As has been mentioned elsewhere, the NYT is now going to have a political books bestseller list which means we will all be subjected to stories saying the left, right or center is on top in turns of readership (and I imagine there will be long pointless discussions about what this all means in terms of elections as well.) For my money, the best political book - and certainly the most honest - out right now is Jason Berry's Last of the Red Hot Poppas. It has all the dirty reasons why politicians stay on top until they crash: money, influence and sex. There's a dead governor no one wants autopsied, a young hot lover, money in suitcases, a drunk Lt Governor, everyone angling to take the gov's place, a state senator under indictment and a mob boss in Angola still pulling strings.

It might be fiction but it sures rings true to me. (Do check out clips of the cover - it's a fold out poster and it's stunning!)

Via Moorish Girl, The Chronicle of Higher Education looks at other people's books, something I can not resist doing and always find quite informative. What also intrigues me is people who have no books or just a few reference books rat holed in a spare bedroom. How on earth do these people live this way? Here's lovely quote from the Higher Ed piece, but do read the whole thing - it's really well done:

What interests me about other people's books is the nature of their collection. A personal library is an X-ray of the owner's soul. It offers keys to a particular temperament, an intellectual disposition, a way of being in the world. Even how the books are arranged on the shelves deserves notice, even reflection. There is probably no such thing as complete chaos in such arrangements.

I am working on a review for Sippewisset right now and loved loved loved it. If you like nature writing at all then you will adore this look at a New England salt marsh. What really captured my attention though is that it is not just about the marsh - but also the town around it and the author's connection to the region (his family has summered there for ages). It's those personal connections that really win me over for nature writng (shades of Gerald Durrell) and I was so glad I got to review this one for Booklist and now can spread the word even further via Bookslut. Here's a quote highlighted on the book's site:

When did the land actually stop being sacred to us? Did anyone record the moment or rather was it a dimming of awareness across years? Did we become modern producer-consumers by misattention, caught by time and opportunity while our meanings changed? Is that how we lost our way, moving nowhere but toward progress? Or is the land still sacred to us, and we just have to turn over more stones to know it?

I am reading and reviewing more and more nature books lately - something I feel positive about doing as a way to bring more attention to authors who are really doing an outstanding job getting a very important message out to the world.

And finally, from the Washington Post interview with author Matthew Skelton on Endymion Spring: "Endymion Spring is really a story about the friendship between two boys separated by 500 years who pursue a quest through time to save something precious to each of them." Man- I really did not get that; I didn't get anything like that at all. If that is what the author was doing then I missed it completely. I thought it was the story of one boy trying to hide a secret and another boy, 500 years later, finding it and trying to keep it safe. But as for any relationship between the two - no, I don't think so. Isn't it funny how we all read different things into books - or miss something that seems obvious to others? Endymion really didn't work for me, but it is certainly connecting for others. That's what makes this reviewing business fun though - you never say the same thing as everybody else.