I'm going to try my hand at this diary thing, now that the DNC furor may be past. (?)
I've recently read (or am reading) three books that resonate really strongly with several threads/issues I encounter here on dKos.
I just finished Studs Terkel's
Hope Dies Last which offers any number of entry points for several kos-like discussions. But I found it a particularly good reminder of the hard work and long term commitment and courage that activism is. With so much talk floating around here and the rest of the blogosphere/culturescape about the netroots and how the internet is a revolution for political organizing, its a nice companion text. The activists in the book are not politcal activists in the sense of electoral politics or campaigns. Nonetheless, it neatly complements a lot of the discussions we've had around here.
On one of the myriad confederate flag flap threads from today I posted a note about another book: The Culture of Defeat by Wolfgang Schivelbusch. This one is a study of the American South, France and Germany. One of the pithiest tag lines from the book is the observation that the victors write the histories and the losers write the novels and poems. That gives a good flavor of the book, and the connections to us over here are obvious enough to just let stand. Schivelbusch is an elegant thinker from whom I've taken a lot of inspiration and insight about question big and small. (If you read this on the other thread, sorry for the repeat)
And right now I'm reading The History of the Wife by Marilyn Yalom. Its an academic book, with all that that entails, but even academic history is a readable genre, so I don't feel like too much of a bluestocking recommending it. And, given the flap that is and "will" be gay marriage, its awfully timely. Never thought I'd say that about an academic book, but hey, you get old enough, who knows what you'll see.
I suspect if any of these or similar threads (re)appear on dKos, you'll hear bits from these books in my thinking/posts. But you might also prefer them without benefit of filter.
Anyone else have some dKos-inspired good reads to recommend?