No way in h*ll would I waste time reading anything by 0bama/Franken.

I could say the same of all the conservative cranks up there. In fact, I guess I have said it.

To each their own, I guess.

Exactly. Actually, I tend to avoid political books of any stripe. They get me all riled up in a bad way, whether I agree with them or not. Novels! History! Yes!

Antoine wrote: "Exactly. Actually, I tend to avoid political books of any stripe. They get me all riled up in a bad way, whether I agree with them or not. Novels! History! Yes!"

I have to agree with you, they tend to rile me up too. Good cardiac workout! LOL! I love novels, history, etc. Have you read any good novels lately? I am always looking for new authors.

Actually I have. I very much enjoyed Reif Larsen's SELECTED WORKS OF T.S. SPIVET. It has a hearty dose of magic realism to it, but also a simple homeyness that I very much enjoyed. And the illustrations are innovative and interesting.

By the way, was there a phantom post that brought you back here? I got a notification yesterday night, and there was nothing here...

anything but twilight

Interesting selection.

Another liberal wanker infested book list. It's sad how much people are lacking in brains in society.

They treat us conservatives as though we belong in the ranks of Hitler.

Liberals: bigoted and hypocritical? I think so. They'd rather someone be a terrorist than a conservative.

Alexis wrote: "Another liberal wanker infested book list. It's sad how much people are lacking in brains in society.

They treat us conservatives as though we belong in the ranks of Hitler.

Liberals: bigoted a..."

It's nice to know that someone agrees

Sorry, are there books by terrorists that we are failing to hate on here? Put them on the list!

Seriously, I am sure Mein Kampf is on this list. So are the Collected Sonnets of Ann Coulter. So is An Inconvenient Truth. So is some book by Al Franken. So is Twilight. No one is equating anyone with Hitler by having them all on the same list. And no one has expressed a preference for Terrorists over Conservatives. If the Conservative books are getting more of a beating here than the Liberal ones, that's just the breaks. I'd be more interested in a list of really bad novels, personally, but we can't be responsible for the pet peeves of others.

I'm just stopping by. I saw the title of the list. The fact that it exists at all is just about as sad a fact as I can imagine. Congratulations. Whether you are right or wrong you are apparently afraid to confront the arguments of those you disagree with. Most people refused to read Mein Kampf to. Therefore Hitler, who'd written everything he planned down before hand was able to surprise all those high-minded folk who refused to read his book.

As long as a book exists (left or right politically speaking) you have the right to read it and make up your mind. If you simply bury your head in the sand and hold to your prejudices you have no advantage over those who live in lands where the people have no choice in what they read.

Can the Americans get past the Culture Wars, please? We in the rest of the world are so bored...

Some of us Americans are pretty bored too...

I might add the Necronomicon...but I don't think there's a current edition out anyway. :)

Antoine wrote: "Exactly. Actually, I tend to avoid political books of any stripe. They get me all riled up in a bad way, whether I agree with them or not. Novels! History! Yes!"

True! I need to remember this as I get too MAD!

Alexis wrote: "Another liberal wanker infested book list. It's sad how much people are lacking in brains in society.

They treat us conservatives as though we belong in the ranks of Hitler.

Liberals: bigoted a..."

Let's see here. You accuse Liberals of mis-labeling conservatives and then proceed to label all liberals. You are obviously not someone who pays much attention to consistency.

BTW, the words Liberal and Conservative, if properly defined do not describe those who are so-called liberals or so-called conservatives. More accurately Liberals in today's political arena are Interventionists and Conservatives are Reactionaries.

The problem is many people are more comfortable with labels than with trying to understand what's really going on.

I would disagree with the labels you are comfortable with also. "Interventionist" for the liberal or left is fairly accurate but "reactionary" is misleading and inaccurate (and an overused negative). I prefer "federalists" and "republicans" (that's a small "r" as in Jeffersonian). The words "conservative" and "liberal" in the current political climate go back quite a way, but the ones who use them (usually) don't make the claim that their definition is universal. For example, when the Soviet Union fell, many news-people enjoyed (obviously) using the word "conservative" for the communists in Russia, as they wanted to "conserve the existing order". Today those who identify themselves as Conservative are usually those in favor of small, less intrusive government. People identified as liberal are usually those who see themselves as "progressive" and want larger more intrusive government.

