Michelle Malkin: Best book evah!

And not just because, on Page 1, she begins by giving a well-deserved punk-smacking to David Brooks.

Culture of Corruption: Obama And His Team of Tax Cheats, Crooks, and Cronies -- buy two copies and give one to a liberal friend, just to annoy him -- is the most thorough, well-documented history of Democratic Party corruption since . . .

Hey, wait a minute. What's this on Page 291?

No author is an island. Robert Stacy McCain, fellow ink-stained wretch-turned blogger and co-author of the essential Donkey Cons: Sex, Crime, and Corruption in the Democratic Party, provided invaluable writerly advice and counsel (every bit of which I took except . . .

Read the whole thing. I'm not authorized to give away all of Michelle's secrets, but for a mere $35.50 $18.45 -- our special Amazon discount! -- you can learn the hidden truth!

Not only that, but if you'll hit the tip jar and come back to this post later today, I'll update with some fascinating exclusive background about Michelle and explore the Big Question: "Why does Allah hate me?"

'Could you suggest any biographies?'

A reader wrote to ask for recommendations, and where to start? I look over on my desk at Willard Sterne Randall's Thomas Jefferson: A Life, arguably the best one-volume biography of the author of the Declaration of Independence, and a fine place to start.

Wander over to the bookshelf in my office and see David Horowitz's autobiography, Radical Son. Surely you wouldn't want to miss that, one of the most insightful political memoirs of our era.

Looking up to the top shelf of my desk, I see Robert Novak's memoir, The Prince of Darkness. Anyone interested in the business of journalism should not neglect that. Also up there is Destruction and Reconstruction, the brilliant Civil War memoir of Richard Taylor.

Tucked into the shelf to the left of my computer is The Proud Highway, a collection of Hunter S. Thompson's letters 1955-67. Not a biography, per se, but a splendid insight into the formative years of the great Gonzo.

On a shelf down in the basement is Thomas Wolfe's The Right Stuff, a history of the Mercury space program that is, in some sense, a collective biography of the astronauts and that great non-astronaut, heroic test-pilot Chuck Yeager.

What else? Oh, sitting open on my desk is William Middendorf's A Glorious Disaster, about Barry Goldwater's 1964 presidential campaign. Again, a combination of history and biography. Lou Cannon's Governor Reagan is up on the top shelf of my desk, and in my main library (what is now our dining room) are Steven Hayward's The Age of Reagan and the collection Reagan: A Life in Letters. I'd also recommend Reagan, In His Own Hand.

Just wandered into the dining room/library and spotted a couple of books everyone should read: Up From Slavery by Booker T. Washington and The Autobiography of Malcolm X. Both of these authors, in one way or another, stand in opposition to the sort of liberalism Shelby Steele examined in White Guilt. If you read Malcolm X carefully, you'll see a man more angry at white liberal condescension than anything else. Sometimes I wonder what might have become of Malcolm X if he hadn't been assassinated.

Well, that's a list to start with, at any rate. I suppose commenters can suggest others.

UPDATE: Jimmie Bise has suggestions, too.

Pigs 1, Orwell 0

"We have no conviction that this is the right point of view from which to criticise the political situation at the current time."
-- T.S. Eliot, an editor at British publisher Faber & Faber in 1944, in a letter rejecting George Orwell's Animal Farm

TONIGHT: David Horowitz in D.C.

I'll be in Washington tonight to see David Horowitz's 7 p.m. speech at the State Plaza Hotel (2117 E Street, NW):

