Now, seriously, saw the 300 movie yesterday. The story of the 300 Spartans at Thermopylae (and their underappreciated Greek allies) is certainly one of history’s more inspiring tales. I personally like the story as told by the historical novel Gates of Fire.

I had hoped for a movie like Gladiator or Troy, a semi-historical account of a historical event. But it ended up far different – like a historical Moulon Rouge in some parts, like the Xerxes circus scene. It would have been much cooler from my end if it had been more like Gladiator.

Still, it’s a cool story, with a great lead character in King Leonidas. Not sure why the whole queen/council storyline was necessary; didn’t add much to the story.

Today Andrew and I went to see Breach. Very good. Classic spy thriller. No sex, no violence, just good old fashioned suspense. The true story of America’s most significant spy case.

Later this week we are going to see Amazing Grace, and we’re getting Batman Begins and Ocean’s 12 (to prepare ourselves for Ocean’s 13) on DVD to watch at night (we only see matinees at the theaters; we’re college kids!).

So in the spirit of Christmas cash to spend, let me present the 25 books I think you should read. (Let me note that these are 25 books worth reading, different than the 25 books you need to read to be an intellectually grounded conservative. Blackwell and D’Souza have already admirably completed that project and I would merely quibble. I think my list and theirs only overlaps once – Goldwater’s Conscience of a Conservative) (The five books that I’ve starred, top in each catergory, receive my highest commendation).

NOVELS

**Jeffrey Archer’s First Among Equals: Tracks the rise of four men through Parliament, from back-benchers to rivals for Prime Minister of Britain. A classic.

Steven Pressfield’s Gates of Fire. The tale of the 300 Spartans at Thermopylae and their heroic stand in the face of swarms of Persians. A great tale of battle and manhood.

HISTORY

**George H.W. Bush’s All the Best. A collection of letters and diary entries from the life of the 41st President. I have a tremendous respect for President Bush – read the book not just for his politics, but to learn how to be a man – to raise a family, to love a wife, to be a life-long friend.

Thomas Paine’s The Essential Writings of Thomas Paine. From the chief propograndist of the American Revolution comes soaring rhetoric and solid analysis. (I should note for the record that I disagree vehemently with Paine’s stand on religion and many of his other later writings. I really just like Common Sense and The Crisis particularly).

John F. Kennedy’s Profiles in Courage. Say what you will about ghostwriters and such, the text is an excellent collection of truly inspiring stories of great Americans.

Peggy Noonan’s When Character Was King. We could fight for hours over which biography of Reagan is best. I like this one. There’s a principle here – speechwriters often make the best authors of books after an administration leaves office.

William Safire’s Lend Me Your Ears. A collection of the best speeches in history, from one of the most accomplished speechwriters, columnists, and authors in recent history.

Ralph Reed’s Active Faith. Besides being the executive director of the Christian Coalition and a top political consultant, Reed is also the holder of a Ph.D. in American History from Emory University. The main of this book recounts the role of Christians in American public life.

Lee Edwards’ The Conservative Revolution. It’s the story of the four Misters – Mr. Republican Robert Taft, Mr. Conservative Barry Goldwater, Mr. President Ronald Reagan, and Mr. Speaker Newt Gingrich – as only Edwards could tell it. Sympathetic, absolutely, but wonderful none the less (or perhaps all the more).

POLITICS

**James C. Humes’ Confessions of a White House Ghostwriter. Perhaps my favorite book of all time. Humes was a speechwriter for Eisenhower, Nixon, Ford, Reagan, and Bush, and this book is his memoirs of those days, as well as his various adventures as a state legislator and lawyer.

Henrick Smith’s The Power Game. A classic text, appropriate for a college class on American Government, explaining how laws are made with great examples. Rather than a nerdy, academic treatment, Smith takes us in the corridors of power to illustrate the principles he lists.

Chris Matthews’ Hardballand American. Though not a fan of his TV show, I really enjoy these two books by the MSNBC anchor. Hardball is a collection of anecdotes and wisdom about Matthews’ time in politics, while American looks at various aspects of the nation’s collective identity.

