Small Government Book Fan Club discussion
Welcome and Questions
Marsha, Thanks for the invite. I am trying to catch up after years of raising a large family and working 2 jobs for many years. I'm interested in history and politics. all different kinds. Like many different authors. Looking for ward to discussions.
Hello everyone - I am a lifelong conservative, retired government employee, and now a free-lance writer. I have written two novels that would likely appeal to conservatives and like-minded folks, but it's probably easier to win the lottery than to find a willing publisher or literary agent (especially if your work has a "right-wing" bent). Anyway, I decided to go the self-publishing route and the two books are available as ebooks - you can peruse them on my website, www.alexdrinkwater.com. Also, I write articles (many of them political in nature) on http://alexdrinkh2o.hubpages.com/. The novels are:
"The Ghosts of Hanoi" - the story of an investigation into a plot concerning the fate of the POW/MIAs in Vietnam and one man's quest to get to the bottom of it.
"Duly Constituted Authority" - the Joint Chiefs of Staff take on a radical president more concerned with political correctness and social engineering than combat effectiveness.
Both of these are available on www.Amazon.com for the kindle and www.smashwords.com for other formats. Just search on the title or my name, Alex Drinkwater, Jr.
Thanks!
By the way, I LOVE "The Weapon Shops of Isher" (mentioned above).
Mod
Hello. I'm Dustin Hill, and I'm pleased to be a new member of this group. I'm a fan of both political fiction and nonfiction, with a particular emphasis on economic matters. I'm currently reading Robert Samuleson's The Great Inflation, and have on my to-read-list Currency Wars. I believe manipulation of financial markets and national economies are the new weapons of mass destruction. In my day job, I'm a political and business reporter for a U.S.-based news organization. I'm also a published author. My new book is The Chinese Banker, a piece of political fiction about a Chinese plot to ravage the U.S. economy. But I promise I won't use this group to try to sell my book. As my publisher can tell you, marketing isn't my strong suit. (Though I will post something about the book in the group's section for new books because I guess that's how you market yourself these days.)
I'm still finding my way around Goodreads, and looking for friends. I add almost any new friend, so if you are interested please send me a friend request.
Thanks,
Dustin
Hi Dustin! Nice to meet you. Goodreads is a terrific place. I'm still figuring out new ways it can enrich both my reading and online social life. Have fun!
Masha wrote: "Please use this thread to introduce yourself, name your favorite authors, and share with us what keeps you reading. Also, here you can ask any questions or make suggestions about this group."Hi! I'm Diane, and am interested in fiction which positively represents capitalism and small government. Of course, I read all kinds of things, but my fave authors are Gene Wolfe, Madeline L'Engle, C. S. Lewis, Tolkien, and in libertarian terms, Rand, F. Paul Wilson, J. Neil Schulman, Heinlein, Poul Anderson, and the Liaden novels of Steven Lee and Sharon Miller, a great SF space-opera writing team. I also love Dean Koontz.
Willard wrote: "Another author finally occurred to me-Kay Nolte Smith. It might be cheating a little to count her, because she didn't deal explicitly with government very much. But she definitely dealt with indivi..."I love Kay Nolte Smith!
Mod
Hi Diane, you've covered a lot of bases there...nothing jumps to mind, but those are good, LOL.Welcome. I look forward to seeing what you've read that I've missed. :)
Hi! I'm Beth I mostly like historical fiction and history( especially WWII). Some of my favorite authors are Ayn Rand, J.R.R Tolkien, Mark Twain, and Tricia Goyer! I also really like the Huger Games, it actually reminds me a little of "Anthem" by Ayn Rand! :)
Hi Beth, welcome.You mention you like WWII histories, I do to. I went through a period a few years ago where it was about all i read. Have you read Delivered from Evil: The Saga of World War II? It's one of my favorite single volume history covering the events of the world interspersed with "mini-biographies" of some of the prominent people.
Masha wrote: "Welcome to the group Diane! If you just joined, I wanted to let you know about our upcoming group read of Ayn Rand's Anthem. Also, check out our bookshelf and "book suggestions" threads; I'm sure y..."I appreciate the suggestions. I have *Anthem* on hand, so I'll start it soon. Thanks also for the book suggestion lists.
Mike (the Paladin) wrote: "Hi Diane, you've covered a lot of bases there...nothing jumps to mind, but those are good, LOL.Welcome. I look forward to seeing what you've read that I've missed. :)"
Start with *Alongside Night* and *The Rainbow Cadenza* by J. Neil Schulman. I think you'll all be pleasantly surprised.
I consider myself a 21st Century Libertarian, recognizing the world has changed and we need more government than in the past but not nearly as much as we have. I've put my ideas in a book, Stop the Insanity Target 2014, which is on Amazon and can be downloaded for free on Dec 15th. Please take a look. The link is: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00AC51L2EAlso you can learn more about my book and my ideas on my webpage at www.stoptheinsanitytarget2014.com
I'd love to hear what you think.
