Free Republic

Her CPAC speech today was a barn-burner, hitting every conservative, small-government point and pumping out soundbites that will no doubt resonate in the public dialogue for days to come. Some of my favorites: “Drain the Jacuzzi!” “This government isn’t too big to fail, it’s too big to succeed.” “We don’t want an economy built to last, we want an economy built to grow.” “This is Obama’s Washington.” Her signature line in this speech was “The door is open.” She meant that political conditions are becoming conducive to a renewed commitment to small government and liberty. People’s mindsets are changing. We...

Dear Sarah, I hope you are enjoying this year's fight for the Republican Presidential nomination. However, many of us out here are not pleased with the trashing, backed by Big Money, that Romney and his minions have heaped on Gingrich - mostly based on falsehoods. Romney and his backers in the MSM and the Old Guard of the Republican Party (Rove, McCain, Dole, et al) are trying their hardest to once again hoodwink the party base. In order to upset the establishment and to garner favor among those of us who are Tea-Partying conservatives, I would encourage you to send...

Bookstore owner Barnes & Noble Inc (BKS.N) on Thursday said it is considering splitting off its Nook electronic reader business, which has been the main growth engine for the company.

Borders Group Inc. said it would liquidate after the second-largest U.S. bookstore chain failed to receive any offers to save it. Borders, which employs about 10,700 people, scrapped a bankruptcy-court auction scheduled for Tuesday amid the dearth of bids. The chain said it will ask a judge Thursday to approve a sale to liquidators led by Hilco Merchant Resources and Gordon Brothers Group. The liquidation of the company's remaining 399 stores could start as soon as Friday, and the chain is expected to go out of business for good by the end of September, the company said.

Here’s a marketing question I thought I’d never ask: Would you think that a critically panned, low-budget movie, with a virtually unknown director and cast, could catapult a more than 50 year-old book near the top of the Amazon bestseller list? Well, exactly that appears to be happening with the movie adaptation of Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged.

In defending his administration's efforts at putative financial reform, President Obama suggested a ceiling, perhaps government-imposed, for Wall Street executives. Although he did not begrudge them income that is "fairly earned," he added ominously, "I do think that at a certain point, you've made enough money." The president may be projecting guilt from his own excellent adventures in greed. A surprising 2006 article for the American Century Foundation by liberal publisher Peter Osnos sheds useful light on this subject. As Osnos relates, a 1990 New York Times profile on The Harvard Law Review's first black president caught the eye of...

Truly amazing: the power of Glenn Beck. He mentioned A Patriot's History of the U.S. today on his radio show, then again on the TV show, and lo and behold, #1. Big stuff happening. Can't tell all yet, but watch our web pages, www.patriotshistoryusa.com and www.rockinthewall.com. Oh, and if anyone knows how to do a screen saver, I'd like to bronze this one.

Sarah Palin has been using her political action committee to buy up thousands of copies of her book, "Going Rogue," in order to mail copies of the memoir to her donors, newly filed campaign records show.The former Alaska governor and 2008 Republican vice presidential candidate had her political organization spend more than $63,000 on what her reports describe as "books for fundraising donor fulfillment." The payments went to Harper Collins, her publisher, and in some instances to HSP Direct, a Virginia-based direct mail fundraising firm that serves a number of well-known conservative politicians and pundits. Sarah PAC spent another $8,000...

Sarah Palin's much-anticipated memoir, Going Rogue (Harper), sold 469,400 copies in just six days upon its release in the United States—sending it comfortably to the top of the US bestseller lists. It outsold runner-up James Patterson's I, Alex Cross (Little, Brown) by more than three copies to one, and on its 469,400 sale alone enters the US year-to-date non-fiction charts in eighth position overall, just ahead of film-maker Stephen Kendrick's Christian marriage guidance tome, The Love Dare (B&H—410,483 copies sold this year) and just behind the late Randy Pausch's The Last Lecture (Hyperion). Although Going Rogue's sale is dwarfed by...

1 GOING ROGUE, by Sarah Palin. (Harper/HarperCollins, $28.99.) A memoir by the former Alaska governor and vice-presidential candidate. 2 OPEN, by Andre Agassi. (Knopf, $28.95.) The tennis champion’s autobiography. 3 HAVE A LITTLE FAITH, by Mitch Albom. (Hyperion, $23.99.) A suburban rabbi and a Detroit pastor teach lessons about the comfort of belief. 4 ARGUING WITH IDIOTS, written and edited by Glenn Beck, Kevin Balfe and others. (Mercury Radio Arts/Threshold Editions, $29.99.) The case against big government. (†) With Talk radio, conservatives not only taking over the publishing industry but saving it, Fox News, The Wall Street Journal and the...

