Kennedy asked if Frost planned to recite a new poem. If not, could he recite "The Gift Outright," a poem Frost has called "a history of the United States in a dozen [actually, sixteen] lines of blank verse."

Resurrecting the Street: Overcoming the Greatest Operational Crisis in History

Summary: In Resurrecting the Street, author Jeff Ingber analyzes the financial story behind 9/11 – weaving in interviews, first-hand accounts and well-researched facts and data. The financial crisis was ultimately resolved through the willpower and wisdom of groups of disparate individuals, accompanied by an unprecedented climate of cooperation among fierce competitors. This story, which is an important aspect of the overall 9/11 narrative, has never been told. 

From the author: The events of 9/11 presented the financial industry with the greatest operational crisis in its history. Key officials were killed; others could not be located. Primary and backup sites were unavailable or inadequate. Massive amounts of critical data were lost, and there was a crushing inability to communicate, locate or verify information. It was not known for a time which firms could participate in the markets, nor was it clear to what extent certain markets had been damaged and when they should reopen. Nor could the human impact of the 9/11 events be divorced from the business issues. Those grappling to restore the markets had to cope with their own feelings of anxiety, shock and loss, and to deal with a uniquely horrific blend of personal and professional difficulties. Resurrecting the Street tells the largely unknown and heroic story of the regeneration of the U.S. markets, day by day, immediately following 9/11.

About the author: Jeff Ingber is a native New Yorker and a graduate of Queens College and NYU Law School. He has worked in the financial industry for over three decades, including positions with the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and The Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation. Jeff currently is a Managing Director with Citigroup.

Angela, From Wisconsin By Jill McDonough

The cute waitress at the Alembic has
hair red as Ann Margaret’s, eyes liquid
lined like Marilyn, Sophia Loren. She’s
beautiful, always looks high.
Peonies and poppies, koi and flowering
vines on her soft shoulders, American thighs.
She has freckles, a little lisp. Angela,
from Wisconsin, who was in the Army
eight years. This is what a veteran looks like
now, I keep telling myself, on the sidewalk
after her shift while she drinks, talks
about driving trucks into Baghdad, rolls
her eyes about the VA, being brave. She laughs
about self-medicating PTSD, how the earthquake
the other day made her think IED.
I light her cigarette, laugh with her,
squeeze her elbow, thinking Fucking A.
Press here to play the MP3.

Pushcart prize winner Jill McDonough’s first book is Habeas Corpus The recipient of fellowships from the NEA, the Library of Congress and elsewhere, she teaches at UMass-Boston and directs 24PearlStreet, the online writing program at the Fine Arts Work Center.


The above information was taken from Guernica, a magazine of art & politics.

Redemption Day

About the Book:

Redemption Day is a highly paced thriller set in Washington DC. The story is founded upon historical events and documented teachings of the Posse Comitatus. The Posse was an anti-government militia group in the 1980' s that tried to convince farmers that banks could not lawfully foreclose on their properties. Their beliefs led to the bombing of the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City on a date of significance to the group April 19.

About the Author:

Steve O' Brien is an award winning novelist and attorney. Redemption Day is his third novel. His books have received multiple literary awards. He lives in Washington, D.C.


My Opinion:
Since terrorists and the threat of terrorism are currently a hot topic in the United States, this book really peaked my interest. People are intrigued by home grown terrorism and their constant threat in the United States today.  


The story starts with a kidnapping of a Supreme Court Justice, Silvio Caprelli on a Washington D.C. parkway. The protagonist, a contracted analyst for the Government, Nick James is fired from his job one day and the next framed for murder. The two stories collide. Nick is a believable character who is drawn into criminal events he is ill prepared to face. He finds himself between a terrorist group and the government. The FBI wants him captured and the terrorists want him dead. Nick must try to figure out who is behind the kidnapping and what they have planned before the terrorists strike and he and everyone else run out of time.  Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed the characters back stories as the mystery began to unravel. 


