I've been collecting these book notes as I go along, and they've been piling up faster than expected. Last time I published them, I speculated that I'd have more come September. I think what I'll do from here on out is to post them whenever I get up to 40. In that case, I should have done this a week or two ago. Again, the previous ones from various posts have been collected here.

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Paul Alexander: Machiavelli's Shadow: The Rise and Fall of Karl Rove (2008, Rodale Books): One advantage this book has over all other Rove books -- for some reason I haven't been collecting them in these notes -- is that it gives us a taste of fall. Still has a good ways to go -- preferably to jail.

Rick Bass: Why I Came West: A Memoir (2008, Houghton Mifflin): I read one of his first books, a novel called Oil Notes that read more like a memoir. He has a long list of short books since then. Always meant to read more.

Walter Benjamin: The Arcades Project (paperback, 2002, Belknap Press): A Marxist literary critic of great depth and sweep, this somehow assembles his unfinished, perhaps unfinishable, great project. Back when I was devoted to critical theory I was aware of this, but not as something that actually exists -- an analogy might be the Beach Boys' Smile. Haven't read Benjamin or any other Frankfurt School eminence in 30 years, but regard him as an old, dear friend.

Graydon Carter: What We've Lost: How the Bush Administration Has Curtailed Our Freedoms, Mortgaged Our Economy, Ravaged Our Environment, and Damaged Our Standing in the World (2004, Farrar Straus and Giroux): Vanity Fair editor. Seems like a fair and balanced summary.

Rodney Clapp: Johnny Cash and the Great American Contradiction: Christianity and the Battle for the Soul of a Nation (paperback, 2008, Westminster): Short book from a writer who specializes in religion -- an interesting past title is: A Peculiar People: The Church as Culture in a Post-Christian Society.

Tyler Cowen: Discover Your Inner Economist: Use Incentives to Fall in Love, Survive Your Next Meeting, and Motivate Your Dentist (paperback, 2008, Plume): I looked Cowen up after seeing Paul Krugman dis him. Easy to see why. His previous books include In Praise of Commercial Culture and Creative Destruction: How Globalization Is Changing the World's Cultures. Even the subtitle of this reductio ad absurdum economicum gives me the shivers: I don't want my dentist motivated; I want him to act like a conscientious professional, not a cash register.

Andres Duany/Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk/Jeff Speck: Suburban Nation: The Rise of Sprawl and the Decline of the American Dream (2000; paperback, 2001, North Point Press): The authors are urban designers, evidently Jane Jacobs fans, upset at what they see in most American suburbs. Just running across a bunch of books on suburbia: James Howard Kunstler: The Geography of Nowhere: The Rise and Decline of America's Man-Made Landscape, and Home From Nowhere: Remaking Our Everyday World for the 21st Century; Dolores Hayden: Building Suburbia: Green Fields and Urban Growth, 1820-2000, and A Field Guide to Sprawl; Robert Bruegmann: Sprawl: A Compact History; Joel S Hirschhorn: Sprawl Kills: How Blandburbs Steal Your Time, Health and Money; Robert Burchell et al.: Sprawl Costs: Economic Impacts of Unchecked Development; Anthony Flint: This Land: The Battle Over Sprawl and the Future of America; Robert Fishman: Bourgeois Utopias: The Rise and Fall of Suburbia; Kenneth T Jackson: Crabgrass Frontier: The Suburbanization of the United States; Becky Nicolaides/Andrew Wiese, eds: The Sururb Reader; Joel Garreau: Edge City: Life on the New Frontier; Jane Holtz Kay: Asphalt Nation: How the Automobile Took Over America and How We Can Take It Back; Alex Marshall: How Cities Work: Suburbs, Sprawl, and the Roads Not Taken. And that doesn't begin to scratch the literature of suburban anomie.

Barbara Ehrenreich: This Land Is Their Land: Reports From a Divided Nation (2008, Metropolitan Books): Looks like a short collection of columns from the last few years. Brilliant, I'm sure; I can't think of a deeper or more fearless thinker on the left. Only big mistake she ever made was wasting The Worst Years of Our Lives on the 1980s, not realizing that even worse could still be in the cards.

Tom Engelhardt, ed: The World According to TomDispatch: America in the New Age of Empire (paperback, 2008, Verso): 320 pages scraped from one of the best-written, best-edited web sources, consistently ahead of the learning curve on the numerous interlocking threads of the great war of our times (GWOT?).

