leonard Kalfayan with Michael J. Economides ($34.99, ET Publishing, Houston, TV) should be mandatory reading for every college or university student because he reads very much like a textbook and, for that reason, I would recommend it to anyone who is confused by all the talk about “green energy”, “Big Oil”, “dirty coal”, the usual hogwash the environmental organizations and politicians put forth to hide the fact that the United States and all other nations are totally dependent on energy and that so-called fossil fuels are essential to their existence. They are “the master resource” and the nations that use the most energy are also the nations that enjoy the best economies. This book was written so that anyone can read and understand the fundamentals of energy and its use. I guarantee you will be the smartest person in the room when you read this book.

Energy and Climate Wars: How Naïve Politicians, Green Ideologues, and Media Elites are Undermining the Truth About Energy and Climate by Peter C. Glover and Michael J. Economides ($24.95, Continuum, New York and London) address the ideological social agenda that is being driven more by myth than facts. I count both authors as friends and am frankly in awe of their individual and combined knowledge and insight regarding an issue that will determine whether the U.S. continues to rank among the great powers of the world or not. Right now the Obama administration is doing everything it can to destroy the coal mining industry, has stealthily shut down exploration and drilling for oil in the Gulf of Mexico, and is spending billions of public dollars on the least effective forms of energy, solar and wind, despite the fact they represent about one percent of all the electricity the nation requires. Glover is a British writer and journalist specializing in political and energy analysis. Economides is a professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering at the University of Houston. He is the editor of Energy Tribune and what he does not know on the topic is probably not worth knowing.

The False Promise of Green Energy by Andrew Morriss, William T. Bogart, Roger E. Meiners, and Andrew Dorchack ($24.95, Cato Institute) will not be available until February 2011, but it knocks the propaganda and lies about “green energy” into a cocked hat. Sold as better for the environment, less polluting, and a whole new arena of new jobs, these and other claims are examined while exposing a large, vocal alliance of special interests—corporations, politicians, and environmentalists—who expect to reap billions boosting it. One problem has emerged for these hucksters. The Chicago Climate Exchange, created to buy, sell and trade “carbon credits” just closed shop in the wake of “Climategate”, the news that the Earth is not warming and that the data about global warming was cooked up by a handful of rogue climate scientists working with the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Naturally, the mainstream media that wrote many stories about its opening ignored reporting its demise. Green energy is part and parcel of the multitude of lies told about the environment to enrich those telling them.

© Alan Caruba, 2010

The Future of Books

By Alan Caruba

There is, I’m told, a lot of hand-wringing in the book publishing industry these days over the advent of the new, electronic means of reading books. It is a general rule that new technology drives out old technology and we have seen how rapid the growth of personal computers and the Internet has become in just a decade or two.

Back in 1974, Ivan Sandroff approached me and other book reviewers to create the National Book Critics Circle. I had been reviewing books for some time at that point, so it is safe to say I have spent more than forty years professionally reading and reviewing.

My reviewing has gone through several transmutations. In the beginning, I syndicated a a column called Bookviews to weekly newspapers that used it, I suspect, mostly as filler. Now most weeklies use the information provided by the local librarians. Many of the dailies have ceased to publish book review sections.

In time, Bookviews became a stand-alone newsletter that did well enough, but it was replaced by an Internet site, www.bookviews.com of the same name and that lasted the longest.

When it dawned on me that I could transform the website into a blog that would cost nothing to post and maintain, it became http://bookviewsbyalancaruba.blogspot.com. As a website, it attracted about 50,000 visitors every month, but I have no idea how many the blog receives. I assume former website visitors now come to the blog because there is an automatic re-direct that occurs.

I tell you this because, for two months or so, the number of review books I have received has declined dramatically from an average of three to five daily to days when none arrive. Some book publicists have suggested that the drop in 2009 book sales of approximately 20% has something to do with the decline while others correctly point out that, between the peak book-giving Christmas season and the release of books in publisher’s spring catalogs, starting in April, the decline is understandable. Others have candidly said that publishers are sending fewer review copies.

Two things are not in decline. The production of novels continues and, if my seat of the pants evaluation is correct, it is increasing. The other thing is the production of self-published books by authors. The most distinguishing characteristic of self-published books is their general poor quality of writing and subject matter. Since they pass through no vetting process, there is no one around to tell the author they should take up another hobby.

