Author Archives: Michael Froomkin

The Carpetbagger Report asks an interesting question:

A long-time regular, R.M., recently raised an interesting question via email. A conservative friend recommended that he read “Atlas Shrugged,” which the friend thought would help open his liberal eyes and lead him to the embrace poorly-written novels contrived plots conservative thinking.

Setting Ayn Rand aside, R.M. asked a good question: If the situation was reversed, and a liberal wanted to recommend one book to a conservative, which book should he or she pick?

Some of the more recent books that came to mind are preaching-to-the-choir kind of texts, which a) have their place; and b) when it comes to Al Franken and Molly Ivins, can be fun to read, but wouldn’t necessarily be the first thing I’d recommend to a conservative or politically-neutral reader.

The point isn’t to pick your favorite liberal book, or the one that has had the most impact, but rather the one that can speak to a broad audience and help present a liberal ideology in a persuasive way.

Fiction or non-fiction, recent or “classic” — which book would you pick?

For fiction, I was thinking along the lines of Grapes of Wrath, but it’s a bit dated.

For non-fiction, Simple Justice? Or is that too dated too? If so, really any decent account of the Bush administration ought to do…

Bob Somerby of the The Daily Howler lets slip the secret to getting things right:

Sometimes, readers ask us how we manage to get these matters so right. Folks, our secret is known as “reading.” You hold the key document up to your face. Then you say all the words to yourself.

I tell my students that it often pays to read difficult documents — and the Constitution! — out loud. But judging from their reactions, I think it’s pretty safe to say it will never catch on.