Ten Novels Every American Should Read to Understand the Culture Part 1

We all have our favorite books that we think everyone should read, both novels and non-fiction. I could probably name a hundred that I think need to be on your Don't Miss This! list.  Why? Because they help us understand what's going on in the world and how to respond to it. I'll start with only ten of my favorite books in a two-part post. Every one is worth reading more than once and reflected upon. Each has prophetic elements that strike the tocsin, the warning bell. We would do well to pay attention! 

The Dark Side of the Moon

The Dark Side of the Moon, by Anonymous is a book about the terrible events that occurred when Russia took over Poland and exported to slave labor camps all those people who had ever had anything to do with national Polish loyalty.  It is maybe one of the saddest books I've ever read.  

General Sikorski Monument

Polish general and beloved hero, Wladyslaw Sikorski collected these accounts with the desire to preserve them and share them with the world which needed to know what went on so far away it might as well have been the other side of the moon, shut off from world press and beyond anyone's imagination.  The general died in a mysterious plane crash the soviet pilot managed somehow to survive.  His widow later published  the information he had collected, but did not take any credit, leaving the authorship unknown.  

Obama's Health Czar Favors Rationing

Among the reasons America's health care is so expensive are advances in treatments in the last twenty to thirty years that offer a better quality of life as people age and a greater probability of cure. Consider the difference that knee and hip replacements have made in pain-free mobility for the elderly. Dialysis offers those waiting for kidney transplants a longer window of opportunity. In-utero surgery saves babies who wouldn't have survived the pregnancy twenty years ago. Advances in cancer treatment have made the word less terrifying as more and more Americans beat the disease.

Ezekiel Emanuel would like to see health care rationed and one can presume that his views are shared by the man who appointed him as an advisor. And yet, do you think he would have recommended rationing for Ted Kennedy? He wants to eliminate options for those with dementia, how about an incurable brain cancer? Would he have urge Kennedy to forgo the aggressive treatment that enabled him to live 15 months beyond his diagnosis and call for palliative care only?

The elite always have two sets of rules: one for themselves and the rest for the unwashed masses. If you want to understand how it works, read George Orwell's Animal Farm. All animals are equal, but some are more equal than others.