Time for the first official 2010 Epolitics.com summer reading recommendations! Both books featured today are written by friends-of-epolitics, which though not a prerequisite for recommended status sure doesn’t hurt. First up:
Share This! How You Will Change the World with Social Networking by Deanna Zandt, blurb below.
The times are not just a-changin’, they’re a-revolutionizin’! As social media becomes increasingly present in our everyday lives, a major democratic cultural shift is underway. Through the power of relationships, sharing of experiences, and organizing online, previously marginalized voices are pouring into and shaping public conversations like never before. But serious change will not happen on its own. Despite the increasing presence of a diversity of voices and faces, the Internet isn’t fulfilling its disruptive potential; more often than not, it’s simply replicating and amplifying inequality and segregation.
Enough technology for one beach trip? Next up is The Upper House, a look inside the U.S. Senate through the eyes of several senators elected in 2006 and 2008, written by Terry Samuels, an epolitics drinking buddy who’s formerly an editor at TheRoot.com and who also covered Congress for US News and World Report. You can read a Bob Kerrey review from the Post plus plenty of others, or just jump straight in and order it at Amazon. Terry’s also hosting an event at Kramerbooks on Monday for the DC set; I’ll see you there. Congrats, y’all! Great work on the dead-tree-media front — perhaps one day we’ll join you there.
– cpd