It is nice to live in a country where we are entitled to our opinions. Hopefully it stays that way.

It's kinda weird on a website dedicated to books to find a group who'd rather die than read "blank"... were my choice between dying and reading any book, I'd read the book... duh. ;-)

Awesome comment..haha :)

While I think the title of this list is a touch over dramatic, where else are you going to see Miley Cyrus, Hitler, Ann Coulter and Harry Potter together?

Just for the chuckle that gave me, I can't say anything bad about the list.

I find it's existence far to sad to get a laugh out of it even for that.

Naw, all these 'Best of' and 'Worst of' etc lists aren't worth getting worked up over.
It's all opinion, hyperbole and people adding books just because they are ticked that someone added a book they disagreed with.

Wether the list is best or worst or whatever the 'Twilight' series, Ann Coulter and the Bible always show up on it.

I've got no problem with a best or worst list... The assumption is someone read a book to decide whether it's on their "best" or "worst" list. Even if people disagree, they read the book. Here people are judging books they haven't read.

Don't get me wrong, it's their right and I wouldn't argue with it. But, I still find prejudice (pre-judging) sad. There's a huge irony here in that I'm sure some will say "well I won't read anything by ____________ (fill in the blank) because they're intolerant, or bigoted, or (to use the same word) prejudiced." Yet the very list says because I've heard bad things about ________ from my friends, or news people, or I heard a five minute interview I "won't" read what they think.

So...free country and everyone has the right to judge without reading. I just find it (as I said) a little sad.

If I took these lists seriously, then the 'Best Vampire books' list that had 'Twilight' ranked higher than 'Dracula' would have had me drinking heavily.

These lists are good for starting discussions ( okay, fights) about books, but that's about it.
and there are so many lists, that it's easy to find one that causes no emotional trauma.

How you put Hitchens on a list with coulter and o'reilly amuses me. Hitchens, who is a liberal, really pissed off the lefties with his support of the war in iraq. He did so not because of he supports bush, just the opposite if you read his writings. He supports it because wiping out radical islam is a good thing. I don't agree with him on his support of the war, but I can disagree with someone and still enjoy their writing. It just amuses me how quick the left, filled with it's self righteous pussies, turned on him.

Hitchens got on the list due to his support of the Iraq war?
Sounds like there's a bit of mind reading going on here.

Might just be that somebody disagreed with him, or it could be some of those self-righteous pussies on the right that tend to flip out over the mention of atheism.

ITT: Judging books by their covers/titles.

Funny list. I got a good chuckle from vagina monologues and the sisterhood of the travelling pants.

I think this is a great list and not typical. Goodreads has many lists. This is a unique one.

I've already added three or so books to my reading list. :)

At least you're using it constructively Jenn. I came here because I was a bit flummoxed that people would parade their pride in their ignorance so proudly. I think I may have gotten a few titles here to...

Alexis reads important books like the "Art of Faery."

Actually Alexis, there are many what you would call "liberal" books on here, including those by Franken and Obama. Although Franken is a liberal, Obama is considered to be a little right of center by most progressives. Keep reading your Faery books!!!

John wrote: "How you put Hitchens on a list with coulter and o'reilly amuses me. Hitchens, who is a liberal, really pissed off the lefties with his support of the war in iraq. He did so not because of he suppor..."

Actually, Hitchens is not a liberal. Do your homework morons!!!

Jeremy...I don't want to start a "thing" but President Obama had one of the most leftwing or in the popular parlance "liberal" (and that's always been a misuse of the word) voting records in congress. There was a move to say he would govern as a moderate, but I doubt anyone would think he's "right of center". His announced goals include redistribution of wealth and he's pushed through (so far) complete government health care.

Okay I'll probably start a fire storm and that's not my intent but the statement is just misleading. He's basically campaigned and governed out of Cloward & Piven and Alinsky.

Not true, Nixon was more liberal than Obama. Where do you get your statistics?