I worry about e-books. For one thing, you cannot apply a highlighter to elements you want to recall later on. You cannot turn down the edge of pages that are important bodies of information to consult. With real books, you needn’t worry about a low battery or storage memory capacity. You can fill the shelves of your home or apartment with them and they become constant companions and references.

As I grew up, the living room of my former home of sixty-plus years had an entire wall of bookshelves and they contained the Harvard Classics, volumes of the world’s great wisdom, the Encyclopedia Americana, and many books about the current events of the day. My father was a voracious reader and my mother, an international authority on haute cuisine, had an entire book corner filled with the finest cookbooks of her day. She even wrote three of them herself.

You can give your children many things, but if you give them the loving of reading, they will find the answers to everything in them, an escape into wonderful imaginary worlds, and a guarantee of a better understanding of the complex world into which they have been born.

I do not know what the future of books will be, but I sincerely hope it is not one in which books become a purely electronic interface. When I put down a book I have just read, I feel a kinship with the author, a link to the past and to the future, and often valuable insights to the present issues of our times.

I am encouraged that books like Sarah Palin’s sped out of the bookstores or that books like the recent one revealing the behind-the-scenes events of the 2008 election campaign will help us avoid being taken in by media manipulation, stagecraft, and empty oratory. I am encouraged that millions of youngsters were stirred by the Harry Potter series. There are the many extraordinary books for children and young adults these days.

In the meantime, I will hope for new review copies that will help me understand the complex issues of our times and to pass the time in ways that avoid the mindless celebrity-driven drivel, predictable television dramas and sitcoms, and vile “reality” shows that pass for entertainment these days. As for the news, there is only Fox News and C-Span.

Are There Too Many Books?

By Alan Caruba

I am back from walking the many aisles of Book Expo in the cavernous New York City Jacob Javits Exposition Center. For a charter member of the National Book Critics Circle and longtime—very longtime—editor of Bookviews.com, a monthly report on the best in new fiction and non-fiction, Book Expo is the annual equivalent of the hajj to Mecca.

It is filled with booths and the booths are filled with books. Eager publicists, sales people, and even editors can’t wait to show you their latest “titles.” In the book world, all new books are “titles.” In some booths, famous authors sign copies. In others, authors who have achieved a smaller measure of fame or eager to be famous have their new books as well.

There are several genres of books that I try to avoid. I am deeply skeptical of all manner of books that involve any form of “enlightenment” beyond what one can find in the family Bible, Old and New Testament. Books that recommend you meditate while burning incense or candles, sit cross-legged in the middle of the room, et cetera, don’t work for me. Prayer? Pray where you are, any time you need to, which in these times is often.

One is reminded of the way there is no end to cookbooks and, alternatively, books on how to diet. Travel books seem to thrive. Self-improvement and home-improvement books abound. Books on various aspects of health and medicine do well. There are novels, novels, novels.

By mid-morning, the aisles are jammed with people. Book Expo draws bibliophiles and those from the far-flung community of people who make their living selling books. It was quickly becoming difficult to navigate the aisles and I am reminded once again why I receive anywhere from three to five books every day but Sunday. That’s easily a one hundred or more books a month. I have heard estimates of 200,000 new books a year and I have no reason to dispute the figure.

I love to read. My favorite topics are history, politics, biographies, and books on current events. I read almost no fiction nor do I read all of the seventy or so books that are recommended in my monthly Internet site. I read enough of each to make a judgment as to their content, their organization, their documentation, and attention to general literary standards.

Bookviews.com used to attract some 60,000 to 80,000 visits a month, but it is down to half that these days. The book industry is feeling the contraction of the economy too and the book sections that used to grace newspapers like The Washington Post and others are swiftly becoming a thing of the past.

On the first day of Book Expo, however, you would not know that. The place is thronged and, after a transit of its many aisles, the presentation of every kind of book on every kind of subject, one is comforted in knowing that the book industry is soldering on, forever in pursuit of the next bestseller. In our society, authors still have prestige, no matter what they have written.

Indeed, one measure of success in America is to have written a book. Many of our former Presidents wrote memoirs. Ulysses S. Grant wrote his in order to leave some money for his family because he was pretty much broke by the end of his life. When Harry S. Truman went home to Independence, Missouri, all he had to his name was his WWI army pension and the family farm which he was forced to sell. These days, books by former Presidents like Clinton generate big bucks. President Obama, unable to find a more important topic, wrote two memoirs before he even made it into the U.S. Senate.