To say this is a page turner is an understatement. I was literally on the edge of my seat. It turns out that the kidnappers are the Posse Comitatus - the group that Nick has been following for the last three years. He knows they did it he just can't prove it. The Posse Comitatus is a loosely organized far right social movement that opposes the United States federal government and believes in government on a local level only. They refuse to pay taxes or obey government laws. This book is full of action, adventure, torture scenes, and surprises that keeps you guessing until the end. 


The historical statements, discussed in the Author’s Note, adds to the thrill of this book. It is action-packed from beginning to end, with something for every reader- politics, suspense and even a hint of romance. In that respect, I feel that Steve O'Brien hit the mark with this book and I look forward to reading more of his work. Redemption Day would be a great book for a book club or reading group. If you enjoy reading suspense and terror, or just enjoy a good mystery this is the right book for you. There is some strong situations etc. so I’d recommend it for older teens and adults.

You can purchase Redemption Day at Amazon.com

Disclosure:  I received a copy of Redemption Day gratis. Any opinions expressed are my honest opinions and were not impacted by my receipt of the free book. I received no monetary compensation for this post.

Cornel West to Take a Job in New York

Cornel West, the peripatetic public intellectual and political activist, plans to finish out a teaching career that has taken him from Yale to Harvard to Princeton by moving back this coming summer to Union Theological Seminary in the City of New York, where he began as an assistant professor in 1977. 

Click here for the rest of the article by Laurie Goodstein, published on November 16, 2011

Temporary People, a fable

Temporary People

Steven Gillis

Black Lawrence Press, 2008

ISBN-10: 0976899361

Hardcover: 203pp; $20.95

eBook Price: $7.99

“Balancing world-building, a thriller-worthy plot, and high-end political dialogue, Temporary People is the kind of book that forces the reader to fight between turning the pages faster to find out what happens and slowing down to consider its arguments and to savor its sentences.” —NewPages.com

Here's the book description:

"Revolution rocks and rolls. An ex-tv star seizes power and tries to turn daily life into an endless film. Temporary People is a political fable of the first order. Set on the island of Bamerita, a country whose “history is like the rim of a wheel made to turn round and round, our political cycles nothing if not redundant,” Gillis third novel, following Walter Falls and The Weight of Nothing, Temporary People explores the human condition in all its most vulnerable exposures. A brilliant send up of modern life turned inside out by the inescapable powers of history and fate, filled with pathos and humor, Gillis deftly explores the complexities of survival and choice in a world perpetually on the verge of going mad. Sharp and satirical, a breathtakingly paced romp, the end will leave you drop-jawed and wanting more. Temporary People is a book for the ages and once again Gillis delivers."

A Magazine of Art & Politics

New from Guernica:

Roberto Bolaño is being sold in the U.S. as the next García Márquez, a darker, wilder, decidedly un-magical paragon of Latin American literature. His former friend and fellow novelist Horacio Castellanos Moya isn't buying it.

State by State

State by State: A Panoramic Portrait of America 

by Matt Weiland (Author), Sean Wilsey (Author)

Featuring original writing on all fifty states.

