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In the opening pages of his forthcoming book, David Sirota is reeling on a bathroom floor in Las Vegas’ Riviera Hotel. The setting: the first YearlyKos Convention, an annual gathering of Internet-based activists, citizen journalists and progressive political operatives, collectively known as the Netroots. Drunk and “freshman-year-at-college sick,” Sirota, a political journalist and former aide to then-Rep. Bernie Sanders, is nonetheless raring to go.... Read more

Ah, China. Regrettable financier of U.S. debt. Mass producer of toxic cat food and lead-paint toys. Reviled by human-rights activists for its latest crackdown in Tibet. Criticized by athletes for failing to improve air quality prior to the Olympics.... Read more

Once, every suburban wife struggled alone with “the problem that has no name,” as Betty Friedan wrote in her pathbreaking 1963 book The Feminine Mystique. “As she made the beds, shopped for groceries, matched slipcover material, ate peanut butter sandwiches with her children, chauffeured them to Cub Scouts and Brownies, lay beside her husband at night — she was afraid to ask even of herself the silent question: ‘Is this all?’”... Read more

Doug Rose has logged more than a quarter-million miles on America’s highways, yet he’s never driven a car. The Brooklyn native has worked countless jobs in more than a dozen states, but he hasn’t had a permanent address since 1972. Rose has raised tens of thousands of dollars on behalf of orphaned children in Mexico, homeless people in Massachusetts and famine victims in Africa over the last 30 years. Yet the 56-year-old Vermonter has never had a bank account or credit card and, right now, probably has less than $500 to his name.... Read more

Bewigged and in breeches, stiff and stern — this is how we often picture our Founding Fathers. Politicians today, especially on the right, tap into this severe image of moral rectitude. They invoke America’s Christian heritage as a sacred touchstone, bequeathed to us by great men who cribbed from the Bible as they drafted the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.... Read more

No doubt about it: Americans love their pets. But rescuing a puppy gone missing halfway around the world takes a truly global effort. That’s one message of Cambridge resident Christine Sullivan’s self-published book 44 Days Out of Kandahar. The 214-page, professionally designed volume tells the true story of how Sullivan’s brother Mark Feffer, a Navy Reservist, befriended a skinny, reddish pup while serving on an Afghan army base in Kandahar. The soldiers who fed and played with the dog called her “Be-atch,” but Feffer renamed her Cinnamon.... Read more

In recognition of the Winter Reading issue, this week’s column is devoted to nine Vermont books that we’d not had a chance to read, or review, until now. But before we get to them, congratulations are in order to New Yorker and Seven Days cartoonist-illustrator Harry Bliss: Time magazine has named his book Diary of a Fly, with writer Doreen Cronin, one of the top 10 children’s picture books of the year.

Props to all the Vermonters who published books this year; just getting the words onto the page is a feat. We can relate.... Read more

Never mind those doohickeys that allow you to read a magazine while running on a treadmill — pages and perspiration have never been particularly good companions. Still, 2007 witnessed the publication of a mountain of books dedicated to getting buff, biking, brain-training, baking treats for hungry skiers, and more. For the outdoors-oriented and fitness- or sports-obsessed recipients on your giving list, here are a few of the most intriguing reads.

Backcountry Magazine
(http://www.backcountrymagazine.com
888-424-5857)... Read more

If you’ve read recent confessional memoirs by culinary luminaries such as Ruth Reichl and Gael Greene, you may be surprised by the staidness of Judith Jones’ contribution to the genre, The Tenth Muse: My Life in Food. Reichl describes adulterous love affairs, while Greene delves into her trysts with celebs such as Elvis and Clint Eastwood.... Read more

Central Vermont is way better known for “granola” than shellfish, but that is changing on account of a resident oyster expert who calls Calais home. Rowan Jacobsen, 39, is the landlocked author of A Geography of Oysters: The Connoisseur’s Guide to Oyster Eating in North America, which includes tips on shipping, beverage pairing and recipes. Since it was released in September, the comprehensive tome has been going down easy in the food world.... Read more