Essential Summer Reads

Your Invitation To Office Hours

While Ted Sorensen may have written Jack Kennedy’s books, he most certainly didn’t read them for him.

Ralph Nader says, “Readers think, and thinkers read.”

They also write.

Ralph writes a weekly column you can get delivered to your inbox simply by signing-up over at his website.

He and his team, at the Washington, D.C. based Center for Study of Responsive Law, just started a muckraking newspaper called The Capitol Hill Citizen which covers, you guessed it, Capitol Hill. The paper only comes out in print. You must subscribe in order to receive it.

Ralph pens a new book every year on his Underwood typewriter. One of my favorites is Unstoppable: The Emerging Left-Right Alliance to Dismantle the Corporate State. Besides being an entertaining sprint through the history of economic thought, it clearly illustrates how “We The People” have so much in common and why corporate America can’t survive unless they divide us. It’s one of my favorite books that I revisit at least once a year. Read it.

Herman Cain died from Covid after showing up for a Tulsa, Oklahoma Trump rally in 2020 without wearing a mask.

Professor Harvey J. Kaye has written countless books over his illustrious career. Professor Kaye has reissued, Take Hold of Our History: Make America Radical Again. This re-issuance is a collection of his essays and lectures that make for a great beach or toilet read, and if you live in New York City— a beach or toilet is pretty much the same thing.

Supporters of Joe Biden promote his legislative accomplishments as the Second Coming of the New Deal. Professor Kaye’s book, The Fight for the Four Freedoms: What Made FDR and the Greatest Generation Truly Great might lead you to believe, as Professor Kaye said on our show today, that Biden is looking more like Truman.

Professor Kaye’s very first book, The British Marxist Historians, will be reissued in October. This is considered the most comprehensive look at historians who taught the world how to view civilization through the lens of class struggle.

The Rev. Barry W. Lynn is a prolific author who is working on his next book. Meanwhile, there’s God and Government : Twenty-Five Years of Fighting for Equality, Secularism, and Freedom of Conscience.

There’s also Piety & Politics: The Right-wing Assault on Religious Freedom, First Freedom First: A Citizen's Guide to Protecting Religious Liberty and the Separation of Church and State and The Right to Religious Liberty, The Basic ACLU Guide to Religious Rights (ACLU Handbook)

Professor Ben Burgis never stops writing, reading and thinking. He’s a columnist for Jacobin where his latest is Biden Is Canceling $10,000 of Student Loan Debt for Some Borrowers. That’s Not Good Enough.

He also writes for the Daily Beast where his latest is Sean Hannity Wants Low Income Americans to Have No Lives and over at The Nation his latest is The January 6 Hearings Are Not Going to Save Us and Trump Might Face Prison, but Bolton and Kissinger? Never!

Professor Burgis’ latest book is Christopher Hitchens: What He Got Right, How He Went Wrong, and Why He Still Matters.

Professor Mike Steinel, besides being the greatest songwriter and musician in the world, is also a novelist. His latest is Saving Charlie Parker: A Novel.

Ethan Herschenfeld has a new book written by his alter ego Dr. Samuel Benjamin entitled Today is Now. It’s hysterical.

Buy several copies of these books for your local library.

Don’t forget to renew your library card and use it.

If you can’t read, there’s audio books.

Cancel Netflix and get going.

As Ralph says, “Readers think, and thinkers read.”

See you at Office Hours!

Do you have any reading recommendations? If so…