Rebecca’s Reading
The Broken Branch

There has been something severely lacking from the OUPblog and today our goal is to rectify the problem. While we often post articles written by our brilliant authors, we rarely take the time to actually sit down and read books. And what good is a blog about the authors of OUP if we never appreciate the wonderful books they have written? Good books are overflowing from the shelves around here and its about time we started to read them.

So we thought we would try having an online reading group. At the end of every month we will annouce what book we are reading and give you a chance to get copy of it. Then, throughout the next month we will keep you updated on the process, letting you know what parts of the book kept us awake reading past our bedtimes, what parts helped us fall asleep faster and of course, what we are learning. Feel free to join the conversation even if you aren’t reading along.

The innagural book will be The Broken Branch: How Congress is Failing America and How to Get it Back on Track by Thomas E. Mann and Norman J. Ornstein. Why start with this book? Well besides the obvious reasons, the Mark Foley scandal and the general sense of apathy that hangs around the 109th Congress, we are reading Broken Branch because:
* It’s election time and we want to be informed voters.
* I (“I” by the way is Rebecca, the OUP blog editor) want to read it.
* And finally, because we like how Mann and Ornstein use their middle initial on the cover of the book. We think its indicitive of their character.

So on you mark. Get set. Go read! I’ll weigh in on the beginning next week and will be anxious to hear what you think.