Marc Gerstein/Michael Ellsberg: Flirting With Disaster: Why Accidents Are Rarely Accidental (2008, Union Square Press): Examples include Chernobyl and Katrina, Vioxx, the Iraq War, Arthur Andersen/Enron, the 1994 Mexican peso crisis, a half dozen more. Gerstein's a management consultant. Ellsberg's an editor who helped his father publish the Pentagon Papers -- the father adds an introduction nominating Vietnam for the list. I'm on record as saying that how we handle disasters will be the most important political issue of the next few decades -- anticipating and preventing disasters looks like too tall an order, but understanding them when they happen is essential. This looks like a good place to start.

Peter Gosselin: High Wire: The Precarious Financial Lives of American Families (2008, Basic Books): Los Angeles Times reporter tells stories about how the "great risk shift" (Jacob Hacker's term, the title of a good book) has affected dozens of ordinary families. Everyone rates the reporting here as superb, but evidently it doesn't go much into causes -- more interesting to me, since I have no trouble envisioning the problem.

Michael Heller: The Gridlock Economy: How Too Much Ownership Wrecks Markets, Stops Innovation, and Costs Lives (2008, Basic Books): Well, one way there's too much ownership is in the way we parcel out legal monopolies known as patents. That's one of Heller's examples, but it looks like he'd like to see more use of eminent domain -- e.g., he complains about the inability to build 25 new runways that would eliminate most air travel delays. You always have conflicts between private ownership and public utilities, and lately we've leaned so far toward the private side that the public has suffered.

Maggie Jackson: Distracted: The Erosion of Attention and the Coming Dark Age (2008, Prometheus): There's a growing perception that people are getting dumber, and there are a lot of theories as to why -- some of which can be taken as proof that people are getting dumber. I imagine that a case can be made for distraction (as PW puts it: "our near-religious allegiance to a constant state of motion and addiction to multitasking"). Jackson previously wrote: What's Happening to Home? Balancing Work, Life, and Refuge in the Information Age.

Antonia Juhasz: The Bu$h Agenda: Invading the World, One Economy at a Time (paperback, 2007, Harper Perennial): Hadn't mentioned this before because it looked like a fairly standard anti-globalization rant -- maybe I was just reacting to the dollar sign, because it shouldn't be hard to make the case, and there are examples that could use some press: Iraq you probably know about, but what about Haiti? She has a new book coming out, another easy mark, even timelier: The Tyranny of Oil: The World's Most Powerful Industry -- and What We Must Do to Stop It.

Baruch Kimmerling: The Invention and Decline of Israeliness: State, Society, and the Military (2001; paperback, 2005, University of California Press): Argues that Israeli identity has broken down into seven major cultures, which fits in with Richard Ben Cramer's argument that post-2000 Israeli hawkishness has been fueled by the disunity of the Israeli polity -- the repression of the Palestinians is the only thing all those Israeli factions can agree on. Like Tom Segev's Elvis in Jerusalem, written at a point when the events of the last 8 years didn't seem inevitable.

Baruch Kimmerling: Clash of Identities: Explorations in Israeli and Palestinian Societies (2008, Columbia University Press): Looks like a collection assembled over 20 years, updating arguments from Kimmerling's earlier The Invention and Decline of Israeliness: State, Society, and the Military.

Mark LeVine: Heavy Metal Islam: Rock, Resistance, and the Struggle for the Soul of Islam (paperback, 2008, Three Rivers Press): Historian, rock guitarist, political activist, sometimes gets his careers confused, although few Middle East scholars are more insightful, or interesting.

Michael Lind: The Next American Nation: The New Nationalism and the Fourth American Revolution (1995; paperback, 1996, Free Press): I only know Lind from his 2004 book, Made in Texas: George W Bush and the Southern Takeover of American Politics -- as sharp as any book published on Bush around that time. I gather he started as a rabid anti-communist conservative, then started to distance himself from conservatism in the 1990s. This book seems to be transitional, his embrace of liberal nationalism itself a conservative impulse.

Michael Lind: Up From Conservatism: Why the Right Is Wrong for America (1996; paperback, 1997, Free Press): Offhand, this one looks prescient. The target is big enough, but at the time it hadn't really sunk in how extreme the Gingrich upheaval was, let alone where it might go once someone like Bush got into the White House. Ariana Huffington's Right Is Wrong had it easy.