Gary Hart’s The Patriot. Taking a page from Machiavelli’s The Prince, the former Democratic Senator turned intellectual and statesman calls for a new politics of unity (that reminds me a lot of Barak Obama). While sometimes you can hear Hart being defensive of his own career, it’s still a great book with lots of life truths.

Balz and Brownstein’s Storming the Gates. The story of the 1994 Republican Revolution, as told by the Washington Post and Los Angeles Times reporters who covered it. A journalistic telling of how it happened.

PJ O’Rourke’s Parliament of Whores. A libertarian manifesto from the Right’s best political humorist. Though it shows its age a little, you will laugh a ton and the principles underlying the jokes are right on.

Richard A. Vigurie’s The New Right: We’re Ready to Lead. Though slightly dated, it is a very good history of conservative philosophy and action in the last half-century.

LEADERSHIP

**John C. Maxwell’s 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership. Never have I seen the principles of leadership so soundly boiled down to common sense, real life laws. I like it because I can see the laws at work in the world as I read the news or watch people.

David Gergen’s Eyewitness to Power. An aide to Nixon, Ford, Reagan and Clinton, he is one of the nation’s most prolific pundits. This book contains the various principles of leadership Gergen observed in modern presidents.

Ronald C. White’s The Eloquent President. A wonderful analysis of Abraham Lincoln’s rhetoric throughout his career.

PHILOSOPHY/THEOLOGY

**Josiah Bunting’s An Education for Our Time. In writing a work about what philosophy young people should learn, the former VMI superintendent imparts his own philosophy as well.

George Will’s Statecraft as Soulcraft. From the Washington Post columnist, a call for an inspiring politics that is distinctly conservative, and more than capitalist.

Chuck Colson’s Kingdoms in Conflict. A wonderful work that is, I think, the authoritative exposition of (what I believe to be right) Evangelical (I would even daresay Protestant) views on the relationship between the Church and the State, and Christian Citizens and Temporal Government. A classic.

Cicero’s The Good Life. A collection of essays by the ancient Roman Republican statesman, this book provides wonderful insights on topics ranging from rhetoric to friendship. (For a great biography of Cicero, read Anthony Everitt’s)

Barry Goldwater’s The Conscience of a Conservative. What can be added to all that is already said?

William F. Buckley’s Nearer My God. An assortment of essays on various topics religious, Roman Catholic, and spiritual, this book gives a conservative account of modern Catholic controversies, but also an endearing story of personal faith.

PEOPLE WHO SHOULD BE ON THIS LIST: I have a huge list of books to read, and some of them are classics I really ought to read to so I can add them to my must-read list. These include CS Lewis (Abolition of Man) and Richard John Neuhaus (The Naked Public Square).

So, there you have it. I expect this to be a dynamic list, updated constantly. I encourage you to read the list, read the books on the list, send me suggestions (info@gop3.com) for books I should add to the list, etc.

The book reads as if there were talking points within each chapter on a variety of myths he’s bought into as a newscaster and then the facts he’s learned as he dug deeper. Much of the book starts out with “For years as a newscaster I believed (this), but looking at it deeper I found (this),” for various topics including how there is no cancer epidemic, organic foods are no better than regular ones, DDT is good, and lawyers are the worst people ever.

Stossel sticks to his guns about a few topics that have been met with controversy. I get the idea that Stossel really hates lawyers and judges (lawyers in robes). He writes at length on how they are the stupidest bottom feeding creatures ever, suing people on a whim, and making millions while hurting more people than they claim to help. I tend to agree with him, but his hate runs much deeper.

Stossel goes on the offensive on public schools for quite a few pages. He compares schools to cell phones. With different providers, you have different rates, plans, phones, with the government, you have one plan, and one phone, and it’s terrible. Though he does credit for Milwaukee for their use of various charter/voucher programs, it’s obvious that Stossel outright wants schools to be privatized (Not such a bad idea).

A second idea he proposes, from his libertarian view point, is stopping government imposed morals, because of its effect on free market economics. He advocates the selling of body parts, if someone is willing to pay for them. If the doctors, the transporters, and nurses all get paid why shouldn’t the person giving up the organ?

