Free Republic

It's by Anne Applebaum. It said that Lenin saw common criminals(thieves, pickpockets, murderers) as potential allies. He blamed the 'exploitation of the masses' where removal of the exploiters would curb the excesses and crime. I think that this is why the Left is always standing up for the illegals, the sucker punchers, the felon vote-u name it. They will use them and THEN deal with them their way. They're sick.

The year’s notable fiction, poetry and nonfiction, selected by the editors of The New York Times Book Review. FICTION & POETRY THE ACCURSED. By Joyce Carol Oates. (Ecco/HarperCollins, $27.99.) Oates’s extravagantly horrifying, funny and prolix postmodern Gothic novel purports to be the definitive account of a curse that infected bucolic Princeton, N.J., in 1905 and 1906. ALL THAT IS. By James Salter. (Knopf, $26.95.) Salter’s first novel in more than 30 years, which follows the loves and losses of a World War II veteran, is an ambitious departure from his previous work and, at a stroke, demolishes any talk of...

America Island is a tale of courage in the face of increasing government oppression. It follows a group of Working Wealthy Americans who recognize their liberties are being ripped away by a cabal of the Mega Wealthy and the Political Class. The Working Wealthy are American entrepreneurs and business people who work six and seven 10 and 12 hours days each week. They are worth a great deal but they work for every penny, but they are being slowly squeezed by the Mega wealthy who publicly demand higher taxes and unionization from their bought and paid for politicians. The Working...

Socialist, Communist, and McCarthy-era blacklisted writers appear on the U.S. Department of Labor’s (DOL) new “Books That Shaped Work in America” list celebrating the department’s 100th anniversary.A Socialist leader, two Stalin apologists, two blacklisted ’50s screenwriters, and a suspected Marxist are included on the list, which DOL compiled based on recommendations from various figures in the community. Labor Secretary Thomas Perez described the program as an “online book club.”Better not invite Tailgunner Joe McCarthy.The first two reds on the list are Sidney and Beatrice Webb, who made it for their 1897 work “Industrial Democracy,” recommended by Carter administration Labor Secretary...

Two Belgian university professors recently decided to submit the 10 most borrowed books at the Antwerp library to bacteriology and toxicology tests. Traces of cocaine were found on all 10 books...the scientists discovered traces of the herpes virus in the pages of the erotic tale Fifty Shades of Grey.

It was everything red-blooded Americans love: politics, Christmas and 20 percent off. There was a hum of anticipation Tuesday evening at the Barnes & Noble at Southmont Center in Bethlehem Township. It was too early for Black Friday. Stephen King's new thriller was already out. Bill O'Reilly's latest effort was old news. The buzz centered on Sarah Palin, the former Alaska governor and vice presidential candidate, and her new book, "Good Tidings and Great Joy: Protecting the Heart of Christmas."Bethlehem being the Christmas City, it was a fitting kickoff for Palin's new book. The Fox News pundit met her fans...

Hungry Souls (a bit of a review) Posted on 20 August 2010 by becomewhatyouare I can’t remember where I first saw a reference to the book, Hungry Souls – Supernatural Visits, Messages and Warnings from Purgatory. I saw it mentioned in a few places and what I read was enough to make me decide I wanted to read it.I was surprised by the quality of the (physical) book. Being published by TAN, I didn’t expect much by way of paper and binding quality. This book is as well made as any Ignatius book I own. I noticed that St. Benedict Press...

... The advent of the Internet has not seen off the format of the book, nor is its demise coming anytime soon. Yehuda Miklaf, a Jerusalem-based bookbinder, has a backlog of orders, and his highly regarded editions are still in demand. Despite the specialized and somewhat exclusive nature of Miklaf’s work, his burgeoning trade testifies to the fact that books remain very much in the cultural domain and will for some time to come. Born Seamus McClafferty (he converted to Judaism in 1986 and moved to Jerusalem with his wife), Miklaf hails from Nova Scotia. In 1968 he moved to...

Hollywood put out some great movies in 1939, films such as Gone With the Wind, The Wizard of Oz, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, and The Hunchback of Notre Dame. But one movie that year—now largely forgotten—served a purpose even greater than helping a Depression-ravaged American public forget their dire straights, not to mention the storm clouds gathering around the world. It was called, Code of the Secret Service, and it starred a handsome young actor named Ronald Reagan. Jerry Parr was nine years old the day his dad took him to a Miami theater to see Reagan play a...

