This page includes reviews of books I have read along with links to books I am currently reading and have read on Amazon.
Reflections of a Rational Republican provides each book it reviews with a ten-point rating. This rating is a weighted average of five categories that include: style, structure, substance, sentiment, and significance.
Style covers the author’s tone and writing style and accounts for 10 percent of a book’s rating.
Structure measures how well the author constructs the book’s content. Is it chronological? Does the author cover everything in detail or only the most critical items? This metric accounts for 10 percent of a book’s rating.
Substance rates the book’s overall content. Was the book interesting? Was it pithy? This category accounts for 40 percent of a book’s rating.
Sentiment rates how the book affected the reader on an emotional level. Was it inspirational? Did it evoke feelings of anger in the reader? Was it exciting? Sentiment accounts for 10 percent of a book’s rating.
Significance accounts for 30 percent of a book’s rating. The purpose of this rating is to provide a sense of where the book stands in the course of history. Most escape fiction would likely rate low in this category unless it was a once-in-a-generation book that stands out as an icon for its genre. Presidential autobiographies would more likely receive higher than average ratings because they contain the words of men who have had a major impact on world history.
With that, let the book reviews begin!
Reflections of a Rational Republican 
Hi. I recently met Bill McGinnis who recommended this website and suggested that I talk to Sean Hazlett about reviewing my book “Good Intentions” about a future United States that has become the ultimate nanny state. One man, Winston Jones, is chosen by the mysterious Fairness for EveryBody Society to be the next president because he has the required makeup—ethnic, racial, religious, sexual orientation, etc.—to “fairly represent the diversity of America.” The book is his reluctant adventure to discover what America is about and how to get it back to its traditional values of individual rights and responsibilities and free markets. He comes across many clashing groups including “The Documented,” a group of legal aliens that refuse to break the law and thus get no government entitlements. He also comes in contact with Radical Femlamism, a bizarre melding of Radical Feminism and Radical Islam. All along he’s tracked by the Freedman Group, a collection of “subversives” who believe in free market capitalism and secretly run businesses without government interference.
Let me know how to get you a copy for review. Thanks.
Sean,
You have a very interesting and informative website, thanks for the effort you have put in to it. As for books to be reviewed, being a Vietnam veteran the subject is near and dear to my heart. I found the book by Harry G. Summers (On strategy, Post Mortem of the the Vietnam War) most enlightening and thought provoking. I’m pretty sure that you are familiar with that book. What are your thoughts on its contents?