Tag Archives: recommended reading

Must-read review: Texas Got It Right

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Everyone should read this book.

Yeah, everyone, Texan or not.

It’s no secret Texas is on the right economic track. We created more jobs here than all the other states combined in the past ten years. It’s pretty inexpensive to live here, and businesses are free to take risks, invest, and grow. Texas Got It Right by Sam and Andrew Wyly is an in-depth look at why the Lone Star State is beating all the others.

Chock full of charmingly Texan anecdotes as well as history and hard data, Texas Got It Right explores nearly every aspect of Texas’ economy and spirit, from agriculture and energy to technology and taxes. There are tons of infographics explaining how and why Texas’ policies are working, fleshed out by success stories of companies like Whataburger, Dell, Whole Foods, and Neiman Marcus that started and still thrive in Texas, as well as profiles of important public figures from the days of the Republic to now. Light on text but heavy on impact, these 160-odd pages explain the “Texas miracle” with remarkable clarity.

And while this book might sound like campaign fodder for the Texas powers-that-be, it’s fundamentally nonpolitical. The father-and-son Wyly duo show how good choices on the individual level and responsible public policy have made Texas an outstanding place to live. And boy, is it ever.

Grab yourself a copy of Texas Got It Right.  It’s definitely one you’ll want to keep on your shelf.

Review: Dispatches from Bitter America

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…it’s not surprising then that they get bitter, and they cling to guns, or religion, or antipathy toward people who aren’t like them, or anti-immigrant sentiment, or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.
-Barack Obama, 2008

If you pick any new book to read this year, it should be Todd Starnes’ Dispatches from Bitter America: A Gun Toting, Chicken Eating Son of a Baptist’s Culture War Stories.

This book is filled with a refreshing collection of stories about the havoc liberals are wreaking on American culture – especially Christianity, conservatism, and the family. Some chapters are delightfully satirical – one even features the Chick-fil-A cow as a guest star. Some are interviews with key conservative figures like Mike Huckabee and Sean Hannity. Others are sobering and even painful to read. But read them we must, or else get lost in the mire of culture wars.

Starnes proves he’s not some high muckity-muck commentator or DC insider with no clue what’s really going on in this country. Todd is, well, just an average Joe like the rest of us – and that’s a good thing. We need more people like Starnes in the media who are in touch with the American people. It’s so refreshing to see the kind of patriotism and concern I feel reflected in Dispatches. Starnes’ uniquely compelling, down-to-earth commentary on social issues is a must-read for conservatives.

Unfortunately, Starnes’ book tour didn’t include a stop in Austin, so I don’t have a nifty picture with him to share – but I do have a picture of me with Dispatches. Which is just about as cool, because this is one darn good book. And I’m proud to be one of those “bitter” Americans.

Follow Todd Starnes on Twitter and like his Facebook page - oh, and buy the book!

Recommended reading: Dismantling America

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Thomas Sowell is unarguably one of the foremost conservative voices for political and economic issues of our time, particularly when it comes to one theme: the left’s systematic and widespread dismantling of the principles upon which this nation was founded. Hence Dismantling America.

A compilation of his syndicated columns, Dismantling America is a fairly quick read, insightful but not too intellectually heavy. For pieces that ran individually, the columns come together remarkably well under the same theme. Sowell challenges liberal interpretations of the Constitution, the Obama administration’s policies, and the “facts” we’ve come to accept as the truth. This is definitely a must-read and a great book to have on your shelf for when you need an eloquent turn of phrase to back up your arguments.

Some favorite quotes/sections:

Much is being made of the fact that Sonia Sotomayor had to struggle to rise in the world. But stop and think. If you were going to have open heart surgery, would you want to be operated on by a surgeon who was chosen because he had to struggle to get where he is or by the best surgeon you could find – even if he was born with a silver spoon in his mouth and had every advantage that money and social position could offer?
“‘Empathy’ vs. Law”

Innumerable sources have quoted a statistic that half of all marriages end in divorce – another conclusion based on creative manipulation of words, rather than on hard facts. The fact that there may be half as many divorces in a given year as there are marriages in that year does not mean that half of all marriages end in divorce.
“Married to an Ideology”

Nothing so epitomizes President Obama’s own contempt for American values and traditions like trying to ram two bills through Congress in his first year – each bill more than a thousand pages long – too fast for either of them to be read, much less discussed. That he succeeded only the first time says that some people are starting to wake up. Whether enough people will wake up in time to keep America from being dismantled, piece by piece, is another question – and the biggest question for this generation.
“Dismantling America”

Recommended reading

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A few weeks ago as I was passing through my library, the word “Constitution” caught my eye. This is what I discovered:

Now, I’m not a fan of graphic novels. I don’t read manga – ever – and I don’t think Maus should have been assigned in my 9th grade English class. But this book was really, really interesting.

The creators, Jonathan Hennessey and Aaron McConnell, do a remarkable job of summing up the exquisitely complex Constitution using only comic book panels. In just under 150 pages they describe the historical context, controversies, and major court cases surrounding each provision of the Constitution. And they do it without favoring one side or another: with each amendment or article in question, they describe its current and past interpretations, then list different groups’ objections in a refreshingly nonpartisan manner.

While I was initially a little disappointed that this book didn’t include the actual text of the Constitution, it’s thorough enough that I don’t mind. Hopefully this book will attract younger readers – who, God knows, probably haven’t read the Constitution – and encourage them to get interested in American history and politics.

Amazon has some viewable pages.