(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . Nonfiction Views: The dumpster of books, plus this week's new nonfiction [1] ['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.'] Date: 2023-11-14 Good evening, everyone. A little information about how the websites of indie bookstores like my Literate Lizard work, particularly the many who run on the American Booksellers Association’s IndieCommerce ecommerce platform. The book covers, the publisher description and the review quotes you see from any book you browse are pulled from the database of Ingram Book Distribution, the largest book distributor in the United States. In the original version of the ABA’s IndieCommerce simply pulled the descriptions over. But as you may know, this past summer I upgraded The Literate Lizard to the new IndieCommerce 2.0 platform, which allows you to do so many more creative ways to personalize the website. One fun new capability is the ability to edit the book descriptions pulled from Ingram. I’m in the process of creating a section on the website of “Books for the Trash Can: Horrible Books by Political Idiots, Conspiracy Theorists, Grifters and Seditionists.” I generally don’t believe in censorship or in refusing to sell books. I think there is only one book I withdrew from sale on the old site, and I can’t even remember what book it was. But this allows me to have the book available for sale, but also to add to the description and mock the book and its author. I’ve been considering doubling the list price of such books to discourage people from ordering them from me. The link to the page will be the photograph at the top of this diary, placed on the home page. I was hoping to have it live by the time of tonight’s diary, but alas, I’ve only managed to create the page, begin assembling the book list, and so far to only edit two books: Unwoke: How to Defeat Cultural Marxism in America, by Ted Cruz, and The Constitution of the United States and Other Patriotic Documents, by Gregg Jarrett of Fox News. On the page of Ted Cruz’s book, I even added a link to the campaign site of Colin Allred, who is running to unseat Cruz in 2024. Even though the page itself isn’t live, the link above is the actual URL, so you can visit the page as I work on it. And the two books already have the descriptions visible to anyone who happens to browse them. Here’s a screenshot of my addition to the Ted Cruz book description: The text says: WHAT THE LITERATE LIZARD THINKS ABOUT THIS BOOK Ted 'Cancun' Cruz thinks he's burnishing his political reputation by jumping on the anti-Woke bandwagon, but he's really just highlighting his cluelessness and ineffectiveness. The woke bandwagon has already past, with voters rolling their eyes at politicians spouting the nonsense Cruz bleats in this waste of paper and ink, and then voting against them. Why would anyone care what Ted Cruz thinks? He's the guy who blocked a bipartisan Senate resolution commemorating Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg after her death. The guy who was recorded making jokes about Biden the night before the funeral of Biden's son Beau. The guy who sucked up to Donald Trump after Trump on national television called his wife ugly and his father a Kennedy assassination co-conspirator. The man who tried to sneak off to a Cancun vacation when frigid temperatures broke the Texas power grid and left millions of his constituents without power. If that represents the behavior of idiots like Cruz who squawk about how terrible 'wokeness' is, I'll stay awake, thank you. Hey Ted, if you hate wokeness so much, why don't you just go back to bed, and leave the work of making the world a better place to those who care enough to actually do the work. CLICK HERE to support Colin Allred, the man running against Cruz in the 2024 Senate race. For the Jarrett book, here is the added text: WHAT THE LITERATE LIZARD THINKS ABOUT THIS BOOK Hey, we're all for reading the important documents of United States history, but we most decidedly do NOT want to read them interspersed by commentary from the likes of Gregg Jarrett. Jarret has called the Grand Jury system an "undemocratic farce." I guess he missed the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution, which establishes the Grand Jury system. Why does Jarrett think Grand Juries are undemocratic? Because sometimes they dare to indict for criminal behavior people he likes, which is about as undemocratic an attitude as you can get. He has called the FBI "America's secret police," again, because they dare to investigate criminal behavior by people he supports. He has claimed that there is nothing wrong with colluding with a foreign government in an election, while actual Constitutional and legal scholars have cited at least four laws which such behavior breaks. Seriously, if you want to read American documents, go to the source. Read The Federalist Papers. Read The Constitution and the Declaration of Independence. But don't read these sacred documents in a book by a man who spits on those documents with his every utterance. THIS WEEK’S NEW NONFICTION All book links in this diary are to my online bookstore The Literate Lizard. If you already have a favorite indie bookstore, please keep supporting them, but If you’re able to throw a little business my way, that would be truly appreciated. I would love to be considered ‘The Official Bookstore of Daily Kos.’ Use the coupon code DAILYKOS for 15% off your order, in gratitude for your support (an ever-changing smattering of new releases are already discounted 20% each week). I’m busily adding new content every day, and will have lots more dedicated subject pages and curated booklists as it grows. I want it to be full of book-lined rabbit holes to lose yourself in (and maybe throw some of those books into a shopping cart as well.) We also partner Libro.fm for audiobooks. Libro.fm is similar to Amazon’s Audible, with a la carte audiobooks, or a $14.99 monthly membership which includes the audiobook of your choice and 20% off subsequent purchases during the month. Note that the DAILYKOS coupon code is only for the bookstore, not for the audiobook affiliate. READERS & BOOK LOVERS SERIES SCHEDULE [END] --- [1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/11/14/2205250/-Nonfiction-Views-The-dumpster-of-books-plus-this-week-s-new-nonfiction?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=more_community&pm_medium=web Published and (C) by Daily Kos Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/