The George Washington University Chapter of the Young America's Foundation is pleased to announce that they will be hosting David Horowitz at a dinner this Thursday, March 26th to discuss his new book, One Party Classroom.
The son of two life-long members of the Communist Party, and a former supporter of Marxism as well as a former member of the New Left in the 1960s, Horowitz later renounced his "left-wing political radicalism" and became an advocate for conservatism. He is a founder of the David Horowitz Freedom Center and has served as president of that organization for many years. He is the editor of the conservative website FrontPage Magazine, and his writings can be read on news sites and publications, including the conservative magazine NewsMax.
Horowitz’s new book, One Party Classroom, is a non-fiction outlining the liberal bias on college campuses. The book includes a list of the top 150 most radical classes in American school’s course catalogues and is broken down into 12 chapters, each focusing on a particular school. The range in size of schools is astonishing; from large state schools to small private schools, a telling sign of the widespread bias. Through careful examination of the school’s curriculum and course catalog, Mr. Horowitz shows that these biases have resulted not because of administrative oversight, but are due to a sincere effort by the University to use the classroom as a platform for liberal bias. The book does not focus on individual classes, but instead investigates the underlying factors that make the existence of radical classes possible.
"Exposing bias in education is one of the main missions of the Young America's Foundation. We are extremely pleased to have the opportunity to bring Mr. Horowitz to George Washington to discuss this very important topic. While the recent firing of Ward Churchill was a step in the right direction to end bias, there is still a long way to go. We are eager to help spread the message by bringing Mr. Horowitz to the University," Travis Korson, Director of Press said.
The event will be held at 7:00pm in the Diplomat Room of the State Plaza Hotel. The hotel is located at 2117 E Street, NW Washington DC. The event will be televised by C-Span and is free and open to the public.

(Cross-posted at Right Wing News and AmSpecBlog.)

Buckley & Reagan

Bill Buckley's last book, The Reagan I Knew, gets reviewed by Hunter Baker at The American Spectator:

What one sees in the letters between the two great icons of 20th-century American conservatism is a conversation between equals. Buckley was not the Machiavellian manipulator liberals might have believed Reagan "the amiable dunce" needed. Instead, he was an ideological soulmate, a debate partner, and occasionally an opponent. These were two men working to the same end, but never shy to differ or to try to convince the other of their own position.

I've read the book, and it is absolutely charming. You will enjoy the inside jokes between Reagan and Buckley, who keeps promising to run away to Casablanca with Nancy, and refers to himself as Reagan's ambassador to Kabul. You should definitely buy the book.

A Snowman in Publishing Hell

Bob Eckstein wrote a book called The History of the Snowman. He got a $35,000 advance and spent $15,000 in research. The book went through five editors, and the cover design went through 35 revisions. Then Eckstein was sent out on a seven-state promotional tour, during which he sold 41 books.

And you thought your life sucked.

Speaking of books, don't forget the 2008 Holiday Book Sale.

In the mail . . .

Scratch Beginnings: Me, $25, and the Search for the American Dream by Adam Shepard. Just started the first chapter, and when I put the book down, Adam had arrived at a homeless shelter in Charleston, S.C., only to find the shelter closed. He's got his own Web site, and the book is self-published, so I'm thinking the story has a happy ending.

CORRECTION: Shepard's book is not self-published -- it's by Harper Collins, which is even a happier ending. Adam, dude -- you should have gotten an advance, then you wouldn't have had to live in a homeless shelter. Oh, wait . . .

NRO on Authors Against Obama

Jim Geraghty of National Review Online's Campaign Spot takes notice:

It's an old point about Obama's early life experience, but when I read about the formation of the book Dreams From My Father, a thought or two similar to Robert Stacy McCain's ran across my mind.

Obama was a 28-year-old student with very little track record as a writer when he got a sweetheart book deal in 1990, a revelation that automatically provokes a "Whiskey Tango Foxtrot" reaction from any actual writer who's ever experienced the misery of dealing with the book industry.

Ann Richards once famously said of Bush 41 that he "was born on third base and thought he hit a triple." Yeah? Well, when Obama stepped up to the plate, the ball was on a tee.

Geraghty is welcome to join Authors Against Obama, whose members already include Kirby Wilbur, Phil Kent, Mike Adams, Roger Simon and Doug Giles.

Defeat? Not an option

Historian Andrew Roberts visited DC this week:

"Defeat cannot be, and must not be, allowed to be an option in Iraq," said Mr. Roberts, in town to promote the U.S. release of his 700-page book, "A History of the English Speaking Peoples Since 1900." ...
Mr. Roberts described the current battle against terrorism as "a world-historical struggle." And, while noting that he is himself a supporter of Britain's Tory opposition, Mr. Roberts praised the "moral courage" of Labour Party Prime Minister Tony Blair.

Mr. Roberts has returned to England, but I'll be interviewing him in the near future.