Alabama by George Packer 
Alaska by Paul Greenberg 
Arizona by Lydia Millet 
Arkansas by Kevin Brockmeier 
California by William T. Vollmann 
Colorado by Benjamin Kunkel 
Connecticut by Rick Moody 
Delaware by Craig Taylor 
Florida by Joshua Ferris 
Georgia by Ha Jin 
Hawaii by Tara Bray Smith 
Idaho by Anthony Doerr 
Illinois by Dave Eggers 
Indiana by Susan Choi 
Iowa by Dagoberto Gilb 
Kansas by Jim Lewis 
Kentucky by John Jeremiah Sullivan 
Louisiana by Joshua Clark
Maine by Heidi Julavits 
Maryland by Myla Goldberg 
Massachusetts by John Hodgman 
Michigan by Mohammed Naseehu Ali 
Minnesota by Philip Connors 
Mississippi by Barry Hannah 
Missouri by Jacki Lyden 
Montana by Sarah Vowell 
Nebraska by Alexander Payne 
Nevada by Charles Bock 
New Hampshire by Will Blythe 
New Jersey by Anthony Bourdain 
New Mexico by Ellery Washington 
New York by Jonathan Franzen 
North Carolina by Randall Kenan 
North Dakota by Louise Erdrich 
Ohio by Susan Orlean 
Oklahoma by S.E. Hinton 
Oregon by Joe Sacco 
Pennsylvania by Andrea Lee 
Rhode Island by Jhumpa Lahiri 
South Carolina by Jack Hitt 
South Dakota by Saïd Sayrafiezadeh 
Tennessee by Ann Patchett 
Texas by Cristina Henríquez
Utah by David Rakoff 
Vermont by Alison Bechdel 
Virginia by Tony Horwitz
Washington by Carrie Brownstein 
West Virginia by Jayne Anne Phillips 
Wisconsin by Daphne Beal 
Wyoming by Alexandra Fuller

and an afterword on Washington, D.C.: A Conversation with Edward P. Jones

Ezra Pound

Ezra Pound and his world

by Peter Ackroyd

Review:

This book is filled with 111 illustrations, that introduce us to Ezra Pound from birth to death. He met and greatly influenced many of the most important English speaking writers of his age, including Yeats, Eliot, James Joyce and Ernest Hemingway. Pound was not only a writer, but an artist who defined Imagism and Vorticism. His attachment to Social Credit economics led him in the direction of Fascism, which eventually led to his imprisonment and eventually a mental hospital. Pound was an American expatriate poet, critic and intellectual who was a major figure of the Modernist movement in the first half of the 20th century. He will forever be credited as a poetic genius, who renewed poetic form and language. Overall, he is considered a major influence of twentieth-century literature.

A Bold Fresh Piece of Humanity

For a limited time, for every copy of A Bold Fresh Piece of Humanity bought on BillOReilly.com, they will send a copy to the troops.

Ernesto "Che" Guevara

*It has been four decades since his death and there are always new stories to be told about this revolutionary icon. This year there are two books that will be released soon and two movies being filmed back-to-back.

Book and Movie Titles:

A book on his home life written by his widow will be published in Cuba in March 2008, titled Evocations.

A Mexican publisher has printed what it claims are the contents of a dog-eared notebook

(The Green Notebook of Che) which was found on his body and kept locked away for years in a Bolivian army vault.

The Argentine is being shot in the mountains of Puerto Rico, follows Che during his days with Fidel Castro in the Sierra Maestra and ends with the Cuban leader's ascension to power.

Guerrilla will shoot in Bolivia and Spain, which tells of Che's misguided attempt to start a revolution among Bolivia's peasants, which ended in his death.

Check out Ocean Press www.oceanbooks.com.au/ for more books on Che.

The Nine

The Nine: Inside the Secret World of the Supreme Court

by Jeffrey Toobin

Review:

Bestselling author, a CNN senior legal analyst and New Yorker staff writer, Toobin surveys the Court from the Reagan administration onward. Toobin explores the justices stance on abortion, affirmative action, the death penalty, gay rights and church-state separation. This is not a book that needs to be read word for word or straight through page by page. I skipped around for the most part and still got a good sense of the book as a whole. I especially recommend reading Part One in it's entirety and skimming Part Two. Part Three can be skimmed and Four should be read from start to finish. This book opened my eyes to the "real" Sandra Day O'Connor and how much of an impact she had as a woman on our society. Overall, this was a nice overview of the ins and outs of the Supreme Court and an interesting/informative read during an election year. I highly suggest this to all political science and history buffs.

Week Twenty One, Book Twenty Nine

The Reluctant Fundamentalist

by Mohsin Hamid

"EXCUSE ME, SIR, but may I be of assistance? Ah, I see I have alarmed you. Do not be frightened by my beard: I am a lover of America. I noticed that you were looking for something; more than looking, in fact you seemed to be on a mission, and since I am both a native of this city and a speaker of your language, I thought I might offer you my services."

