Damned Literate.

I had every intention of going grocery shopping - but the library is right there, and I couldn't resist. For this week's reading pleasure I've selected:

Iron Tears by Stanley Weintraub

• "...Stanley Weintraub offers the first account that examines the [Revolutionary] war from three divergent and distinct vantage points: the battlefields; the American leadership under George Washington; and - most originally - that of England, embroiled in controversy over the war. Colonial America was England's Vietnam."

It Didn't Happen Here: Why Socialism Failed in the United States by Seymour Martin Lipset and Gary Marks

• "Two of America's leading political sociologists explore a phenomenon of American political exceptionalism: the failure of the socialist movement in the United States."

Blood Libel: The Damascus affair of 1840 by Ronald Florence

The First Crusade: A New History by Thomas Asbridge

• "... a gripping account of a titanic three-year adventure filled with miraculous victories, greedy princes, and barbarity on a vast scale."

The Bonus Army: An American Epic by Paul Dickson and Thomas B. Allen

• "The sweeping story of the veterans' protest that changed the course of American history..."

My prize? A flyer inside It Didn't Happen Here with this closing statement: "Thus, we urge all those who want to continue on the traditions of Frida Kahlo, Diego Rivera, and Leon Trotsky to join us today in forming a new Trotskyist International!"