Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Red lights blinking on democracy’s dashboard

Republicans: slavery is when you own me. freedom is when I own you.

Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Second rate reporter says what?

If you’re gonna whine, it’s time to resign!

The arc of the moral universe does not bend itself. it is up to us to bend it.

If you cannot answer whether trump lost the 2020 election, you are unfit for office.

If you are still in the gop, you are either an extremist yourself, or in bed with those who are.

Do we throw up our hands or do we roll up our sleeves? (hint, door #2)

Shut up, hissy kitty!

How stupid are these people?

Motto for the House: Flip 5 and lose none.

You cannot love your country only when you win.

Stop using mental illness to avoid talking about armed white supremacy.

Balloon Juice, where there is always someone who will say you’re doing it wrong.

Pessimism assures that nothing of any importance will change.

Jesus, Mary, & Joseph how is that election even close?

I really should read my own blog.

At some point, the ability to learn is a factor of character, not IQ.

So fucking stupid, and still doing a tremendous amount of damage.

Compromise? There is no middle ground between a firefighter and an arsonist.

They want us to be overwhelmed and exhausted. Focus. Resist. Oppose.

Since we are repeating ourselves, let me just say fuck that.

You come for women, you’re gonna get your ass kicked.

You are here: Home / Books / NIXONLAND: Official Book Group Invitation

NIXONLAND: Official Book Group Invitation

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First online ‘meeting’ of the BJ Book Group will start at 4pm EST Sunday, January 30th. The book, of course, is Rick Perlstein’s Nixonland. If you own an e-reader (are an e-reader?), commentor RSR pointed out that an “enhanced” e-book with CBS news footage is available through publishers Simon & Shuster.

Now that I’ve pored through the pages available on Amazon, let’s plan on covering the preface and first two chapters, plus the notes and related backup material as necessary.

I’ve added a new category, in hopes that people will be able to use the ‘search’ function to find all posts related to Nixonland as we progress.

Any suggestions, comments, or disagreements will be accepted in the spirit in which they are offered.

Reader Interactions

74Comments

  2. 2.

    Sentient Puddle

    That first link makes it sound like the enhanced version is iOS only. Can anyone confirm that? I’m still trying to decide between the iPad, Kindle, or f’real paper version.

  7. 7.

    Amir_Khalid

    Nixonland is not in stock anywhere in Kuala Lumpur. If I ordered it online now, it might arrive sometime in March — way too late for me to join in. (Pout.)

    I’ll just watch this one from the sidelines. Maybe I can join in for the next book.

  8. 8.

    Cat Lady

    The e-books are just like the books and newspapers in the Harry Potter movies. Nixon brought back to life – ugh. I’m not sure I can take that much dwelling in that past, but I’ll definitely be lurking while having a sad. Maybe after Nixonland we can do one of the Dalai Lama’s books?

  10. 10.

    singfoom

    I’m in but one quick question: 4PM? EST/CST/PST/Greenwich Mean?
    I apologize if it’s a stupid question….

  11. 11.

    arguingwithsignposts

    Goddamn you, BJ frontpagers! I bought the ibooks version last night. i thought “Fear and Loathing on the campaign trail ’72” was so relevant, but this is only so much more suckitude (GOP, not the author). And, The Somebody will be reading as well. She’s a history major, so this should be interesting for that.

  12. 12.

    BobS

    For anyone looking for the book, I bought my dad a new hardcover copy of Nixonland for $2.95 from HamiltonBook.com about 2 weeks ago.

  14. 14.

    Batocchio

    Cool! See ya there. I’ll refresh my memory on those chapters. But remember, kids, when it comes to contemporary politics, All Roads Lead to Nixonland.

  17. 17.

    gnomedad

    This is a “meeting” in BJ comments? I wonder if we’ll be stepping on each other a lot.

  22. 22.

    MonkeyBoy

    My local library system has about 20 copies of which 2 are currently checked out and 1 is in transit.

    I’ll be interested in seeing how that number changes in the near future.

  24. 24.

    Kathy

    I am in, I just started reading it today, amazing that Watts and the Selma Montgomery March were so close together.

  27. 27.

    Linda Featheringill

    Maybe we can encourage some of the older members of the community to join in. I am looking forward to comparing the book to some of my memories and suspect there will be some differences. It would be nice if other folks had different memories, too.

  28. 28.

    ThatLeftTurnInABQ

    @morzer:

    We are sure that Nixon’s dead – right?

    I believe “tanned, rested and ready” is the phrase you are looking for.

  29. 29.

    geg6

    I’m defintely in. Will have to skip the Super Bowl Sunday one, but will read the thread and comment the next day if that’s ok. Can I just say that I’m ridiculously excited about this? The first time I read it, I had just been dumped by my ex, was totally lonely and depressed, and read the whole thing in about 5 days. The ex and I used to love to talk politics and I was so bummed that I had no one to talk to about my thoughts on it. Now I not only have my John to talk to about it, but all if BJ!