Review:
The novel centers around Changez, a young Pakistani who tells his story (a single monologue) to a nameless, mysterious American who sits across from him at a Lahore cafe. The conversation has him reminiscing an immigrant’s dream of America in the wake of September 11th. He was at the top of his class at Princeton, snapped up by the elite valuation firm of Underwood Samson and has started a romance with elegant, beautiful Erica. What more could you ask for? Once again I was captivated by "a day in the life of" story and was pleasantly pleased. This story is the extreme, since it only revolves around an encounter in a restaurant. I persevered and made it out alive in two sittings. I started early evening Saturday and finished late night Sunday. I definitely recommend this to anyone who isn't sick of the Middle East, 911 and such in this time of war.

Genocide

Not on Our Watch:

A Mission to End Genocide in Darfur and Beyond

by

Don Cheadle, John Prendergast, John Prendergast

An excerpt from Chapter 1, Challenges and Choices
It was sometime round midnight in a little village in southern Sudan, and the only link to the rest of the world within a five-hundred-mile radius was one satellite phone, so when it rang it was a bit of a shock to everyone. www.notonourwatchbook.com

other sites to check out:
www.enoughproject.org.
www.crisisgroup.org
www.hrw.org
www.amnesty.org
www.refugeesinternational.org

The Real Dr. Seuss

Theodor Seuss Geisel: The Early Works, Vol. 1:

Dr. Seuss Represents Boundless Imagination

(The Early Works of Dr. Seuss)

by

Theodor Seuss Geisel

Early Works Volume 1 is the first of a series collecting political cartoons, advertisements, and various images drawn by Geisel long before he had written any of his world-famous "Seuss" books.

Week Seventeen, Book Twenty

Taste of Salt: A Story of Modern Haiti

by Frances Temple

Review: The setting is elaborate as the book takes place in 1991 in the city of Port-Au-Prince, when people were trying to attain a democracy and end the dictatorship of Jean-Claude Duvalier who named himself president for life and hired Macoutes. I started this book earlier in the week and have been plowing away at it ever since. I felt like I needed to finish it last night before bed and am glad I did. It was not one of my favorite books involving Haiti, but it was good none the less. I would not recommend it to my students, since it was a little on the confusing side. I thought it would have been a possible choice for the immigration unit that we are considering for next year, but they do not immigrate, so that is out. My next weekly book will probably be something quick and fun, since my spring break is officially over tomorrow.

Week Sixteen, Book Eighteen

Cal

by Bernard MacLaverty

An Extract
He stubbed his cigarette out with more pressure than was required and turned obver to go to sleep. But it was too quiet. Now and again he raised his head off the pillow and listened. Once a dog barked in the distance. Then another and another, from different farms. And just as suddenly they stopped and the silence returned. He listened so hard there was a kind of static in his ears - like listening to the sea in a shell. He expected whispering voices, the squeak of a rubber-soled shoe on their concrete path. He had heard on the radio once that the Universe had started with an unimaginable explosion and that static was its dying echoes a skillion years later. He lay on his back and listened to the echoes, waiting for his window to explode.
http://www.bernardmaclaverty.com/

Review: This was the book of the month for my book club and thank God I finished it so fast. We are meeting in a little over a week from now and I am ahead of the game. I often find myself scrambling to finish the night before we meet and I didn't want to do that this time, so I started earlier than usual and am very pleased with my stamina. I did not like this book at all and would not recommend it to any reader I know. I cannot put my finger on it, but the style reminded me of James Joyce and now that I think of it slightly John Updike. I didn't realize Updike until a fellow book club member pointed it out to me in conversation. The writing is rich and was probably the only reason I finished the book in the first place. The storyline did not suck me in and the dialogue was overkill. If you are interested in the problems of Ulster, the tragedy and madness of Northern Ireland and the IRA, then Cal is for you.

