Just published: What It Means to Be a Democrat by former Sen. George McGovern.

This promises to be very good: Where He Came From: The Story of Barack Obama by David Maraniss.

Just out: You Are Not So Smart by David McRaney.

One finding with particular relevance to politics: “Our brains resist new ideas, instead paying attention only to findings that reinforce our preconceived notions.”

Politics Chit Chat Book, at a dramatically reduced price for a limited time with free Fab.com membership. Also available on Amazon.

“With fascinating tips, facts, quotes and vocabulary, you’ll be holding forth on affairs of state in no time! With chapters ranging from election to impeachment to everything in between!”

Out later this month: Getting Steamed to Overcome Corporatism by Ralph Nader.

The Washington Post says the book “is a beautiful blend of the colloquial and the wonky — a perfect reflection of Nader himself through the years. And the message remains vintage Nader. The man who led the charge to get legislation to mandate seatbelts and other safety features in cars is still going after corporate America.”

The Daily Beast has the seven top highlights from Bill Clinton’s new book, Back to Work, which is full of ideas about reviving the economy.

Political Wire asks Jeff Greenfield, author most recently of Then Everything Changed, “Why do you not like to make political predictions?”

In 1971, I helped advance man Jerry Bruno write a book (cleverly called: The Advance Man), in which the last chapter sketched out how the next President wold be….New York Mayor John Lindsay. It had the same effect as my consumption of large quantities of cheap bourbon in my freshman year of college.  Just as that near-death experience cured me of any impulse toward alcohol excess, my first “prediction” was like a vaccine, immunizing me from the impulse to think I could predict the future.

Look at the “certainties” of almost every past Presidential election. Taken together, random chance would have been a better guide than the collective opinions of experts a year or two before anyone votes.

If I could predict the future, I would — not by announcing the identity of the next President, but by purchasing the next $100 million Powerball. But I can’t predict….so I don’t.

Now available for pre-order: The Passage of Power: The Years of Lyndon Johnson by Robert Caro.

It’s been nine years since Master of the Senate was published and I can hardly wait.

Jeff Bercovici found that out the hard way that Chris Matthews didn’t use a ghostwriter on his new book, Jack Kennedy: Elusive Hero.

Said Matthews: “Fuck you. Where’d you get that? Is that what you think? You think I don’t write my books?”

He adds: “I would never let anybody write something for me. Why do you think I’m like that? It’s amazing to me that you think I’m some lightweight, glib bullshit artist that has somebody do his work for him. The writing is the hard part, the composition.”

Just published: Dubs Goes to Washington: And Discovers the Greatness of America by Dick Morris and Eileen McGann.

Morris explains to Sean Hannity: “What we want to do Sean was that, we — there is no book that kids can buy that shows our heritage and our heroes in a positive light. Everything is P. C. So, what we do in this is we take the like the Iwo Jima Memorial, and we have a poem attached to it, which is the battle was won by the U.S. marines in one of history’s most famous scenes and when we meet the men who kept insured the freedom never fails, people say thanks and dogs wag their tails.”

Out tomorrow: Jack Kennedy: Elusive Hero by Chris Matthews.

Howard Fineman highlights a story about the 1960 Kennedy-Nixon debates: “According to new interviews, the Kennedy team insisted that makeup be prohibited. Richard Nixon followed the rules, with disastrous results. JFK did not. His staff secretly applied powder and told reporters that his ruddy glow was merely a natural tan. After Nixon was seen perspiring badly in the first debate, his staff tried secretly to lower the thermostat in the NBC studios for the second debate. The Kennedy team found out and just as secretly turned the dial back up.”

Jack Shafer reviews The Rogue by Joe McGinniss:

“To call a book a hatchet job is not necessarily to disparage it. Some subjects can’t be accurately rendered in a fair and balanced sketch, demanding instead the defacement that Lucian Freud brought to portraiture. That said, a smartly swung sharp blade makes for better literary blood sport than the butt-end bludgeonry McGinniss visits upon Palin and her husband, Todd…”

“By book’s end, I felt a little like the Pa­lins — eager for McGinniss to
move out of my neighborhood. He establishes that Sarah Palin’s
ambitions dwarf her talents, that she’s the world’s oldest mean girl and
that she has a tendency to become a liability to even her closest
allies. But no hatchet job was needed to convince an average reader of
that. The only fresh meat McGinniss cuts in The Rogue is connected to
his knuckles.”