David
Mod
Also I hope you will join us in the current group read of Anthem. I know Ayn Rand was sort of at war with libertarians, but in the end she should get credit for inspiring so many people in the movement.
Hello there. I am new to this group, but was very glad to find out it exists. Used to be Republican in my late teens / early twenties, although some of the core ideas didn't sit right with me. When I started listening to FEE.org podcasts on my drive to work, I realized that I was always libertarian. Realizing that Republicans are as much a Big Gov party as the Dems sealed the deal.
Mod
Hi, Masha! Somehow I've got two GoodReads accounts (I think FB was "nice" enough to create one for me when I did something there - grr) so I'm now doubly joined. This is the account I'll be using, however.There are some really exciting things going on with Liberty Island Media (mentioned last year when it was a startup) that will make it much, much easier for folks here to find good conservative/libertarian fiction. They are looking at becoming a curator of these books and stories as well as a producer of them. To that end, they're looking for reviewers (double-posted reviews are fine) and content providers, especially folks with already-published novels in this vein who are interested in creating a free LI author page to promote their work.
I've been - retained? Hired? something - as a senior editor, primarily in charge of finding and developing new writers. (They have other guys looking at media like music, video, and graphic novels.) Any help would be deeply appreciated. As soon as I figure out how to do it with this sudden new identity, I'll start a thread on this.
Meanwhile, I'm going to mine the excellent information y'all have compiled here so far. I would like to find a way to give back, if you've any suggestions. While you do accomplish more when you don't worry about who gets credit, I prefer to give credit to those who deserve it, and this forum certainly does.
Mod
Howdy all. I am an author but I have taken a different approach. I create children's stories that teach economic/socio-economic principles. My first book is 'The Fisherman's Catch : A Conservative Bedtime Story' and centers around a fisherman that discovers a new way to catch fish. But once he becomes successful the village chief decides it is not fair for one person to have so much while others have so much less.Honestly it is a story that teaches close to 20 economic principles and us also fun for children to read. I published it almost 3 years ago now and have sold quite a few copies. Please check it out. Let me know what you think lol.
Mod
Welcome to the group!
Saying hello. Been a member but have not posted in the forum. Just wanting to connect with conservatives who are writing books.
Welcome! Tell us a bit about who you read / like.
Diane wrote: "Welcome! Tell us a bit about who you read / like."Historical fiction (Steven Pressfield et al), fantasy fiction (David Gemmell, Terry Goodkind et al), political (Jonah Goldberg recently) and books about the art of story telling (Larry Brooks, Robert Mckee, James Scott Bell).
I am a Reagan conservative. I'm looking to connect with conservatives who want to change the world via the arts such as writing, movies, music, blogging ...but focus mainly on the culture, not strictly politics.
Currently I'm writing a fantasy fiction saga. Six books are planned. My goal is to self publish the first one this year.
Hi Allen - You came to one of the right places. I belong to a couple different internet groups of just such people. I myself have one published novel and one in the works. Here's my website: http://kiaheavey.com/If you want to tell me your email address, I'm happy to send you a copy of Night Machines.
Also visit these sites where people are working to promote and establish a conservative counter-culture:
http://ConservativeFiction.com/
http://www.libertyislandmag.com/
Do you have a website so I can check out your work?
Kia
Mod
Please visit our Self Promo thread to tell us more about your writing and post your links. Looking forward to your contributions to this group.
Kia wrote: "Hi Allen - You came to one of the right places. I belong to a couple different internet groups of just such people. I myself have one published novel and one in the works. Here's my website: http:/..."Thanks for the reply. Here are two examples of my style. Both are action scenes. Both are segments of an unpublished saga. One was read in my writing group, a short "5 page" excerpt.
http://aspeakinghuman.wordpress.com/2...
Here's another. A longer scene...
http://aspeakinghuman.wordpress.com/2...
I will check out those sites. Thanks for the info.
Glad to see there is a growing group of small government advocates. My favorite writers that have influenced me in my thinking about government include P.J. O'Rourke, Arthur C. Brooks, Laurence J. Kotlikoff, David M. Walker, Robert Samuelson, Jonah Goldberg, Amity Shlaes and Michael Medved. For history, there are no better writers than William Manchester and David McCullough, but Nathaniel Philbrick is also quite good.
For a good laugh,Patrick McManus has few peers.
If you share similar book tastes, I welcome you to send me a Goodreads Friend request. I like to see what people with similar interests are reading.
Some in this group may think that Ayn Rand is the Queen of small government. I strongly disagree, so much so I wrote a book about it- Atlas Shrugged and Jesus Wept. I'll add my link to the self promo thread soon.
Don Milne
http://fiddlingant.blogspot.com/
Howdy, new to this group, joined goodreads a few years ago but kind of forgot about it til recently. Am a daily Beck listener, member of my local Tea party, Constitutional conservative with libertarian leanings. Small business owner and farmer, homeschooling parent of 3; which means my free time (what little there is of it) is spent reading or cleaning or canning food. (i'm female, btw)
Avidly read just about everything, but particularly like medical/science/nature although it has all been corrupted by junk science and the progressive machine.
just a warning, I tend not to use capitals, write incomplete sentences and then/than incorrectly. I apologize if this bothers you in advance.