It’s damn nice to be in the hands of an author who leaves nothing to chance. Who knows how to convey a thought that is deeper than the words he uses to convey it. Consider this sequence: “I couldn’t stand another of those damned prayer sessions without bursting out with the news that I’d been laying his wife so frequently that the only excitement left in it was the increasingly likely possibility that we’d be found out.” The other man, though, is kind and generous, and this quickly follows: “By the time I left I disliked Harding because he had...

This book is going to be big, a near-lock for the bestseller lists. First Bill O’Reilly and Martin Dugard teamed up to write a book about Killing Lincoln and it sold more than a million copies. They followed it up with Killing Kennedy and it sold briskly as well. And now they turn their attention to their greatest subject: Jesus of Nazareth. Killing Jesus: A History is a short biography of Jesus, focusing on the events leading to his death. From the outset, the authors make it clear that though they are Roman Catholics, they are not writing a religious...

Ian Fleming 'was sexist, racist and sadistic': New Bond author says his book is well-written... unlike the originals The author of the new James Bond book, says he deliberately wrote about women and African people 'not in a way Fleming would write them'. William Boyd, the third writer in recent years to pen a new installment to the classic spy series, said he found it difficult to read the descriptions of 'negros' and chapters entitled 'Nigger Heaven'. Boyd, who was born in Ghana in 1952 and spent his childhood travelling between Africa and his Scottish boarding school Gordonstoun, said: 'It's...

For those who are into this sort of thing...what sfnal or fantasy literature are currently reading or have just finished? I'm working my way through the series, "The Dresden Files" by Jim Butcher, having read the first 10 novels of the 15 published so far. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dresden_Files The Dresden Files is a series of contemporary fantasy/mystery novels written by Jim Butcher. He provides a first person narrative of each story from the point of view of the main character, private investigator and wizard Harry Dresden, as he recounts investigations into supernatural disturbances in modern-day Chicago. Butcher's original proposed title for the...

Harper Lee, the aging author of “To Kill a Mockingbird,” has reached a settlement in principle on a lawsuit alleging she was scammed into signing over the copyright to her classic novel by an unscrupulous literary agent who took advantage of her failing hearing and eyesight, a lawyer in the case says. Lee had filed suit in May against Samuel Pinkus and others — including disgraced journalist Gerald Posner — to reclaim the copyright. However, dismissal papers were filed in Manhattan federal court today by Lee’s lawyer removing both Posner and Lee Ann Winick, Pinkus’ wife and another defendant, of...

"Bad Religion: How We Became a Nation of Heretics": In his latest book, Ross Douthat, a public intellectual and a Catholic, argues that “bad religion” poses a greater danger to our nation than does secularism. His book is divided into two parts: in the first he chronicles the decline of traditional Christianity since 1965; in the second he examines four heresies that have flourished since then.

Why are Thrillers named such? That’s largely up to the talent of the writer. They have to grab us and not let go for hundreds of pages. The best of them draw many details from the real world. Even in all the action and far-from-our-own-life-as-possible events happening to the characters, it’s those truths that hook you even further. They draw you in, get you thinking or upset you. Tom Clancy is known for coming up with details in his techno-thrillers that seem almost too real. Sometimes prophetically so. They have even caught the attention of the military, wondering how he...

During Revolutionary times, to be “enlightened” often meant having enough compassion that you were willing to free your slaves — but only upon your death. So when founding fathers such as George Washington began to pass away around 1800, their slaves were set free into a country that had no desire for them. The result, as James Ciment writes in this thorough account of an experimental nation, was to send free blacks whence they came, to Africa. Liberia was the country created by freed American slaves who, perversely, became slave owners themselves.

It's been called a "cure for rejection-letter fatigue." Amazon on Thursday released new details about the success of its program for authors who want to self-publish on its Kindle e-reader devices. The company, which unveiled a suite of new e-readers and tablets at a press conference in Southern California on Thursday, says 27 of the top 100 Kindle books were created using a system called Kindle Direct Publishing. That system allows authors to bypass traditional publishers and instead deal directly with Amazon, which claims to be able to publish their books digitally "in hours." The authors receive 70% of the...

Rejection -- even repeated rejection -- doesn't have to mean defeat. That, it turns out, is the lasting lesson of the Chuck Ross story. You may recognize the name; two Sundays ago, I wrote about J.K. Rowling, the spectacularly successful author of the Harry Potter books, and about how she has published a detective novel under the name Robert Galbraith. In the column, I recalled what a young and frustrated writer -- Chuck Ross -- did in the 1970s. To briefly recap: Ross had written a mystery novel that had been turned down everywhere he sent it. So, as an...