Michael Lind: Vietnam: The Necessary War: A Reinterpretation of America's Most Disastrous Military Conflict (1999; paperback, 2002, Free Press): Lind argues that it was necessary for the US to intervene in Vietnam -- something about global communist conspiracy -- but that the tactics chosen were all wrong, leading to the disaster. I believe that the Cold War itself was wrong, and Vietnam was just a particularly egregious case of why. Lind may have moved up from his conservatism; he still needs to grow out of liberal interventionism.

Michael Lind: The American Way of Strategy: US Foreign Policy and the American Way of Life (2006, Oxford University Press): Bad as Lind was on the Cold War, he was one of the first to identify the perils the neoconservatives posed in its aftermath. Argues that US policy abroad shouldn't undermine the American way of life at home. Seems obvious, but I can show you 60 years of presidents who didn't get it. (Doubt that Lind agrees on the whole list, but GW Bush is certainly one he has in mind.)

Tom Mast: Over a Barrel: A Simple Guide to the Oil Shortage (2005, Hayden): Short (128 page) primer, probably too basic at this point, unless you're not up on the subject.

Jane Mayer: The Dark Side: The Inside Story of How the War on Terror Turned Into a War on American Ideals (2008, Doubleday): Another book on the chic torture clique in and near the White House. I recoil a bit at the contrast to "American ideals" given the shoddy record self-appointed Real Americans have established. This has gotten some press -- Mayer writes for New Yorker, and this promises to be one of the more definitive books on the subject. She previously wrote Strange Justice: The Selling of Clarence Thomas.

Nan Mooney: (Not) Keeping Up With Our Parents: The Decline of the Professional Middle Class (2008, Beacon Press): Probably the most normal thing in the world, at least if you're American, is to think that each generation makes progress moving up the proverbial Dream ladder. Still, I know a lot of people who are old enough to take retirement seriously but are still dependent on their parents for support -- especially true with middle class professionals, who did well for themselves before many conspired to kick the ladders out that might have allowed other people to advance.

Paul Muolo/Mathew Padilla: Chain of Blame: How Wall Street Caused the Mortgage and Credit Crisis (2008, Wiley): Two journalists track down the chain of responsibility for the subprime mortgage meltdown. Looks like the leader in the race to cash in, already joined by: Edward M Gramlich: Subprime Mortgages: America's Latest Boom and Bust; Robert J Shiller: The Subprime Solution: How Today's Global Financial Crisis Happened, and What to Do About It; Mark Zandi: Financial Shock: A 360° Look at the Subprime Mortgage Implosion, and How to Avoid the Next Financial Crisis; Richard Bitner: Confessions of a Subprime Lender: An Insider's Tale of Greed, Fraud, and Ignorance. I don't think Dean Baker has a book out yet, but he's been on top of the crisis from before anyone else knew it was happening.

Kenneth Pollack: A Path Out of the Desert: A Grand Strategy for America in the Middle East (2008, Random House): As an Iraq War hawk, Pollack did much to get us into the mess he now feels so eminently qualified to get us out of. Favors a humbler, more humane, more realistic, and more cohesive set of policies. Evidently he gets paid for such profound insights.

Jules Pretty: The Earth Only Endures: On Reconnecting With Nature and Our Place in It (2007, Earthscan): Author is an expert in sustainable agriculture, which he has written several books on. Collection of essays, ranges wider.

Dani Rodrik: One Economics, Many Recipes: Globalization, Institutions, and Economic Growth (2007, Princeton University Press): Argues that there is no one single formula for development success, but all recipes that have worked are rooted in economics fundamentals, which themselves imply no single development path. Puts him in a good position to pick on everyone else's pet theory. Previously wrote: Has Globalization Gone Too Far?; The New Global Economy and Developing Countries: Making Openness Work; In Search of Prosperity: Analytic Narratives on Economic Growth.

Fernando Romero/LAR: Hyperborder: The Contemporary US-Mexico Border and Its Future (paperback, 2007, Princeton Architectural Press): Robert D Kaplan described the US-Mexico border as the starkest dividing line on the planet. This provides pictures, diagrams, details covering all aspects of cross-border interaction. Author is an architect, based in Mexico City.

Jacqueline Rose: The Question of Zion (paperback, 2007, Princeton University Press): Another in the growing list of histories and critiques of the Zionist idea. Rose has several other recent books, including The Last Resistance (on Israel) and Sexuality in the Field of Vision, both published by Verso.