I think we'll survive, welcome. :)
Mod
Masha wrote: "Welcome Truff! Happy to have you here, even though you just made me feel completely inadequate. (I'm happy if there's enough frozen mac'n'cheese in my freezer to feed the kids LOL)."LOl! thanks
frozen mac and cheez is good!
Like Masha said... Wish I knew how to be as self-sufficient as your family. Welcome and looking forward to your contributions.
First learn to kill things, skin them, cut them up and cook them...go from there.
I'm not bad with the fish, not as good with the land-based critters.
...fish work, but you get tired of them.
Hi,I'm Tom Schroder, and new to Goodreads as well as this group. During my working life, I was one of the few conservative political science professors left in this country. It was a lonely place to be, and now that I am retired, I breathe easier. No longer is there a need to comment on the oftentimes distressing news of the day.
I am a voracious reader and am happy to have found this group. I enjoy reading history, fiction, philosophy, and political satire.
I am also the author of a novel, The Citadel, and will be posting on the self-promo page. I am looking into the procedure for a book giveaway and would like to offer it to this group. The book is political satire and intended to be a more modern and relevant 1984 and Brave New World.
Happy to be here!
Tom
Ah, an introduction thread. I guess I already 'came out' on the book recommendations thread, but better late than never.I've been an active reader my entire life. My earliest memory is of my mother reading a book to me, although I can't remember which one it was. (I do remember the color of the bedspread, oddly enough.)
My favorite fictional genres are SF and fantasy, although I do take occasional spins through historical fiction and thrillers when the mood strikes. I also like a good swashbuckler now and then -- I really liked Sabatini's _Scaramouche_, for example. My non-fiction reading is usually in philosophy, economics, psychology and history.
I've been an Objectivist since I first encountered Ayn Rand back in 1987, although it took me well over a decade to really understand and internalize her ideas. Heinlein joined the mix a couple of years later.
Professionally I'm a software engineer. For the last year and a half I've been working for the Amazon subsidiary that makes the Kindle. I take great pleasure in the tremendous opportunities the e-book revolution has made possible for pro-freedom writers whose careers were formerly choked off by the left's Gramscian take-over of the traditional publishing industry.
This may be a bit off-topic since it's focused on non-fiction, but I'm also a regular participant in an online book discussion group that reads and chews on books by Objectivist intellectuals. We've got literally years of weekly episodes recorded and available for free download, covering books like _The Ominous Parallels_, _Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand_, _The DIM Hypothesis_, _Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology_, _Ayn Rand's Normative Ethics: The Virtuous Egoist_, _Understanding Objectivism_ and _Explaining Postmodernism_. We've also taken a whack at the non-Objectivist but interesting _Tea Party Patriots: The Second American Revolution_ and a variety of shorter essays by Rand and others. I suspect our next book will be the national bestselling _Free Market Revolution: How Ayn Rand's Ideas Can End Big Government_.
If interested, the seminar's home page is at http://www.objectivismseminar.com.
Mod
We do concentrate on fiction here because it seems there is a much bigger market for conservative/libertarian non-fiction, but fiction writers still have very hard time finding any support. Of course, when it comes to Rand's work, her fiction and non-fiction are intertwined, so it's good to discuss both at the same time. I find myself always telling people to read her essays/interviews to clarify some points she simply did not have space to elaborate on in her fiction (Atlas Shrugged is humongous, but it's still only one book LOL).
After 25 years as an Ayn Rand fan I doubt the Amazon haters can come up with anything I haven't heard before. :-) The e-book revolution is broader than Kindle, or Amazon. I love competition -- it forces me to up my game._Atlas Shrugged_ is huge, but I'm still amazed at how many people (even on the right) manage to miss so much of what it contains. It really isn't about politics except in a derivative sense.
Did anyone see/hear Melissa Harris-Perry' MSNBC quote today?? She actually uses the word "Collective".http://newsbusters.org/blogs/ken-shep...
Mod
Small Government Book Fan Club
Books mentioned in this topic
How I Found Freedom in an Unfree World: A Handbook for Personal Liberty (other topics)Atlas Shrugged (other topics)
White Girl Bleed a Lot: The Return of Race Riots to America (other topics)
White Girl Bleed a Lot: The Return of Race Riots to America (other topics)
Delivered from Evil: The Saga of World War Two (other topics)
More...
Authors mentioned in this topic
Colin Flaherty (other topics)Colin Flaherty (other topics)
Michael E. Newton (other topics)
I believe that's the case in some European countries. Camille Paglia wrote a column some years ago proposing just that and at the time I thought it was a great idea. Now I see it won't work because the activists will never give up until they own the language in full. That requires changing the definition of marriage, not just getting rights.