Here are a few examples of Obama's effective conservatism:


His stimulus bill was half the size that his advisers thought necessary;
He continued Bush’s war and national security policies without change and even retained Bush’s defense secretary;
He put forward a health plan almost identical to those that had been supported by Republicans such as Mitt Romney in the recent past, pointedly rejecting the single-payer option favored by liberals;
He caved to conservative demands that the Bush tax cuts be extended without getting any quid pro quo whatsoever;
And in the past few weeks he has supported deficit reductions that go far beyond those offered by Republicans.

Are you saying Bush's TARP program is liberal? Bush is a liberal?

Yes Romeny put a state health plan in place...that doesn't make the act conservative...it's still what it is.

Bale outs? again a mistake...but when President Obama took office the national debt was between 5 and 6 trillion dollars. Now it's 16 trillion dollars. He spent more than all preceding presidents combined.

His recent words about deficit reduction are campign rhetoric. He said when he was running and first elected he'd cut the deficit in half the first year. Right.

There hasn't been a budget passed by congress in 4 years. That's flatly unconstitutional. They simply continue doing patches.

He caved to the tax cuts? Those weren't cuts. It was just not raising the taxes back to where they had been before.

Continued the war(s)? He simply took little action other then to reduce troop numbers and have no goals. He promised his base to end the war(s) but simply acted as a place holder.

Look, you like the president, that's cool. It's a free country, please vote the way you want. I'm simply saying that to call President Obama right of center is way off.

I did not see that you blame Alinsky and Piven. Obviously a Glenn Beck viewer...dumb.

Here is more to chew on:

Taxes
While Obama has argued for the need to increase taxes, he has only done so by targeting upper income levels (either in terms of increased the top marginal rate to the pre-Bush levels, or via a millionaire surtax in the latest go ’round over the payroll tax holiday and unemployment benefits)—hardly radical suggestions. All of that, by the way, has been rhetoric to date. The reality has been tax cuts: he signed into law the extension of the Bush era income tax rates and he pushed for, and saw passed, the payroll tax “holiday.”

Social Issues
It is true that Obama is pro-choice (although the degree to which this has been of any serious policy relevance of late is questionable at best), so that marginally puts him in the Democratic/”liberal” camp (although plenty of moderate Republicans are pro-choice as well). Further, he is pro-gay marriage (although, again, this is a matter that is shifting in many Republican circles as well). I expect that “don’t ask, don’t tell” would not have been aggressively repealed by a Republican president, but again, even that issue is one of salience these days only to portions of the hard right.

I will allow that Obama is more likely to appoint members of the judiciary that are more liberal on these issues but again, the degree to which they substantially different from those a moderate Republican might appoint is questionable.

Civil Rights
While Obama did end certain torture techniques, his record in this area is hardly all that different from the Bush administration. Guantanamo is still open, Americans on foreign soil are considered legitimate targets for assassination without trial, and now, with the signing of the NDAA, American citizens arrested in the US can face either indefinite detention or military tribunals. All of this is “liberal” how?

Conclusions
Understanding that words like “conservative,” “moderate,” and “liberal” can shift in meaning over time, I would still submit that it is quite difficult, from an empirical and dispassionate point of view, to call Barack Obama anything other than a moderate (and one whose policies would have been welcome, in large measure, within the Republican Party in the 1990s, if not more recently than that).

One can call President Obama “extremely liberal” or even a “”socialist” but the facts run counter to such claims (unless, of course one wishes to utterly redefine the words...

Okay, you posted this before I even answered you and you've already descended to name calling. It's obvious that continuing is pointless as you aren't interested in conversation.

Cool. By the way, not angry just not into pointless typing. Your mind is already made up and inconvenient facts can apparently be ignored. As I said, cool.

I guess we'll have to agree to disagree.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DmXjxg...

PS-YOU ARE A FUCKING MORON D AND D MIKE!!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3tLTUT...

I can understand why there are books by Coulter, Beck, O'reilly et al and I can understand why there are books by their liberal counterparts.

I can also understand why there are books that are seen, rightly or wrongly as dry, turgid or verbose - all those long nineteenth century novels e.g. War and Peace

And I can understand why there are books that have certain qualities that to some readers are like nails-down-a-blackboard - for me this is the Lord Of The Rings/Dungeons and dragons type fantasy.

