Time for another book post!

Well, another class is nearing its end, which means I've got quite a few books to add to my "read this year" list. I'm gonna try to do these more frequently, so I don't end up with a ridiculously long list like last time, lol.

1. Prairie Tale: A Memoir, by Melissa Gilbert - This was kind of disappointing. See, when I was a kid, I wanted to be Laura Ingalls SO BAD OMG, so I thought it would be really cool to read about the real person behind the character and all the behind the scenes stuff. As it turns out, Little House is only a very small part of the book, and the rest deals with her celebrity life, abusive relationships, and addictions. And frankly, her life's pretty boring. I wasn't particularly looking for a sordid Hollywood tale, but if I was, there are much more sordid ones out there.

2. The Kommandant's Girl and The Diplomat's Wife, both by Pam Jenoff - This is the same author I recommended in my last post. She's an adjunct at the law school, so my mom knows her or something, and she's come to their book club. Apparently, there's a sequel to Almost Home coming out (or already out? I'm not sure) and she's working on a third in this series.

My mom liked these books better than Almost Home. I'm undecided. They're very different. Almost Home is modern, with intelligence/spy type intrigue, whereas this series is historical fiction starting in World War II. The Kommandant's Girl is about Emma, a Jewish girl disguised as a Gentile to avoid capture, working with the Polish resistance by getting close to a high-level Nazi official who's attracted to her.

3. The Diplomat's Wife centers around Marta, Emma's friend from the resistance, who has survived the war and fallen in love with the American soldier who rescued her from Dachau. She is devastated when his plane crashes on its way to England, and ends up marrying a British diplomat, only to find that her years with the Polish resistance may be useful with the Cold War beginning.

I found both books to be really interesting and engaging. They're well-written and really evoke a sense of history. The only thing that bothered me is that Emma and Marta's character arcs are very similar. I can't really be more specific without giving stuff away, but I did at times feel like, "Oh, are we doing this again?"

The rest of them are books for class, so proceed with caution. :)

4. Agendas, Alternatives, and Public Policies, by John Kingdon - Painfully boring. Don't bother.

5. Policy Paradox: The Art of Political Decision Making, by Deborah Stone - This one was actually really fascinating. It probably helps if you're a political dork and interested in stuff like this, but there's a whole section that talks about "stories," and framing political arguments using literary devices and techniques like narratives, synecdoches, metaphors, and ambiguity (or polysemy). It was a cool intersection of my two interests. It's also a really great book if you like to debate, because it basically deconstructs an argument into its components, which is helpful to think about in structuring your own thoughts.

6. Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations, by Clay Shirky - This is another one I'd recommend for fun reading outside of class (sometimes homework CAN be fun!). It's all about the digital networking age and how the internet has made it possible for people to come together in new and unorthodox ways. He talks about things like the creation of Wikipedia (and why it's a success), the use of Twitter and Flickr in political contexts (e.g. as a way to get information out of a country with restrictive reporting), and social networking. It also raises the issue of the millenial generation's tendency to "live out loud" - how we've always had computers and that makes us more comfortable putting our entire lives out there for everyone to see.

7. The Congressional Experience, by David Price - Also really boring. Don't bother.

8. The President's Agenda, by Paul Light - Ditto.

9. Bureaucracy, by James Q. Wilson - Okay, I found this interesting, but unlike the other two, this is probably ONLY interesting to policy wonks and holds zero appeal for normal people. It's an exploration of how bureaucracies work (and why, more often than not, they don't) but its basic thesis is that no two bureaucracies are alike, and so it's a very big-picture approach with some intriguing real-life examples. But be warned - it is LONG, so skimming is definitely advised.