The surrender of General Cornwallis at Yorktown, 1781 Photo: courtesy Library of Congress Britain’s loss of America in the War of Independence (1775-1783) is typically attributed to the failings of its key political and military decision makers who were, in Andrew O’Shaughnessy’s words, “associated with opposition to progress and with attempting to introduce an authoritarian style of government”. They have, he writes, become cartoon figures of incompetence and mediocrity in a story with an inevitable ending, “as history progresses towards modernity”. Not any more. In this fascinating, well written and extensively researched study of 10 of those British decision makers...

I am starting "The Guns of August: The Pulitzer Prize-Winning Classic About the Outbreak of World War I"

The chief executive of US bookstore chain Barnes & Noble, William Lynch, has resigned amid a continued drop in sales of its Nook e-books and devices. His resignation comes just days after the firm reported that sales in the Nook business fell 34% in the fourth quarter, from a year earlier.

We can start with the spoiler. At the end of his newly released and massive revised edition of Perjury: The Hiss-Chambers Case, Allen Weinstein makes the following observation: "As for the conspiracy theories themselves, we may expect that newer and perhaps more ingenious defenses of [Alger] Hiss may emerge, if only because none of the theories raised during the past six decades has proved persuasive. There has yet to appear, however, from any source, a coherent body of evidence that seriously undermines the credibility of the evidence against Alger Hiss." There will never be produced such a body of evidence,...

E-books are becoming more popular amongst young people in China. The variety and flexibility on offer, alongside the hot sales of many e-reading terminals, make them a big competitor for the independent bookstores. -or maybe not?

1) Kentucky Long Rifle The Kentucky long rifle was effectively used as a sniping weapon during the Revolutionary War - allowing colonial soldiers to pick off officers at range due to its rifling and superior accuracy. 2) Spencer Repeating Rifle The Spencer repeating rifle put an unheard-of amount of firepower into the hands of the few Union soldiers who wielded them. 3) Cold Single-Action Army: 'The Peacemaker' The Colt Single Action Army was used by lawmen and outlaws alike in the Wild West. It garnered the nickname 'Peacemaker'. 4) Winchester Model 1873 The Winchester 1873 lever action rifle had the...

The Century 1914 On the book The Century 1914 by Dominique Venner (Pygmalion, 2006). The author answers the questions of the journalist Pauline Lecomte. In publishing The Age of 1914 , Dominique Venner offered an impressive historical synthesis which is a culmination of all his works, and proposed a new interpretation of the European history in the twentieth century. To summarize this book is impossible. Everyone will make their own interpretations. It provides a detailed analysis of the great revolutionary movements and major conflicts of the twentieth century. It contains a broad meditations on history, politics and great actors. It...

Hillary Rodham Clinton is the most polarizing figure in American politics.... Despite more than a dozen years in the national spotlight and more than a dozen unauthorized books about her, she has managed to keep many secrets from the public especially about her turbulent marriage and its impact on her career. There have been plenty of rumors about what Hillary and Bill Clinton did behind closed doors, but never a definitive book that exposes the truth.

The doors of New York’s Javits Center swung open wide this morning to welcome thousands of booksellers, publishers, librarians, authors and their agents at the annual jamboree known as BookExpo. Almost certainly, the event will resurrect the seemingly endless debate over e-books and the future of reading. While Barnes and Noble (NYSE: BKS) and its Nook e-book division may not be among this year’s exhibitors, the book industry headlines that likely will hit the papers in the coming days should prompt investors to consider the many risks that hover over the book retailing giant’s head, especially given that the stock...

John Steinbeck's 1942 novel The Moon is Down is about people of a small  village occupied by Nazi forces somewhere in Northern Europe. They become sullen and their obedience is bought at an increasingly high price. Free people cannot remain conquered.Re-reading The Moon is Down left me with nagging questions about the extent to which the People of the United States remain free. Those questions did not arise when I first read it, many years ago. It now seems obvious that we are less free than we once were; yet perhaps (one can at least hope that) there are still enough to make...