Week Fourteen, Book Sixteen

Ask Me No Questions

by Marina Budhos

Review: What is it like to be an illegal alien in New York now? In the wake of the September 11 terrorist attacks, the U.S. government began a crackdown on illegal immigrants and an investigation of Muslim communities. Although, this is not a true story, certain event since 911 have inspired this book. I love the fact that the author lives in Maplewood, New Jersey which is not too far at all from where the event on September 11th took place in NYC. It seems that people in the Metropolitan area view the horrid day differently then anyone from anywhere else. It is almost unexplainable. This book is one that I am reading and considering to use in a unit on immigration for next school year. I think it is an important book for middle schoolers because it shows a families struggle in modern times with immigration. A must read for all who are interested in learning about different cultures and world issues.

teens: www.simonsays.com/content/index.cfm?sid=802
author: www.marinabudhos.com/

Week Thirteen, Book Fourteen

Behind the Mountains

(First Person Fiction)
by Edwidge Danticat

Review:
I am currently evaluating books for a unit that I want to incorporate into my school curriculum next year based on Immigration. The school librarian and a fellow English colleague, who I am working with to create this unit, recommended about six different books on the topic. My plan is to read all of the selections and post a review for each. This is the first one I read and was it a good one to start with. I really loved the second half of this "first person fiction" story. The setting of the story takes place in two very distinct areas. We are introduced to the main character Celiane Esperance in rural Haiti, during election time and bombs are going off in the capital city of Port-au-Prince. Celiane's father is currently living in Brooklyn , New York and is trying to save enough money to send for his wife, son and daughter. The second part of the story ( told in a diary format) takes place after the family is reunited. We witness the families struggle to adjust in a new land and maintain their identity so far from home. Overall, I was very pleased with this book and will recommend it for the unit and to my current students for "free reading".

books about Haiti:
After the Dance: A Walk Through Carnival in Jacmel, Haiti (Crown Journeys) by Edwidge Danticat
The Butterfly's Way: Voices from the Haitian Dyaspora in the United States
by Edwidge Danticat
Walking on Fire: Haitian Women's Stories of Survival and Resistance
by Beverly Bell

Week Eleven, Book Twelve

Culture Warrior

by Bill Oreilly

Review:
I read this book in three sittings and really felt inspired to hit the Internet and read as many political blogs that my tired eyes could take. I was very surprised at the amount that exist and just how passionate some people really are when it comes to chatting about politics. I guess I just really relied on TV and print media for my political education, but now have a new source that I will be tapping. For obvious reasons I think that this book is well written like all of O'Reilly's books and a quick read nonetheless. I especially loved the chapter on "The Battle for Christmas". Since I used to teach in a Catholic School and now teach in a Public School, it really hit a nerve. No matter what your political beliefs are, you are still able to take something away from this book. Since, we are in the midst of "war" and an upcoming "election" I plan on reading more political books and reviewing them in this forum. So, if you have any recommendations, shoot me a comment.
"Culture Warrior" - Free



"For a variety of reasons that I will explain, I have chosen to jump into the fray and become a warrior in the vicious culture war that is currently under way in the United States of America. And war is exactly the right term. On one side of the battlefield are the armies of the traditionalists like me, people who believe the United States was well founded and has done enormous good for the world. On the other side are the committed forces of the secular-progressive movement that want to change America dramatically: mold it in the image of Western Europe. Notice I did not say anything about “conservatives against liberals.” This is not the real culture fight, as I’ll make clear. The talk-radio mantra of the left versus the right doesn’t even come close to defining the culture war in America–it is much more complicated than that." * excerpt from the book
funny video: http://www.jimmyr.com/blog/Colbert_on_Oreilly_Factor_18_2007.php

Sites to check out:

http://www.billoreilly.com/
http://www.foxnews.com/oreilly/
http://www.tv.com/the-oreilly-factor/show/10688/summary.html
http://www.klif.com/listen.html
http://www.talkradioinsiders.com/profiles/profile.html
http://velvethammer.wordpress.com/