The 2010 Summer Reading List

Summer time is reading time. Here are ten suggested new books:

1. Toxic Talk (Thomas Dunne Books) by Bill Press, the
liberal talk show host, unloads in his words, on "how the radical right
has poisoned America's airwaves." The five major syndicates are
dominated by the likes of Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Mark Levin, Sean
Hannity, Michael Savage and Bill O'Reilly. Using their own statements,
Press applies indignation, satire and humor to demonstrate the bigotry,
the falsehoods and the propaganda that sustain the concentrated power
of corporate oligarchs who fan far right-wing flames with advertising
revenues.

2. Stop Getting Ripped Off
(Ballantine Books) by Bob Sullivan. MSNBC's penetrating consumer
reporter gets very specific about how you are being fleeced and how you
can often get a fair deal. If you have credit cards, mortgages, life
insurance, cell phones, cable tv, are shopping for a new car or worried
about preserving your retirement, this is the personal budget protector
and aggravation-reliever for you.

3. Unequal Protection (second edition, expanded,
Berrett-Koehler Publishers) by Thom Hartman. The growing debate against
corporations having the same constitutional rights as human beings
flows in part from this brainy author and talk show host's
documentation of the portentous drive since the notorious 1886 Supreme
Court decision to establish corporate supremacy over the sovereignty of
the people. He writes with dramatic historical accuracy, using primary
sources, to wake Americans up to this incremental judicially-decreed
coup d'etat.

4. Saved by the Sea: A Love Story with Fish by David
Helvarg (Thomas Dunne Books-St. Martin's) is an enthralling bedtime or
beachtime read. Helvarg combines knowing how to write with knowing the
ocean, reefs and surfs. His touching, tragic story of the love of his
life and of aquatic nature is beyond unique.

5. In the Shadow of Power by Kike Arnal. This is a book,
with my introduction, of haunting photographs of the "other Washington"
which is off the beaten track of the twenty million tourists who visit
our nation's capital every year. Regaled by critics such as Pulitzer
Prize-winner Henry Allen, Kike walked the poor and affluent
neighborhoods to capture the tale of the "two cities" for months
looking for the telling, unposed picture that speaks volumes. A native
Venezuelan, he cannot qualify for the Pulitzer Prize in photography,
which is reserved for U.S. citizens-the primary obstacle to deserving
such an honor.

6. The Story of Stuff: How Our Obsession with Stuff is Trashing the Planet, Our Communities, and Our Health-and a Vision for Change
by Annie Leonard (Free Press). Can anyone make the pile of production
and consumption waste interesting? Try Annie Leonard, who has scoured
the world for the stories that tell the cumulative story of where our
throwaway economy and unawareness are leading us. Her twenty minute
video (https://www.storyofstuff.com) that inspired this book has received over ten million visits. Annie knows how to connect with the reader.

7. "This Time We Went Too Far" by Norman G. Finkelstein
(O/R Books) is the author's report on what he calls "the Gaza massacre"
of late to early 2008-2009 by the all-powerful, U.S.-supplied Israeli
military. The title comes from an Israeli official, signifying the
slaughter of utterly defenseless civilians, including nearly 300
children and the destruction of schools, clinics, homes, public works,
mosques, even fields growing crops, UN property and an American school,
was off the charts. Finkelstein places this bloodbath in the context of
U.S. foreign policy, human rights law and shifts in American and
European public opinion.

8. North Star: A Memoir by Peter Camejo (Haymarket Books)
is a story of radical American and Pan American politics of the latter
20th century as practiced and experienced by this great and wise
American. The late Peter Camejo, in the fulsome tradition of Eugene
Debs, was a full-spectrum fighter for justice in the political, civic,
electoral and international arenas. In this highly personal book, you
might find a more perceptive understanding of our times.

9. Senseless Panic by William M. Isaac (Wiley) compares
the preventable Wall Street collapse of 2008-2009 with how he, as head
of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), and other federal
banking regulators handled the smaller but still devastating financial
crisis in the early 1980s. Isaac claims the current global financial
crisis-managers have not learned the lessons from the earlier meltdown
of the S&L industry and other banks, during which interest rates
hit 21 percent and there was 11 percent unemployment. When a leading
member of the former banking establishment takes on the banking
establishment, now in charge in Washington and Wall Street, it makes
for jarring, no holds barred reading that is a rare experience in these
times of high-level self-censorship and hubris.

10. The Energy Reader by Laura Nader, editor
(Wiley-Blackwell). From the Seventies to the present, my sister, Laura
Nader, professor of Anthropology at U.C. Berkeley, has been observing
and teaching about our country's ossified energy policies and practices
and why available technical, social and economic solutions have been
kept on the shelf.

From her cohesive introduction to the contributions of many thoughtful
and experienced participants in, and scholars of, our nation's energy
power structure and the potential for an efficient and renewable energy
future, this forthright, empirical book needs to be read by our members
of Congress, executive branch policy-makers and all citizens who are
fed up with the vested interests and ideologies that have so damaged
our environment, economy and public health.

May your savorings of the above offerings affect your routines!