This time of year, as college students return home for the summer, many parents may notice how many politically correct ideas they have acquired on campus. Some of those parents may wonder how they can undo some of the brainwashing that has become so common in what are supposed to be institutions of higher learning. The strategy used by General Douglas MacArthur so successfully in the Pacific during World War II can be useful in this very different kind of battle. General MacArthur won his victories while minimizing his casualties — something that is also desirable in clashes of ideas...

Harper Lee, the author of To Kill A Mockingbird, has sued her literary agent for allegedly duping her into assigning him the copyright on the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel. In the lawsuit filed in federal court in Manhattan, Lee says Samuel Pinkus, the son-in-law of Lee's long-time agent, Eugene Winick, took advantage of her failing hearing and eyesight to transfer the rights on the book, which has sold more than 30 million copies worldwide and became an Oscar-winning film. The 87-year-old says she has no memory of agreeing to relinquish her rights or signing the agreement that cements the purported transfer.

A Philadelphia mother wants her son’s high school teacher fired after he bought the teen the novel Fifty Shades of Grey for in-class reading. Maya Ladson says she was shocked to find a copy of the racy read in her 14-year-old’s book bag back on March 9. That shock turned to outrage when she found out how he got the book. “The minute I found out about it, it raised concern,” the mother told NBC10.com Thursday. “This is not OK to me. This is major.” Ladson's son, who is a 9th grade student at Eastern University Academy Charter School in...

Ah, to know the mind of Aristotle, the man whom Dante called “the teacher of those who know.” How magnificent to commune with the intellect of Plato, of whom Alfred North Whitehead dared to say: “the European philosophical tradition consists of a series of footnotes to Plato.” Many other ancient writers by their enduring works have bequeathed to us the gift of remarkable clarity on our unchanging human nature, a clarity which is conspicuously absent from most of the literature churned out in this Dark Age.Contrast the lasting classics of the Great Western Tradition with the divergent and self-conscious works...

Clarence Manion, the retired dean of the Notre Dame School of Law, became one of the most thoughtful conservatives from the mid-1950s through the 1970s. The “Manion Forum” began broadcasting in 1954 and continued until his death in 1979. In 1952, Manion would head the “Democrats for Eisenhower” organization. President Dwight D. Eisenhower named him as the chairman of a commission to study how to return to states the power that the federal government had taken away under the Roosevelt and Truman administration. When Manion did not back away from his support of something the administration opposed, Eisenhower fired him....

If you’re a regular Townhall reader, you’re familiar with Mike Adams’ columns. If you’re any other Townhall columnist (and competitive like me), always seeing him scattered among the “Top 10” most-read most-commented columns makes you want to finally give in and do a column on Mike Adams with the hopes of cracking the top 10. Adams graduated from high school with a GPA of 1.8. Despite his apparent fear of success, he still managed to get an Associate’s degree from San Jacinto College. He then got his B.A. with a more respectable 3.4 GPA and Master’s in psychology from Mississippi...

I have friends and relatives in Germany that just do not know the true story of Barack Hussein Obama. I go on Amazon.de and the only books about the guy are all lavish encomiums, books from the left, or his own two books written by Bill Ayres. Are there any conservative books written in German that anyone knows about? Is there a German version of Dinesh d"Souza's film or book? Appreciate your help. Thanks

There are hundreds of books that are considered classics and probably even more over-hyped ones on bestsellers lists. Which do you think are the three most overrated books?

Getting a literature Ph.D. will turn you into an emotional trainwreck, not a professor. Who wouldn’t want a job where you only have to work five hours a week, you get summers off, your whole job is reading and talking about books, and you can never be fired? Such is the enviable life of the tenured college literature professor, and all you have to do to get it is earn a Ph.D. So perhaps you, literature lover, are considering pursuing this path. Well, what if I told you that by “five hours” I mean “80 hours,” and by “summers off”...

At any book store in the country, you can find hundreds of titles from right-leaning authors — and they are selling like hotcakes. Over the past few years, the Tea Party groundswell and the presidency of Barack Obama has fueled a new and growing crop of conservative authors, as well as renewed interest in the canon of nonfiction works that have shaped conservative thought in American culture and politics. The following is a list of 13 books that are staples to any Republican bookshelf. While the list by no means comprehensive, its a good starter guide for any young conservative...

The digital age continues to confuse and confound a generation of adults who have learned to participate in it, but lack the ability for what Ethel Merman as Annie Oakley called "doin' what comes naturally." We still think a microwave is for heating coffee and thawing frozen food, never the name of a computer game. We weren't born to researching on Wikipedia or Googling for facts. Our fingers can text, but often strike two letters on the Android, making for some strange communications. We despair of catching up with the tools at hand and wonder what it all means...

