Thomas Jefferson said, “man cannot live without books.” Here at American Maggie, we think that goes for women too. So in this two-part series we’d like to present our annual Christmas list: the top six recently released books and publications to give and to get this holiday. Happy reading, and Merry Christmas.
Going Rogue: An American Life, Sarah Palin
$28.00, 432 pages
Sarah Palin is a figure about whom much is said and little is known. Depending on the weather and which newspaper you read, she is a folk hero, an Orwellian enigma, or a female Dan Quayle. This identity jumble is not really Palin’s fault, unless you can blame her for having good genes; a pretty woman with political power is more than our judicious, socially progressive media can handle. Thus, the lack of good reporting, or any reporting, on many aspects of her career makes Going Rogue an essential addition to the news cycle; it is the only comprehensive examination of her life, and one of the few organized defenses of her decisions. And like everything else about Palin, it is impossible to ignore.
Going Rogue has, much like Palin’s politics, also defied sound criticism. It is neither an annoying whine (“complainer in chief” per the New York Times, apparently confused over which maverick candidate was author), nor is it an “American treasure” as hailed by the Free Republic. Call it, rather, found history. Of its 432 pages, roughly one-half concern the 2008 campaign, leaving a solid 200 pages of the book to stories of Palin’s childhood, marriage, family, and early political career (including such singular vignettes as Palin campaigning door-to-door while pulling her young children behind her on a sled). The folksy writing style is also uniquely Sarah, a fact about which the media has, unfairly, made great sport. Only imagine the outcry if Going Rogue had been written with the false gravitas of Bill Clinton’s My Life. Her love of country, family, the Last Frontier State – and good eating – stands out on every page.
Palin is also an unrelenting cheerleader for conservative ideals. From her perspective, every personal and political challenge, from media criticism to Anwar drilling must be addressed through the triumvirate of hard work, determination, and trusting people to make their own decisions. But of these three, it is determination that carries her the farthest. Early in her story, Palin describes a high school basketball game where she played through a painful injury to win the championship: “that victory changed my life. More than anything else to that point, it proved… that hard work and passion matter most of all.” Her summary is an almost gleeful account of her suffering – “my right ankle is [still] a knobby and misshapen thing, a daily reminder of pushing through pain” – and perhaps best summarizes her indomitable campaign trail spirit. She survived in part because she was strong, but also because for her pain and victory are two sides of the same coin. Peggy Noonan once wrote that “all defeat is a collaboration.” It seems safe to say that Sarah Palin won’t be cooperating anytime soon.
The Encounter Broadsides Series, various authors.
$5.99, 48 pages each
The Broadsides series, conceived by Encounter Books as a modern Federalist Papers or Common Sense, is essentially a conservative tutorial, a prep card for political debate. With the motto “The Best Defense is a Good Broadside” the goal is to educate conservatives and send them into arguments well armed. I recommend this series with some hesitation, not for its content, but for its violent potential when opened under a multi-political Christmas tree. Resist the urge to slip a copy into the sweater box of your Obama-voting second cousin (whose frothing mouth and blazing eyes will no doubt extinguish some of the fun at Christmas dinner), and instead bequeath it to the fence sitters and conservative stalwarts of the family. Or arm yourself. Choose your issue, study the broadside, and sail through the choppy waters of liberal rhetoric and skewed statistics, leaving opponents in your well-informed wake.
Issues include How Barack Obama is Bankrupting the U.S. Economy, How the Obama Administration Threatens to Undermine our Elections, and Obama’s Betrayal of Israel. Available at Encounter Books (www.encounterbooks.com/broadsides/).
The New Criterion
$48.00, one year subscription. $38.00, online only.
“Quite simply the best cultural review in the world.”
- John O’Sullivan
What do the artist Jean-Antoine Watteau, statesman Henry Kissinger, and poet Karl Kirchwey have in common? All are featured in a single issue of The New Criterion. Founded through the peculiar partnership of an art critic and a pianist, this conservative polemic on everything from foreign policy to poetry embodies the best of criticism, free both from the deconstructionism of liberal thought and the more trivial clichés of popular culture.
Cultural dominance has proved elusive and short-lived for conservatives in recent decades; many right-of-center supporters have been guilty of exempting themselves from the world of art and high culture altogether. The New Criterion is therefore a necessary – and rather lonely – counterpoint to the muddled, muddy criticism seeping down into the weed-choked moat of the Ivory Tower. It is also a central repository of gifted modern writers, from Joseph Epstein to William F. Buckley to Christopher Ricks. As the editors describe it, creating their excellent publication means “engaging with those forces dedicated to traducing genuine cultural and intellectual achievement, whether through obfuscation, politicization, or a commitment to nihilistic absurdity.” In other words, The New Criterion is making its stand against intellectual vacuity and bureaucratic lingo; the opportunities to do so, it would seem, are endless.
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Skyla Freeman (skylafreeman.com) is a former writer for President George W. Bush. She blogs about style and culture at Sanity Fair online (sfair.blogspot.com).
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This is terrific. Thank you!