I can also understand why badly written books appear here. But I can't for the life of me understand why 1984 is on the list!

As for why it is right-wing polemics top this chart - well I would have thought that was obvious. Reading requires and develops qualities which are rarer in conservatives than they are in liberals e.g. empathy, receptivity.

It is also hard while in possession of a reasonable intelligence to read much about the world today or indeed in the past and retain a world view as patently deceitful as the Coulter's of this world. (And before I'm upbraided it's not a question of liberal bias. There is a world of difference between legitimate right-wing argument and Limbaugh lies.)

Reading requires a quiet and contemplative frame of mind - you can't read while angry. Coulter, Limbaugh et al require their readers to be angry because if you're angry you're not thinking. No-one of any intelligence takes them seriously.

Of course there are people like that on the left (Michael Moore) but no where near as many. Most liberals seem to hesitate in saying this because they don't want to seem partial.

In a way it's a pity that this list and the ensuing debate is so dominated by politics. The more interesting discussion is surely what makes a good book?

As for how "sad" it is that some people would rather die than read a book they may disagree with - I think you (Mike) are being overly literal. This is just an OTT title for what should have been a light-hearted conversation about pet literary peeves.

I usually don't say anything here as the entire idea of listing books you WON'T read is laughable and shows a closed mind from the start but please Tyler. You're prejudices are showing.

I agree its odd to list books you WONT read but it's clearly just a roundabout way of discussing pet peeves and what constitutes good and bad literature.

It doesn't surprise me that I'm accused of political bias. My only point is that anyone who listens to Glenn Beck, Ann Coulter or Rush Limbaugh and sees reasonable, fair people putting forward cogent and well reasoned arguments clearly lacks the critical capacity necessary to read widely.

Again...assumption and prejudice. Of course it's your opinion and that's a key point. You're still free to hold the opinion and express it, something conservatives stand firm on.

"in your face" or "over the top humor" does not equal unreasonable. Refusing to consider an opposing view does.

What you dismiss as 'prejudice' is merely good judgement. It is the same judgement that leads me to disregard or at the very least take with a large pinch pf salt the opinions of people like George Galloway or Michael Moore.

I think that the likes of Fox news and talk radio have so degenerated the quality of political debate and have so denigrated the very idea of fair or impartial journalism in America that many appear unable to tell the difference between fact and opinion and between opinion and propaganda. So now instead of the verifiable facts and people taking whichever interpretation they see fit we have merely 'left' and 'right' or different kinds of political prejudice. Which in any case is grossly reductive. The world and all its people in all their flaws, nuances and complexities cannot be easily deposited into two neat categories.

As for that snide and stupid comment about 'conservatives standing firm on free speach' what utter rot. There are countless examples of prevarication, backsliding and cowardice on the right as there are on the left.

When the Salman Rushdie affair happened there were prominent people on the American right who leapt to the Ayatollahs defence. Pat Buchanan declared at the time that it was "a blasphemous assault on the faith of hundreds of millions'. President George H.W. Bush's only comment on the fatwa was that Iran would be held responsible 'should any action be taken against American interests'. Implying in the words of the great Francis Wheen (a man who is on the left but perfectly capable of separating the wheat from the bullshit on either side) "that America no longer had any general interest in defending freedom of expression."

As far as I am aware there was no Tory minister in Britain at the time who condemned the fatwa.

Of those who defended him the most strident were left/liberal - Christopher Hitchens in particular.

These are just a few examples and I'm sure there are many more. And just to re-iterate there are those on the left who go wobbly on freedom of speech especially when it comes to Muslim-western relations.

So the idea that conservatives "stand firm" on freedom of expression is manifestly and demonstrably untrue.

But that's probably just me being "prejudiced"!

I get why people of one political or religious ideology may not want to read the political and religious books listed. I understand that some people have a loathing for some of the currently fashionable series. But what do you people have against E.T.? (#85) I'm sure it's not the greatest book ever, will probably not change anyone's life, but would rather die than read it? Really?

And what about poor poor Snooki?