  30. 30.

    geg6

    @Linda Featheringill:

    I’m one if the older people, I think. If being born in 1958 and remembering all of the events (even as a child, I loved politics) counts.

    Oooooo, and look! Mr. Pearlstein is joining in. This is too goddam awesome.

  32. 32.

    morzer

    @geg6:

    Maybe we should propose that that Superbowl Sunday session is adjourned? I want to watch Green Bay crush the Steelers without feeling guilt.

  34. 34.

    Wiesman

    I’m in. I’ll be buying it for the Kindle later today. (Cha-ching, Mr. Perlstein!)

    Also, I live in the OC (bitch) fairly close to the Nixon Presidential Library/birthplace/grave in Yorba Linda. We’ve visited there a couple of times and it is really interesting. I highly recommend it to anyone who might be in the area. (The last time we went I was wearing my Obama fleece and got some curious looks from the very nice ladies who worked there.)

    Maybe we can arrange a Balloon-Juice Book Club field trip at the Nixon Library. Let’s see. If we take the Venn diagram of all BJ readers who are also reading the book and who also live close enough to Yorba Linda to go and who don’t have a scheduling conflict and who are also not snarling misanthropes who enjoy the company of other people, then we should have… oh. Null set.

    Oh well.

  35. 35.

    Mnemosyne

    I’ll probably miss most of the actual conversation since I have to work until 4:30 Pacific time on Sunday, but I’ll at least read it so I can see what other people have to say.

  36. 36.

    ThatLeftTurnInABQ

    @Linda Featheringill:

    It would be nice if other folks had different memories, too.

    I was in 1st grade during the 1968 election, and I remember that on election day several of the kids in the grade 1-3 recess group were punching each other in the face out on the playground for no apparent reason apart from the partisan affiliation of their parents being different, and that one of the kids had to go home for the day with a broken nose. This was in one of those “nice, white suburbs” where things like that were not supposed to happen, so everybody was suitably shocked.

    Good times!

  37. 37.

    frosty

    @Linda Featheringill: Well, I saw him at a whistle stop (really, on the back of a train) in 1960, so I guess that makes me one of the older ones. It’s a book I’ve been wanting to read, I guess I’ll have to dig up a copy somewhere.

  38. 38.

    AhabTRuler

    @Amir_Khalid: I have no idea what the availability is, and IP across borders is always so fun to figger, but Amazon has a desktop based version of their e-reader. Other e-versions can be read in Adobe (and they even have their own e-reader format).

    TBS, I have no idea about the availability of the actual e-books themselves in Malaysia, but I would be willing to deliver hardcopy if you’ll pay the airfare.

  39. 39.

    geg6

    @ThatLeftTurnInABQ:

    Heh. I was in 4th grade in ’68 and we held primaries and a campaign and election, complete with debates and everything. The kids who were to play the candidates were picked from among what would be called the gifted kids today and I was one of the kids picked. Guess who I played? And guess who won? ;-)

    Just call me Tricky Dick.

  40. 40.

    geg6

    @morzer:

    I would second a break for the Super Bowl. But if the Steelers make it to Dallas, we will come home with Lombardi Trophy #7.

  41. 41.

    ThatLeftTurnInABQ

    @geg6:
    So what was your secret plan to end the war?
    More pizza days?
    Free twinkies every Tuesday?
    Stinkbombs in the Teacher’s bathroom?

  43. 43.

    geg6

    @ThatLeftTurnInABQ:

    A secret bombing campaign in Cambodia. As a 4th grader, I was a bloodthirsty little thing. And a huge fan of airplanes, especially bombers. My dad, in the Army Air Corps in WWII in which he ferried bombers to England, was a bad influence.

  44. 44.

    auntieeminaz

    @Linda Featheringill:

    I listened to the 1960 Presidential election returns on the radio in 8th grade social studies class at an American military dependent’s school in Germany. Does this qualify me as an older member of the community even though I am primarily a lurker?

  45. 45.

    RSR

    just catching this thread now, but yes, I think that enhanced e-edition is iOS (iPad being most useful, I think, but also iPhone & iPod Touch) centric

    it’s not for the kindle or nook readers; not sure about any desktop/netbook use either

    I’m going to get the text only epub version for my wife’s nook.

  46. 46.

    geg6

    For a tasty appetizer, HBO has “A President To Remember: In The Company of John F. Kennedy” on at 9:30 ET tonight.

  47. 47.

    Anne Laurie

    @Rick Perlstein: Thanks!