There is even a vast industry for those who want to self-publish rather than run the gauntlet of getting a publisher to take it on. Writing a really good book requires talent. It requires dedication. Personal vanity is a very bad reason to write a book.

The curmudgeon in me wants to say there are too many books being published these days. The short answer is yes. I can’t say that, though. The reason is that, among the hundred or more books that I receive monthly, I inevitably find several of great merit. They often provide a blazing insight into the minds of people whom I need to understand or events and personalities that left their mark on human history. There are books that explain the science of the Earth and beyond to me.

Books have largely made me the man I am today. Show me someone who does not read books and I will show you someone lost in the fog of propaganda, manipulation, and the lies that pass for the news of the day. Books can tell you who you are, what you believe, and why. They always leave you changed in some fashion.

Too Many Books

By Alan Caruba

I have been reviewing books since the 1960s and am a founding member of the National Book Critics Circle. For years I have also been a judge for the Publishers Marketing Association’s Benjamin Franklin Awards.

There are too many books being published.

I know that may sound like apostasy, but you don’t get an average of 150 books a month. I do.

I can pretty much judge a book by its cover. This is particularly true of the insane deluge of self-published books from pay-to-print operations like iUniverse, Xlibris, and Author House, to name a few. As far as I can tell, a number of authors create their own publishing firm to put out their books. The truth is that a handful of such books in any year are quite good, but I doubt that any reviewer has the time to sift through the deluge to find the pearl.

There is a reason why reviewers tend to favor the mainline publishers, large and small. They do it to pay their employees and, ultimately, to generate a profit. They mostly manage to do so successfully enough to cover the losses from the books that become “remainders”, an odd name for books that just do not sell.

I personally think it is obscene to give some celebrity an advance of millions of dollars and I take a certain pleasure when their books fail in the marketplace.

Truth is, I cannot give away the tons of books I receive to local libraries. I stopped doing that long ago when I discovered they really didn’t want them any more than myself. Even a library has a finite amount of space on its shelves. Instead I give as many as possible away to anyone who loves to read, usually folks where I reside.

The reason I say there are too many books being published is that, from experience, I can tell you that, after a while, one concludes that the world does not need another cookbook, another diet book, another garden book, another get-rich-quick book, another how to manage your corporate team book, another book about dogs or cats. How many travel books about Hawaii or any other place on Earth are needed?

I cannot tell you how many World War II, Korean, Vietnam and now Iraq War books I receive every year. This is true also for books about the Holocaust. These events were momentous and tragic, but why must we read every book by everyone who participated or survived them?

Memoirs by people nobody ever heard about are a mystery to me. Biographies of equally obscure people baffle me.

Then there are the novels. I am convinced that the current generation of retirees, tired of playing golf or some other pastime, have decided to sit down at their computer and write that great novel they have had running around in their head for years. And it’s not just retirees. It’s everyone who can belly up to the keyboard.

There is no way to describe the volume of novels being published these days. I received one today by an author who has written “over sixty thriller and supernatural novels.” It defies logic that anyone could produce anything of merit in that quantity. Even the best American novelists such as Steinbeck and Hemingway ran out of ideas and energy, writing some stinkers to pay the rent.

Every month, over at Bookviews.com, I post a report about new books. It averages about 70 titles, fiction and non-fiction. That’s nearly 850 books a year and I guarantee you they are the best of the lot of the approximately 1,800 I receive.

I recommend you visit. It will astound you.

The Quotable John Wayne

By Alan Caruba

It was a fortunate generation or two that grew up watching John Wayne movies. We learned how to be men from his films because we intuitively understood he was the real thing. In a sense—and he would tell you as much—he never really played anyone but himself.

There’s a great little book out just in time as a perfect gift for the man in your life who took John Wayne as a role model or is just now discovering his films in television re-runs. It’s “The Quotable John Wayne: The Grit and Wisdom of an American Icon”, compiled and edited by Carol Lea Mueller.

There’s some irony in that a woman could capture his essence in his words so well, but even Wayne said, “I’m a demonstrative man, a baby picker-upper, a hugger, and a kisser—that’s my nature.”

Wayne was unique in the Hollywood of his day. He was politically conservative in a town that, like today, was filled with liberals and, indeed, with people who were Communists. In the 1950s, as the Cold War between American and Soviet Russia began to heat up, some of them got blacklisted. As we now know, even the highest levels of the U.S. government had been thoroughly infiltrated by American Communists who were often Soviet agents.