All in all it’s a good read especially for someone (like me) interested in what goes on in news and the media, how you are being lied to, and are interested in Stossel’s findings, I suggest it as a last minute gift idea.

Bringing Justice to the People is a volume edited by Edwards. It is “the Story of the freedom-based public interest law movement.” Eight chapters by eight different authors track different issue areas – school choice, religious freedom, free speech, etc – and the work done by conservative litigation groups in each. The chapters are written by the heads of those litigation groups, which makes the book terribly self-congradulatory in tone. Moreover, the book fails to include certain important groups/issues, like Judicial Watch and term limits. It’s a quick read, only about two hours (215 pages), but only if you’re really interested in the topic.

In Defense of the Religious Right is just that. A slim volume (238 pages) from political consultant Patrick Hynes, it serves two purposes: one is to document the demographic voting power of the Religous Right, which is the book’s unique contribution to the field, and the second is to document elite culture and secular America’s attacks on the Religious Right, a field well covered by a host of other volumes. It is also a two hour read, but it’s worth it… Also watch for the moments when Hynes dispells some well-accepted myths, about the election of 1994 or the demographic composition of the Religious Right. For junkies only. Also check out Hynes’ blog, AnkleBitingPundits.

Next off the shelf: What Would the Founders Do?, Building a Healthy Culture, and the Claremont Review of Books.

I’ve always had a minor man-crush on former Vice President Dan Quayle. I know, I know, many of you likely have a rather jaded and preconcieved notion of Dan Quayle that finds him an odd target for a man crush.

You must remember first that I was just four years old when Dan Quayle was elected Vice President of the United States. My image of him is entirely based on what I’ve read by and about him. And my regard for him draws heavily from a biographical and policy affinity with the man.

He’s from the Midwest. He received his undergraduate and law degrees from a regionally respected but hardly Ivy League institutions. He’s an attorney who was not afraid to challenge his profession. He clearly loves politics, and got started in it as a very young man. Like Wisconsin’s own Paul Ryan, he was elected to Congress before age 30. He has the world’s best haircut.

Plus, Quayle is a solid conservative. During his short 2000 Presidential primary contention, Quayle laid out a comprehensive conservative agenda in his book Worth Fighting For. He continues to stay active in policy debates through the Defense Policy Board and Hudson Institute.

My Quayle fandom began after reading his 1994 autobiography Standing Firm. It is, as autobiographies are, his side of the story and not his detractors, but that’s to be expected.

So this weekend I’m browsing a Half Price Books in Madison and came across Bob Woodward and David Broder’s book The Man Who Would be President. It was not written as a book but rather as a series of twelve newspaper articles about Quayle for the Washington Post. They cover his early career on Capitol Hill, his relationship with President Bush 41 and his wife, Marilyn. (The Post’s editors decided to write the series after a health scare with President Bush. How the tables have turned – now it’s the Vice President having health scares now and President Bush is a health machine!).

The book’s main contribution, when contrasted with Quayle’s autobiography, is its frankness regarding his stumbles (often using quotes from wife Marilyn) and, more importantly, the vital role that Quayle played advancing the Administration’s agenda on Capitol Hill.

Quayle, a former congressman and senator, often attended meetings of the Senate and House Republican conferences and the conservative and moderate caucuses within each House. He often made calls lobbying for the President’s agenda and provided an independent whip count estimate.

It’s an easy read, two hours tops. If you’re a Quayle fan, it is required reading. If not, then read it if you’re interested in the vice presidency in modern times. Of course, the Bush 41/Quayle/Gore model of the Vice Presidency (waiting in the wings for the term limits to hit and taking a lead role in specific policy initiatives) is quite different from the example set by Vice President Dick Cheney, who is ubiqituous to say the least.

Quayle has largely receded from public view since his abortive 2000 run. Apparently his main job is managing a large international investment fund. This is, of course, in stark contrast to Mr. Global Warming Algore. He’s only 60 – perhaps its part of another reimaging strategy…