BOOK REVIEW: While it's aimed at policy wonks instead of the normal reading public, "We Are Better Than This: How Government Should Spend Our Money" (ISBN: 9780199332243) by Edward D. Kleinbard contains much that could help the USA live up to our repeated claims of being the greatest nation in the world.

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REVIEW: It may sound like baby-talk but Dada was a controversial art movement that flared up during World War I and insisted on taking unconventionality to new heights. "Destruction Was My Beatrice: Dada and the Unmaking of the Twentieth Century" (ISBN: 9780465089963) by Jed Rasula presents a behind-the-scenes look at the lives of Dadaists as they attempted to forever alter art and literature.

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REVIEW: Chuckles, chortles, grins, guffaws and belly laughs. You'll find all that and more in 'The Lost Continent: Travels in Small-Town America' (ISBN: 9780060920081), a wonderfully observant and politically incorrect book from Bill Bryson.

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REVIEW: Before fleeing in horror from a book about numbers and mathematics, take a moment to consider the humor of Charles Wheelan's “Naked Statistics: Stripping the Dread from the Data” (ISBN: 978-0-393-34777-7). Odds are you'll enjoy it. Well, at least sixty or seventy percent of it.

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ADSP Chapter 24: The blues will never die. Here's one reason: Audiences have a visceral response to the music, even if it's done merely adequately. And when it's done well, the audience reaction can be amazing. Either way, when somebody is playin' da blooze it means that guys will be drinking and girls will be dancing. In other words, a good time will be had by all.

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ARTICLE: "That's a hit song!" The speaker was Wendie Colter, complimenting fellow artist Fran Lucci on one of her warm numbers. This was just before Colter delivered one of several potential hit songs of her own. And it was near the middle of a set featuring nicely textured work by Denise (lead singer from the indie band Jacar), as well as several crowd-rousing numbers from the supremely strong-voiced Mara.

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REVIEW: Zephyr Teachout believes that venality has been on the minds and in the bloodstream of politicians since the founding of the nation. In "Corruption in America: From Benjamin Franklin's Snuff Box to Citizens United" (ISBN: 9780674050402) she makes the case and provides some possible resolutions to the problem.

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REVIEW: Barton Swaim has done what every writer secretly longs to do: publish the unvarnished reality about his jerk employer. Too short to be called a tell-all, 'The Speechwriter: A Brief Education in Politics' (ISBN: 9781476769929) is an interesting portrait of a stupid and disgusting Republican politician (as if there's any other kind).

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REVIEW: Making things go 'boom' is just one result of the incredible journey of the scientists working with Ernest O. Lawrence. His besmirch and destruction lairs -- oops, I mean research and development facilities -- shaped our modern age. Michael Hiltzik takes you up close and personal with the people of “Big Science” (ISBN: 9781451675757) who put us on the road to dealing with the dreaded military-industrial complex.

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ARTICLE: Okay, who's making this incredible racket? Oh wait, it's Rakit, a three-piece group that never saw a volume-boosting device it didn't like. The music they create is dark, mysterious, pounding, tortuous, arduous, twisted, hazardous, risky, treacherous, freaky, and full of danger. In other words, it's great fun.

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REVIEW: With two million copies sold, Howard Zinn's 'A People's History of the United States' (ISBN: 9780060838652) is possibly the most successful history book in, well, history. It is also riveting, sobering, and valuable. While decent Americans admire it, RWNJs loathe it.

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