    As far as the Superbowl (if someone can tell me which weekend it’s scheduled) everybody: would it be better to bump that week’s chapter forward to Saturday evening c8pm EST, or backwards to a weeknight?

  50. 50.

    Dee Loralei

    I’m in. My Great- Grandmother was great friends with Nixon and Kissinger, she was on the RNC for many years. I remember when she died, they all sent nice encomiums to the family. I spent a lot of my summertime holidays with my grandparents and we watched both conventions, so though I was only 6 I actually have a few memories of the 68 convention on tv. (Well at least the Dem convention, I remember the fights or riots, etc. Or at least I remember my Grandparents being appalled at those damned hippies and the damned Dems. I like to think they’d have disowned me by now.LOL) So as I said, I have vague recollections of that time period and would love to participate in the group. I told my mother Rick Perlstein was going to join us, so she may also, and she’s never read a blog! ( She just entered the 21st Century@ Christmas when I got her a kindle. LOL.)

    And please let’s skip SuperBowl Sunday and do it Monday instead.

  51. 51.

    Julia Grey

    I was in second grade in 1960 and we were Catholics and Democrats. But I went to school with Nixon fans, and he won the classroom election in a landslide. I was in high school for the infamous 1968 election, and early college for Watergate. Good times.

    Looking forward to this.

  53. 53.

    Joseph Nobles

    @Kathy: I was born in 1967, so I had never put together that the March on Washington was followed only a couple of weeks later by the Birmingham church bombing.

  54. 54.

    mclaren

    Read it. Nixonland is a brutal book. It will take you back to those dark savage days and slam a railroad spike through your gut in the process.

    A real lesson in “The more things change, the more they stay the same.” Karl Rove was one of Nixon’s dirty tricks operatives back in 1972…and here we are in 2011, and nothing has changed.

  55. 55.

    suzanne

    I am soooo psyched for this! Woot woot!

    And yes, let’s bump the Super Bowl one back to a weekday. Same with the Oscars, please! We traditionally use that as an excuse to party, too.

    And sorry! I was born in 1980.

  56. 56.

    ant

    I don’t comment here, or much in blogs in general, but just checking in to say this is cool.

    I’ll prolly try to pick up a dead tree version sometime over the next week, so I can follow along.

    Doubt that I will be able to add anything interesting…..

  60. 60.

    mclaren

    May we say, in analogy with Orwell’s Animal Farm, “Two spaces good, one space bad?”

    And of course…when we deal with justified text with leading, some spaces are more equal than others.

  61. 61.

    Nutella

    @Julia Grey:

    In my Catholic grade school in 1960, the nuns told us to tell our parents to vote for Kennedy since he was such a good Catholic. My parents thought the nuns should have minded their own business.

  67. 67.

    Jess

    If we’re going to bump it from Sunday, I sure hope it’s bumped to Sat or another Sunday–weekdays are long and brutal for me. I’m going to let my history-buff friends know about this as well. Such a great idea!

  68. 68.

    Alison

    @Jess: Have to second this, especially for those of us on the West coast who may still be at work/school at the named hour. Why not just move it back to Saturday as opposed to a weekday?

  69. 69.

    drew42

    Ah, jeez. Can’t we do it on a weeknight, say Tuesdays at 9:00?

    I’m an All-American male, married with two incredible children. So my winter Sunday afternoons are taken up with watching sports and/or playing with my kids and/or cooking an awesome meal that will make my hot wife want to jump my bones that evening. I enjoy my Sundays.

    I’d hate to give this up to discuss a book whose contents will probably piss me off.

    I’m okay with venting and opinionating at 9:00pm on any weeknight. Does my literary input count for nothing? Or do only those who have nothing better to do at 4:00 on a Sunday need apply?

  70. 70.

    Xenos

    @drew42: I hear you. Over here in old Yurp that 4:00 pm EST amounts to 10:00 pm. So maybe there will be a follow-up meta-conversation like the early morning threads we get sometimes.

  71. 71.

    lvan Ivanovich Renko

    today is payday so I will be Kindling a copy tonight. Also, too, as an early Joneser (1957) who was growing up black in the not-quite-segregated South at the time… well, I look forward to the discussions!

  72. 72.

    WoodyNYC

    Got it off my shelf, put it in my bag, will crack it open on the subway. Kind of excited because this is my first book group of any kind and it is getting me out of my lurkerdom

  74. 74.

    Linda M

    I’ll be there, too. Wasn’t too interested initially, but this sounds like fun. My first memory of Nixon was watching the Republican convention and seeing those “young Americans for Nixon” cheering and chanting. I couldn’t for the life of me figure out how young people could be so enthusiastic about such a creepy person. Of course, I ended up a hippie. Now, I’m an old hippy. I’m glad!

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