Update [2005-8-17 1:30:29 by dKos Reading Club]: The poll results are in. For next month, we will read The Problem of the Media: U.S. Communication Politics in the Twentieth Century by Robert McChesney. The discussion will take place September 10. (Don't forget to subscribe to the club if you don't want to miss it!) Please email me if you'd like to be the moderator.
If you missed the second installment of the DailyKos Reading Club (and most of you did!), it took place yesterday when we discussed Frederick Clarkson's excellent book Eternal Hostility: The Struggle Between Theocracy and Democracy.
Anyway, I am going to be optimistic and try to continue the club for at least one more month. Having decided that, we now need to pick next month's reading. Below the fold is a table of readings that have been suggested in the past and a poll where you can vote on your favorite for next month.
Note: due to a good suggestion by "still-small-voice", we are going to change the procedure slightly. From now on, reading discussions will take place on the second Saturday of each month (as opposed to the 15th). So that means that next month's discussion of the reading we select today will take place on September 10. This is in the hopes that moving the discussion to a Saturday might entice a few more people to participate. (And no pressure, but if this doesn't happen, I'm sorry to say that this next month will probably be the last installment of the "club". Sniff.)
Suggested Readings:
Title | Author/Editor | First suggested by | Date First Suggested |
The Problem of the Media: U.S. Communication Politics in the Twentieth Century | Robert McChesney | shock | June 6, 2005 |
When God Was a Woman | Merlin Stone | shock | June 6, 2005 |
Manifesto for a New World Order | George Monbiot | shock | June 6, 2005 |
The Consumer Trap: Big Business Marketing in American Life (The History of Communication) | Michael Dawson | shock | June 6, 2005 |
Defying Corporations, Defining Democracy: A Book of History & Strategies | Dean Ritz | shock | June 6, 2005 |
God's Politics: Why the Right Gets it Wrong and the Left Doesn't Get It | Jim Wallis | Maryscott OConnor | June 6, 2005 |
Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report On the Banality of Evil | Hannah Arendt | Maryscott OConnor | June 6, 2005 |
(anything!) | Hannah Arendt | Maryscott OConnor | June 6, 2005 |
Crusade: Chronicles of and Unjust War | James Carroll | greycat | June 6, 2005 |
They thought they were free: The Germans 1933-45 | Milton Mayer | greycat | June 6, 2005 |
The Corruption of American Politics: What went wrong and why | Elizabeth Drew | Margot | June 6, 2005 |
The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason | Sam Harris | bumblebums | June 6, 2005 |
Uncle Tom's Cabin | Harriet Beecher Stowe | LM 38 | June 6, 2005 |
On Killing: The Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in War and Society | Lt. Col. Dave Grossman | Tirge Caps | June 6, 2005 |
Strawberry Days: How Internment Destroyed a Japanese American Community | David Niewert | Carl Ballard | June 6, 2005 |
The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements | Eric Hoffer | Dallasdoc | June 6, 2005 |
Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed | Jared Diamond | lukyluke | June 6, 2005 |
Confederates in the Attic: Dispatches from the Unfinished Civil War | Tony Horwitz | khowell | June 7, 2005 |
Mule Bone: A Comedy of Negro Life In Three Acts | Zora Neale Hurston & Langston Hughes | Alice Burro | June 7, 2005 |
(anything!) | Toni Morrison | Alice Burro | June 7, 2005 |
A Short History of Progress | Ronald Wright | bumblebums | June 7, 2005 |
Don't Think of an Elephant: Know Your Values and Frame the Debate | George Lakoff | Slgalt | June 7, 2005 |
Multitude: War and Democracy in the Age of Empire | Michael Hardt & Antonio Negri | shock | June 8, 2005 |
Water Wars: Privatization, Pollution, and Profit | Vandana Shiva | xanthe | July 16, 2005 |
The Last Hurrah: Soft Money and Issue Advocacy in the 2002 Congressional Elections | David B. Magleby (Ed.) | xanthe | July 16, 2005 |
Excellent Women | Barbara Pym | xanthe | July 16, 2005 |
The Republican Noise Machine: Right-Wing Media and How It Corrupts Democracy | David Brock | Dump Terry McAuliffe | July 16, 2005 |
Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America | Barbara Ehrenreich | still small voice | August 11, 2005 |
A Stricken Field | Martha Gelhorn | Frederick Clarkson | August 15, 2005 |
The Handmaid's Tale | Margaret Atwood | nightsweat | August 16, 2005 |
Moyers on America: A Journalist and Hist Times | Bill Moyers | Joe Bua | August 16, 2005 |
Freethinkers: A History of American Secularism | Susan Jacoby | peacemonger | August 16, 2005 |
Myths of Free Trade: How and Why America's Trade Policy Flies in the Face of Reality | Sherrod Brown | displacedyankeedemocrat | August 16, 2005 |
Congress from the Inside: Observations from the Majority and the Minority | Sherrod Brown | displacedyankeedemocrat | August 16, 2005 |
Globalization and Its Discontents | Joseph E. Stiglitz | Odysseus | August 16, 2005 |
War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death | Norman Solomon | Jules Siegel | August 16, 2005 |
(Note, you can click on the date to see the comment in which the suggestion occurred for context.)
Below is a poll containing all of these items. Please vote for the one that you would be most likely to read in the next month. Then, in the comments section, please list your top three choices in order of preference. (Not all of them have to appear in the poll.)
I will update this diary later tonight with the results and the official reading assignment for next month. Whatever it is, it will be due September 10, 2005. The poll will be active until midnight (CST) tonight; I should post the update with the winner by 1 AM.
Not all of the items in the table fit in the poll. So, I used my personal bias to pick the subset for the poll. I guess this is one of the perks of being the moderator! But of course, you can vote for other things in the comments. Honestly, everything from the table above appeals to me.
Also, here is a table of things we've already read and discussed (you can click on the date in the "Discussion" column to see past discussions):
(Finally, given the low turnout for yesterday's discussion, and because it was partly my fault for posting the diary late, I may diary about Eternal Hostility again sometime soon.)