The best read since they invented the alphabet.
As we mentioned last night, Rachel’s new book "Drift" is number one on the New York Times print hardcover nonfiction list (who-hooo!) and the reviews have been equally encouraging. For instance:
"In her hard-hitting debut, popular MSNBC host Maddow examines how the country has lost control of its national-security policy...[Written with] humor and verve." -- Kirkus Reviews (starred)
So "Drift" is obviously a hit in the here and now but I can't help wonder how this book would have been received in other time periods. Like, maybe:
"A hit. A very palpable hit." -- William Shakespeare.
"So military overreach can hasten the decline of a mighty empire? I've never heard anything so preposterous." -- Julius Caesar
"Curs't of foulest deviltry and mischief. Repent thou, Massachusetts witch, and may thy sinful beliefs be caste into thee hazard!" -- Salem Gazette
"Miss Maddow's critics insist on branding her a socialist. I do not think that word means what they think it means." -- Karl Marx
"About 'Drift' -- listen up. All this stuff you've heard about America not wanting to fight, wanting to stay out of the war, is a lot of horse dung. Americans traditionally love to fight. All real Americans love the sting of battle. When you were kids, you all admired the champion marble shooter, the fastest runner, big league ball players, the toughest boxers. Americans love a winner and will not tolerate a loser. Americans play to win all the time. I wouldn't give a hoot in hell for a man who lost and laughed. That's why Americans have never lost, and will never lose a war... because the very thought of losing is hateful to Americans." -- Gen. George S. Patton
Now it's your turn -- write us some historical blurbs for "Drift" and we'll post the winners tomorrow. Enjoy!
Leave a Comment:
"I speak for a generation born in one war and destined to die in another," Kenneth Patchen
Nevermind.
--Rosanne Rosannedana
I think that was (Emily Latella) , but good one.
I think you're right. I got my Gilda Radner characters mixed up.
A must read for executives seeking to wage endless wars and subvert power from uncooperative Parliaments. I loved the Dick Cheney character: he's the real Gray Eminence!
-Cardinal Richelieu
Drift - "when the only other thing to fear is fear itself"...
-FDR
"Drift is Hell."
-William Tecumseh Sherman
Now
I've been crying lately,
thinking about the world as it is
Why must we go on hating,
why can't we live in bliss
Cause out on the edge of darkness,
there rides a peace train
Oh peace train take this country,
come take me home again...
-Yusuf Islam, aka Cat Stevens
"Drift reminds me of a movie I was in. " --Ronald Reagan
""Sometimes a prolonged war is just a prolonged war." --Sigmund Freud
"Made it ma, top of the bestseller list!" --James Cagney as Cody Jarrett, White Heat (1948)
"Rachel reminds us that war after war after endless war is hell."
-William Tecumseh Sherman
A few new reviews just in:
"There's three things I love about Maddow's "Drift" -- the book jacket, the type-face, and... wait, what was the third?" -Rick Perry
"You mean, it's not about snow?" -- George W Bush
"Aw, gee, what do you mean I have read it before I review it?" --Sarah Palin
Thank Rachel Maddow for dispelling the myth that pretty women cause wars.- Helen of Troy
Massa Kurtz? He dead now.
--- T.S. Elliot
Joseph Conrad. Mistah.
Though Eliot did say that immature poets imitate, mature poets steal. He stole it from Conrad.
Or as it carries on, "...bad poets deface what they take, and good poets make it into something better, or at least something different."
Though it still could be taken as a wholehearted endorsement of plagiarism.
Or of making up fake book blurbs.
here is little rachel's head, served up in countless ways of wisdom, her prose spectacular in it's clarity and convention - ee cummings
I read your book. It is a good book. It is a book that I would have had read to me by one of my friends, while I enjoyed the company of a daiquiri-wielding, sun-tanned Cuban hijita, had one of my friends been on my boat with us in Havana Harbor. It is a good book. I will tell my friends to buy your book. And, then I will catch some fish. - Ernest Hemingway
I have a really great one -- seriously, you'd all be amazed how good it is -- from David Foster Wallace, but I can't post it because it is 23 pages long and has 31 footnotes.
NOOOOOO!!!! I was formatting the footnotes on mine when you when you posted this...@#$%@#$%%^&
"Keep this Book of the Law always on your lips; meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do everything written in it. Then you will be prosperous and successful." Joshua
Examine carefully. Within these lines you will find what you seek: a primer for any would-be emperor. After all, the art of war is of vital importance to the State. - Sun Tzu
“The insane1 thing about this book, and the most beautiful and interesting and funny thing, w/r/t war, in specific and military power2 in general is that it’s a subject that has been covered for hundreds and possibly thousands of years by like the widest array of authors imaginable, and yet not once has the topic been covered in such an expert and…”
-David Foster Wallace
1 Ok, not literally, “insane” as in “requiring a 20mg Diazepam every 24 hrs”. but more in the “causing cognitive dissonance in the reader” kind of insane
2 U.S. and, to a lesser extent, Western military power, but that probably goes without saying.
Spot on!
Drift was written by a girl. Isn't that cute? Here's to you, little lady. Now get me a drink.
--Don Draper
Well mommy, there she goes again. -- R. Reagan
Miss Maddow reminds us that a nation at war is not a war torn nation. Gertrude Stein
Oliver Stone filmed a documentary a while ago called "South of the Border". In that film Mr. Stone interviewed various dictators. In one of the scenes President Bush was speaking with a Dictator Leader about his economy. Bush's reply to him was that the "real money is made in war". He said that to the dictator. An amazing comment but it is on film. It is a good film by the way and worth seeing.
A
"This exceptional young man with the effeminate given name has written a superb treatise on a subject that every American should be more conversant in. Although I hold firm to the conviction of my actions, folks still debate whether or not my own "declaration of war" against the secessionist South was technically legal. Your modern world, with its more complex global implications, is an environment in which nations may too easily consider war as a viable political policy. Mr. Maddow has brilliantly illustrated how the process of our engaging in military action has become divorced from the due process of our democratic system. I strongly opine that every learned citizen should consume this volume forthwith, and consider its implications most seriously.
--Abraham Lincoln
Just got my copy this morning and am reading it now: Love this book! Otherwise, in blurbs that would have been? 1972: "President Nixon has ordered the National Security Agency to begin investigations concerning a recent book written by Rachel Maddow, stating that this book may violate national security as it possibly exposes secret intelligence information which Miss. Maddow did not receive NSA clearance before publication (according to white house source G.Gordon Liddy). The President, who states he takes great pride in the number of attacks on him made over the years by avowed Communists..." (Am I showing my age:)
"Rachel Maddow writes about making it harder to start a war- Is she anti-entreprenur? I've hired people to help me start a war. It's a prestigious line of work, with a long and glorious tradition." - Vizzini