I have been recovering from a stroke, so, to keep life interesting I have been reading a few novels. I have now read most of the novels by F. van Wyck Mason. He once was a military officer but I don't know if he is now alive. He really knows his early American History of around 1775 and the conflict between the rebels, Tories, and royalists. You will learn how the New Englanders fit in, Boston, Rhode Island, Norfolk, Virginia and Burmuda. They were brutal on each other as was never told in school history books. I'm reading 'Three Harbours'...

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<p>Lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender literature are included in the California Department of Education's newest reading list for students,prompting complaints from critics who say a leftist agenda is being pushed on kids, the San Jose Mercury News reported.</p> <p>Controversial topics have been introduced to California students in the past, but this is the first time the state has put forth works celebrated by the Stonewall Book Awards, which since 1971 has recognized LGBT literature, according to the newspaper.</p>

Not since 1984 and the landslide victory of Ronald Reagan have the Republicans had a more winnable election than the 2012 presidential election. Yet the Republican Establishment managed to lose to the worst and most vulnerable President in modern history, with historically poor approval ratings, unemployment averaging over 8.7% during his entire first term, a stagnant economy and someone who ran the smallest and most absurd of all possible re-election campaigns. Why and how did this happen? In his new book WTF? How Karl Rove and the Establishment Lost...Again, C. Edmund Wright, a frequent contributor to the American Thinker website...

I’ve been an avid reader since childhood, and probably several thousand books have come and gone from my shelves over the decades. As with many other accumulated belongings, I’m getting to the age where the end is in sight, even if these perilous times pass, and society does get back on track. And so, last weekend I loaded many boxes of books into my pickup, and took them to sell for in-house credit at a local used book store. The money/credit was not that important to me - I mostly wanted to circulate the books back to people who might...

It’s been nearly a year since the death of Osama bin Laden, and the American public has become accustomed to hearing about an al Qaeda no longer under his leadership, be it in Yemen, Mali, or elsewhere. However, even while bin Laden was in hiding, al Qaeda was dominated by his micromanagement skills, whether it was the decision not to institute Anwar al-Awlaki head of Al Qaeda in the Arab Peninsula (AQAP) or suggestions on how to avoid drone strikes. In his book, Manhunt: The Ten-Year Search for Bin Laden from 9/11 to Abbottabad, Peter L. Bergen argues that al...

The American Left and the Islamists work together to sabotage American, spreading their social justice (or sharia) values in a way that is inimical to American values, argues Andrew C. McCarthy in his book The Grand Jihad. For the hard left, social justice translates into Marxism and communism. For the Islamist, social justice leads to implementing Sharia and an Islamic state. These two are natural partners, he argues, because of their pursuit of “power” and opposition to American liberties. (McCarthy’s newest book is Spring Fever: The Illusion of Islamic Democracy.) A riveting tale of Islam in America and abroad, in...

(This is the second part of an ongoing series on federal "Common Core" education standards and the corruption of academic excellence.)The Washington, D.C., board of education earned widespread mockery this week when it proposed allowing high school students -- in the nation's own capital -- to skip a basic U.S. government course to graduate. But this is fiddlesticks compared to what the federal government is doing to eliminate American children's core knowledge base in English, language arts and history. Thanks to the "Common Core" regime, funded with President Obama's stimulus dollars and bolstered by duped Republican governors and business groups,...

The radical teachers group Rethinking Schools published an article in its Winter 2012-2013 magazine titled, “Books About Contemporary Palestine for Children,” EAGnews.org reported. Before you go any further, here’s a hint about the nature of these recommended books: The editors of Rethinking Schools are anti-Israel and see nothing wrong with Palestinian terrorist attacks against the people of that nation. The article’s author, San Jose State University Professor of Education Katharine Davies Samway, starts off by explaining how she volunteered to work in a booth at a recent local festival that was dedicated to drawing attention to “the impact of...

Lovers of ink and paper, take heart. Reports of the death of the printed book may be exaggerated. Ever since Amazon introduced its popular Kindle e-reader five years ago, pundits have assumed that the future of book publishing is digital. Opinions about the speed of the shift from page to screen have varied. But the consensus has been that digitization, having had its way with music and photographs and maps, would in due course have its way with books as well. By 2015, one media maven predicted a few years back, traditional books would be gone. Half a decade into...