Comment from Sasha
Time: February 28, 2008, 6:11 pm

Ok, I have to cheat because the “closest” book is a pile of about a dozen and a half. I took the top one though.

“‘Four hundred million people imbued with the spirit of independence and of national integrity are in the end invincible. There is no power which can master them or hold them in subjection. Warships and Gatling guns and dead students may mislead some but the forces which determine the action of empires and great nations lie deeper.’”

From “The Tragedy of American Diplomacy” by William Appleman Williams, New Edition quoting from a speech by Senator William F. Borah “attacking the proposal to clamp a lid on the revolutionary ferment in China after 1917.”

The next book in the pile is a cookbook.

Comment from Pat
Time: February 28, 2008, 7:23 pm

“Focus on the qualities you love about yourself and the law of attraction will show you more great things about you.

To make a relationship work, focus on what you appreciate about the other, person, and not your complaints. When you focus on the strengths, you will get more of them.”

This is from “The Secret” by Rhonda Byrne. It is part of a summary of the chapter entitled “The Secret to Relationships.”

Comment from aj
Time: February 28, 2008, 7:30 pm

It was filed in Hattiesburg at the federal courthouse, a good stone’s throw from the Forrest County Circuit Court building, where Dr. Leona Rocha and her jury had rendered its verdict barely two months earlier. Lawyers Sterling Bintz of Philadelphia and F. Clyde Hardin of Bowmore were on hand to do the filing, and also to chat with any reporters who’d responded to their prefiling press alert. Sadly, there were no television cameras, only a couple of green print reporters.
From “The Appeal” by John Ghrisham.
It’s about stacking a State Supreme Court in order to win an appeal for a verdict against a large chemical company that contaminated a county’s water supply and thus large cancer clustes emerged in that area. We do live in a frightening world.

Comment from The Mrs.
Time: February 28, 2008, 8:01 pm

“Not even to order flowers?”, he challenged.
With business so slow, Colette didn’t dare turn him down.
“Perhaps you should deal with Susannah.”

From Back on Blossom Street by Debbie Macomber - but I’m an intellectual lightweight when it comes to my reading material.

Comment from Groom Lake
Time: February 28, 2008, 8:14 pm

“Louie Prima was doing the same thing to Keely Smith while Dave Fairy and Lee “Hiddell” was watchin’…” Outtakes from Jim Garrison’s Diary by Tiny Saavedra

Comment from Groom Lake
Time: February 28, 2008, 8:15 pm

Hey, on second thought, I thought they put white powder in them balloons, not juice. Need to chop something with them Harvard Co-op cards… even in the bathroom in the student union at Wisconsin Stevens Point where they send all them “ferners.”

Comment from Max
Time: February 28, 2008, 8:20 pm

“I am His Highness’ servant,” Hansen said, thinking of what he’d told Walker and smiling inside at his own duplicity. But-he didn’t trust the squirrel/titmouse/crow, and he

From “Northworld” by David Drake, a famed military science fiction writer.

The next in the closest pile would be a whole bunch of Calvin & Hobbes.  I use them to teach my wife American English.

Comment from Josh Hammond
Time: February 29, 2008, 8:04 am

“Eager not to let his own work be overshadowed by an older generation of artists, he needed to find top-quality pigments. An artist was, of course, only as good as his paints. Some of the best and most famous pigments came from Venice, the first port of call for ships returning from the markets of the Orient with exotic materials like cinnabar and ultramarine.”

From “Michelangelo and the Pope’s Ceiling,” by Ross King, in preparation for a trip to Rome in May.

Comment from John McCreery
Time: February 29, 2008, 9:34 am

“I was half Gypsy, and since my Father died the half sometimes seemed in my Mother’s estimation to amount to three-quarters, or even seven-eighths. I knew she loved me deeply, but like any deep love there were times when it was a burden, and its demands cruel. To live with my Mother meant living according to her beliefs, which were in almost every way at odds with what I had learned elsewhere. It had been different when my Father was alive, because he could control her, not by shouting or domination–that was her way–but by the extraordinary force of his noble character.”

Robertson Davies, The Rebel Angels

Comment from I.B.Lever
Time: February 29, 2008, 9:45 am

But Spain was sorely missing the troops that had been knocked out of the plan months earlier. Had he retained all twenty companies of troops that he originally had in the war plan, he said later, “I could have guarded those MSRs [main supply routes]. I don’t think Jessica Lynch and the 507th Maintenance Company would have happened.
……..

Extracted from “Fiasco” by Thomas E. Ricks, a book citing the ineptness in leadership during the occupation of Iraq, that led to the insurgency and the mess we’re still in over there today.

Comment from I.B.Lever
Time: February 29, 2008, 9:54 am

Groom, three sentences, give us the next two - don’t leave us dangling in the wind.
My next move will be to go out on a limb and construct my own …..

Comment from timr
Time: February 29, 2008, 10:06 am

Popotakis had tried a cinema,a dance hall,baccarat, and miniature golf; now he had four ping pong tables. He had made good money,forthe smart set of Jacksonberg were always hard put to get through the rainy season;the polyglot professional class had made it their rendezvous;
From Eats,Shoots and Leaves. I never thought a book on punctuation could be funny.
MAX, next on my list is the new book by David Drake, When the Tide Rises. David Drake is an excellent SF writer, who takes books and tales from history and rearranges them into SF.

Comment from BobbyV
Time: March 1, 2008, 11:20 am

Christian Right organizations such as the Traditional values Coalition, whose founder, Paul Cameron, once called “Leper Colonies”, are lobbying to end all programs by the National Institutes of Health related to HIV infection. Members of the Christian Right, positioned inside government agencies, have worked to discredit or silence research by public health officials and censored data that conflict with the radical fundamentalist vision, especially regarding birth control.

Self-appointed Christian experts produce glossy studies to displace genuine research.

Chris Hedges, American Fascists