Robert Scheer: Playing President: My Close Ecounters with Nixon, Carter, Bush I, Reagan, and Clinton -- and How They Did Not Prepare Me for George W Bush (paperback, 2006, Akashic Books): Scheer starts his new The Pornography of Power off with a story about Nixon that concedes that even the Madman Theorist had a clue about toning down a confrontation. The thesis here seems to be that the second Bush is flat out off the scales, and that thesis seems well-founded.

Raja Shehadeh: Palestinian Walks: Forays Into a Vanishing Landscape (paperback, 2008, Scribner): Ostensibly a travel book, a series of hikes through the occupied landscape of the Jordan's west bank. Shehadeh's memoir, Strangers in the House: Coming of Age in Occupied Palestine, is one of the few books on the subject that can really turn heads. Also wrote When the Birds Stopped Singing: Life in Ramallah Under Siege.

Rob Simpson: What We Could Have Done With the Money: 50 Ways to Spend the Trillion Dollars We've Spent on Iraq (paperback, 2008, Hyperion): Short book throws some alternatives out, ranging from the silly ("pave every highway in America with gold leaf") to serious. The underlying principle is what economists call opportunity costs: when we spend money on one thing, we forego other possible uses for that money, some of which would have turned out to be much better.

Lewis Sorley: A Better War: The Unexamined Victories and Final Tragedy of America's Last Years in Vietnam (1999; paperback, 2007, Harvest Books): Tries to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat in Vietnam, touting the modest successes of Gen. Creighton Abrams and how they were undermined by the loss of political will in Washington. This is the fount of the argument that the antiwar movement (not the warmakers themselves) lost us the war -- although it should be noted that that argument was already an article of faith on the right, no matter what happened in Vietnam.

Cass R Sunstein: Radicals in Robes: Why Extreme Right-Wing Courts Are Wrong for America (2005, Basic Books): Prolific writer, both on law and economics; strikes me as a centrist, but smart enough to tear through nonsense on the right, which makes this potentially useful. More recently wrote Worst-Case Scenarios, Republic.com 2.0, and co-wrote Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness.

Cass R Sunstein: The Second Bill of Rights: FDR's Unfinished Revolution -- And Why We Need It More Than Ever (2004; paperback, 2006, Basic Books): I've been thinking lately about how quickly the US dropped two of Roosevelt's "four freedoms" and what the implications of that shuffle have been. Parts of Roosevelt's thinking did slip into the early construction of the postwar institutions, particularly the UN. A move to back them up instead of curtailing them to fight communism and restore imperialism would have profoundly changed postwar history.

John R Talbott: Obamanomics: How Bottom-Up Economic Prosperity Will Replace Trickle-Down Economics (paperback, 2008, Seven Stories Press): Former investment banker, writing for a lefty publisher, not sure how that all adds up, but Obama's take on business issues and choice of economics advisers is somewhat idiosyncratic. Talbott has a couple of previous books, like The Coming Crisis in the Housing Market: 10 Things You Can Do Now to Protect Your Most Valuable Investment, and Sell Now! The End of the Housing Bubble. Those books came out in 2003 and 2006 respectively, so you have to give him some credit there.

Jeffrey Toobin: The Nine: Inside the Secret World of the Supreme Court (2007, Doubleday): New Yorker writer, probably a good narrative portrait of the court and all its warts, including Roberts and Alito.

Philip C Winslow: Victory for Us Is to See You Suffer: In the West Bank with the Palestinians and the Israelis (2007, Beacon Press): Most reviews see this as an intensely personal account. Seems to me that he's found an essential, deeply troubling, truth.

David S Wyman: The Abandonment of the Jews: America and the Holocaust, 1941-1945 (paperback, 2007, New Press): Looks at what the Roosevelt administration actually knew about Hitler's "final solution" and what little the US did about it. Several other books on this general topic: Robert Beir: Roosevelt and the Holocaust; Arthur D Morse: While Six Million Died: A Chronicle of American Apathy; Robert N Rosen: Saving the Jews: Franklin D Roosevelt and the Holocaust; Henry L Feingold: Bearing Witness: How America and Its Jews Responded to the Holocaust; also, William D Rubinstein: The Myth of Rescue: Why the Democracies Could Not Have Saved More Jews From the Nazis.