Wayne said, “If you’re in a fight, you must fight to win, and in those early years of the Cold War, I strongly believed that our country’s fundamental values were in jeopardy. I think that the Communists proved my point over the years.” A fellow actor, Ronald Reagan, discovered Communists in the union he headed and that no doubt set him on a path in politics with the purpose of defeating the Soviet Union. He succeeded.

“Success is not measured by your wealth,” said Wayne, “but in your worth…Honorable men and women have a right to stand up for the things they hold dear…It’s the American way.”

The book is just filled with wonderful quotes, including a number from the films in which he starred. One of my favorites was from The Shootist, his last film in which he plays an old gunfighter dying of cancer. In a scene with a very young Ron Howard, he is asked why he became a gunfighter. He replied, “I won’t be wronged. I won’t be insulted, and I won’t be laid a hand on. I don’t do these things to other people and I require the same from them.”

It doesn’t get much better than that.

One Hundred Young Americans

By Alan Caruba

As a longtime book reviewer, I get lots of them. I average about 140 a month. Every so often, though, one stands out from the others and Michael Franzini’s “One Hundred Young Americans” certainly fits that description.

It is a big coffee table softcover filled with color photographs of teenagers from around the nation staring directly into the camera. This is Franzini’s trademark. He says, “I like eye contact.” As striking as many of the photos are, it is the text that accompanies them that gives pause. It is a portrait of a generation of Americans unlike any previous one.

What Franzini set out to do was to photograph a cross-section of America’s teenagers. Every generation of America’s adults worries about the nation’s teenagers. They are full of promise, have tons of energy, and their world is often quite different from the preceding one. In the case of today’s teens, Franzini notes that, “Teenagers today have instant access to people, information, and entertainment on a scale that their parents could not have imagined.”

Just as all teenagers have striven to become independent, i.e., not reliant on their parents, today’s teens have access to technology that facilitates this. “Cell phones, the Internet, and instant messaging give these teenagers a brand-new level of freedom. Their social networks literally span the globe.”

What is clear from this book, however, is that all teenagers are not the same, just as no demographic group is the same. Still, one can draw some interesting, frequently unpleasant insights from this book.

I think a lot of people will find most of these photos and their brief, accompanying descriptions disturbing. While there are a number of teens growing up with what we might call “family values” or typically American dreams, there are also quite a few who are frankly sexually active (one is a Nevada prostitute). A lot of them are mega-consumers for whom what they can buy largely defines them.

They may have a large circle of “friends”, but these are frequently distant and derived from Internet social sites like Facebook and MySpace. While “in touch” with others, teens appear to remain oddly isolated from the real world, seeing it through a media that defines it for them in a highly politicized fashion.

What I came away with was the notion that childhood—real childhood free of the fears and concerns of adults—has been taken away from this generation of teens. Still too young to sort out the complexity of the world (something with which adults struggle with as well), they are far more aware of what a dangerous place it often is.

The book is a bit of anthropology, a bit of glam photography, a bit of sociology, and a generally disturbing look at the next generation of Americans who are going to inherit this nation.

For a report on the latest in new non-fiction and fiction, check out Bookviews.com.

Bookviews is Posted. Announces Ban on Self-Published Books.

By Alan Caruba

Rejoice booklovers! The October edition of Bookviews.com has been posted and it offers news of nearly sixty new fiction and non-fiction books on a wide range of topics.
If you’re not familiar with the site, visit it at http://www.bookviews.com/.

This month has sections of interest to those who enjoy reading history, on business-related books, on books for children and younger readers, and a selection of new novels. My favorite, of course, is "My Picks of the Month", the opening section that is devoted to unique books of merit and, this month, a DVD of the final show of the great British television series, "Prime Subject."

It also marks the announcement of a decision to ban self-published books from consideration. I receive an average of three to five books a day. That’s close to 135 new books every month! When you factor in the growing number of self-published books by authors who have turned to venders such as iUniverse and others, it just adds to those already in the pipeline from small, medium, and large publishers.

How does one make a selection from so many books? It helps to be a veracious reader and to have lots of experience. As a founding member of the National Book Critics Circle, I have been reviewing since the 1970s. What once was a column in weekly newspapers evolving into a newsletter and, in the cyber age, into an Internet site.

If you think you’re not getting the full story from the print and broadcast media headlines, you’re right. New books on the hot topics of our times are often the best way to gain insight to the issues and personalities in the news. For pure entertainment, there’s a constant flow of new novels.