“Going Rogue” sold 700,000 copies — a number that includes pre-orders — in its first week of release, according to a publishing official close to the former Alaska governor. The official was not authorized to release the sales figure and asked not to be identified.

UPDATE: Three major booksellers declined to release sales figures for “Going Rogue” on Tuesday. However, a spokeswoman for Amazon.com Inc.’s Web site noted in an email that the title “is already one of our bestselling nonfiction books of 2009.” At 2:40 p.m., the book ranked No. 1 on Amazon’s list of best sellers, with six customer reviews and 393 customer discussions. Amazon is selling the book for $14.50, a 50% discount from its $28.99 retail price.

According to The Huffington Post, Michelle Malkin, Mark Levin, Glenn Beck and other right-of-center stars that regularly dominate the New York Times Hardcover Non-Fiction Bestsellers List are - or should be - in a league of their own. No, that isn't Arianna Huffington's blog heaping praise on conservative authors. It's a literal suggestion. With right-leaning books and authors holding so many spots on the list, and more to come - former Sarah Palin, former Dick Cheney and President George W. Bush all have books due out -Huffington Post suggests conservatives should have their own category to differentiate from other works...

NEW YORK – An online book special offered by Wal-Mart Stores Inc. is turning into a full-fledged price war with Amazon.com. Wal-Mart got things started Thursday, offering $10 prices on such upcoming hardcover releases as Sarah Palin's "Going Rogue" and John Grisham's "Ford County," a cut of 60 percent or more from the regular cost. Wal-Mart will also offer free shipping. Amazon.com, the largest online bookseller, matched the $10 price, prompting Wal-Mart to take its offer to $9. By Friday morning, Amazon.com also had priced the books at $9. The price cuts come at a time when Seattle-based Amazon.com and...

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. launched a brash price war against Amazon.com Inc. on Thursday, saying it would sell 10 hotly anticipated new books for just $10 apiece through its online site, Walmart.com. That was just the beginning.

Forty-eight days before the release and she’s already topped Dan Brown’s latest conspiracy-theory casserole at both top retailers. To put that in perspective, note that the book doesn’t even have a cover yet. So much for the Page Six hit piece about demand for her being slack. No way to tell yet, obviously, whether the monster launch will have legs or whether it’ll deflate a bit next week after Palinistas are all done ordering their advance copies. But if it goes on to become a mega-seller, it’s a game-changer insofar as it’ll establish her unquestionably as the most prominent Republican...

Without ever having been reviewed by either the New York Times or the Washington Post, Mark Levin’s Liberty and Tyranny: A Conservative Manifesto has now sold one million copies, according to its publisher, Threshold Editions. Levin is a nationally syndicated radio host, president of the Landmark Legal Foundation, and served as chief of staff to Atty. Gen. Ed Meese in the Reagan Justice Department. Liberty and Tyranny has been riding high on non-fiction bestseller lists ever since it was released in late March. It debuted at No. 1 on the New York Times best seller list and has remained in...

1 CULTURE OF CORRUPTION, by Michelle Malkin. (Regnery, $27.95.) President Obama and his team of tax cheats, petty crooks, influence peddlers and Wall Street cronies. 2 OUTLIERS, by Malcolm Gladwell. (Little, Brown, $27.99.) Why some people succeed — it has to do with luck and opportunity as well as talent — from the author of “Blink.” 3 IN THE PRESIDENT’S SECRET SERVICE, by Ronald Kessler. (Crown, $26.) Agents and the presidents they protect. 4* CATASTROPHE, by Dick Morris and Eileen McGann. (Harper/HarperCollins, $26.99.) Stopping President Obama before he transforms America into a socialist state and destroys the health care system....

<p>MCLEAN, Virginia - The federal government's most secure prison has determined that two books written by President Barack Obama contain material "potentially detrimental to national security" and rejected an inmate's request to read them.</p> <p>Ahmed Omar Abu Ali is serving a 30-year sentence at the federal supermax prison in Florence, Colorado, for joining al-Qaida and plotting to assassinate then-President George W. Bush. Last year, Abu Ali requested two books written by Obama: "Dreams from My Father" and "The Audacity of Hope."</p>

Nonfiction 1. Liberty and Tyranny, Mark R. Levin. A conservative manifesto from a talk-show host and president of Landmark Legal Foundation. 2. Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell. Why some people succeed — it has to do with luck and opportunities as well as talent — from the author of Blink and The Tipping Point. 3. Resilience, Elizabeth Edwards. Dealing with life's challenges, including cancer and her husband's infidelity. 4. The Girls from Ames, Jeffrey Zaslow. An enduring friendship among a group of Midwestern women. 5. Always Looking Up, Michael J. Fox. Fox's last 10 years, since he retired from Spin City; his...