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The Checkbook and the Cruise Missile: Conversations with Arundhati Roy by Arundhati Roy
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Outrage: How Liberals, Congress, Unions, Drug Companies, Big Oil, Banks, Lobbyists, Corporations, the United Nations, the World Bank, the INS, the TSA, and the Democratic Party Are Ripping
Dick Morris - 2007
That's why Dick Morris and Eileen McGann wrote Outrage. Their proposals:Ban immigration from terrorist countries Ban Congress putting spouses on their payroll Ban lobbyists who are related to senators or congressmen Ban nicotine additives to cigarettes Ban trade quotas that drive up prices and save few jobs Ban drug company bribes to doctors Ban teachers unions' work rules that stop education reform Ban insurance companies from backing out on Katrina coverageIn "Outrage," you'll get the facts--and learn what we can do about them. You won't read about these outrages anyplace else; too many people are working hard to cover them up. Get them here instead--and learn how to fight the special interests of the left and right.
On Bullshit
Harry G. Frankfurt - 1986
Everyone knows this. Each of us contributes his share. But we tend to take the situation for granted. Most people are rather confident of their ability to recognize bullshit and to avoid being taken in by it. So the phenomenon has not aroused much deliberate concern. We have no clear understanding of what bullshit is, why there is so much of it, or what functions it serves. And we lack a conscientiously developed appreciation of what it means to us. In other words, as Harry Frankfurt writes, "we have no theory."Frankfurt, one of the world's most influential moral philosophers, attempts to build such a theory here. With his characteristic combination of philosophical acuity, psychological insight, and wry humor, Frankfurt proceeds by exploring how bullshit and the related concept of humbug are distinct from lying. He argues that bullshitters misrepresent themselves to their audience not as liars do, that is, by deliberately making false claims about what is true. In fact, bullshit need not be untrue at all.Rather, bullshitters seek to convey a certain impression of themselves without being concerned about whether anything at all is true. They quietly change the rules governing their end of the conversation so that claims about truth and falsity are irrelevant. Frankfurt concludes that although bullshit can take many innocent forms, excessive indulgence in it can eventually undermine the practitioner's capacity to tell the truth in a way that lying does not. Liars at least acknowledge that it matters what is true. By virtue of this, Frankfurt writes, bullshit is a greater enemy of the truth than lies are.
Feel Free: Essays
Zadie Smith - 2018
She contributes regularly to The New Yorker and the New York Review of Books on a range of subjects, and each piece of hers is a literary event in its own right.Arranged into five sections--In the World, In the Audience, In the Gallery, On the Bookshelf, and Feel Free--this new collection poses questions we immediately recognize. What is The Social Network--and Facebook itself--really about? "It's a cruel portrait of us: 500 million sentient people entrapped in the recent careless thoughts of a Harvard sophomore." Why do we love libraries? "Well-run libraries are filled with people because what a good library offers cannot be easily found elsewhere: an indoor public space in which you do not have to buy anything in order to stay." What will we tell our granddaughters about our collective failure to address global warming? "So I might say to her, look: the thing you have to appreciate is that we'd just been through a century of relativism and deconstruction, in which we were informed that most of our fondest-held principles were either uncertain or simple wishful thinking, and in many areas of our lives we had already been asked to accept that nothing is essential and everything changes--and this had taken the fight out of us somewhat."Gathering in one place for the first time previously unpublished work, as well as already classic essays, such as, "Joy," and, "Find Your Beach," Feel Free offers a survey of important recent events in culture and politics, as well as Smith's own life. Equally at home in the world of good books and bad politics, Brooklyn-born rappers and the work of Swiss novelists, she is by turns wry, heartfelt, indignant, and incisive--and never any less than perfect company. This is literary journalism at its zenith.
Race
Toni Morrison - 2017
A young black girl longing for the blue eyes of white baby dolls spirals into inferiority and confusion. A friendship falls apart over a disputed memory. An ex-slave is haunted by a lonely, rebukeful ghost, bent on bringing their past home. Strange and unexpected, yet always stirring, Morrison’s writing on race sinks us deep into the heart and mind of our troubled humanity.Includes selections from the books Song of Solomon, The Bluest Eye, Beloved by Toni MorrisonVINTAGE MINIS: GREAT MINDS. BIG IDEAS. LITTLE BOOKS.A series of short books by the world’s greatest writers on the experiences that make us humanFor the full list of books visit vintageminis.co.ukAlso in the Vintage Minis series:Sisters by Louisa May AlcottLove by Jeanette WintersonBabies by Anne EnrightLanguage by Xiaolu Guo
The Gutfeld Monologues: Classic Rants from the Five
Greg Gutfeld - 2018
In the past few years, Fox News host Greg Gutfeld has covered everything from crazed academics, to unhinged celebrities, to the wildest election in recent history on his shows The Five and The Greg Gutfeld Show. In The Gutfeld Monologues, he brings together his best and favorite monologues in this funny, unconventional collection for new and longtime fans alike. Scored through with marginal edits, scratch-outs, 20/20 hindsight, and up-to-the-minute commentary on what he got wrong, this book isn’t your grandmother’s anthology collection. With his signature humor, wit, and insight, Greg explains it all in this memorable collection about some of our country’s most crucial—and not so crucial—modern moments.