The progressive movement has prided itself on its ability to get its messages out by harnessing the Internet, through organizations like MoveOn.org and blogs like Daily Kos or The Huffington Post.
But now a liberal-minded group is returning to an old-fashioned model: a book club.
As with a classic book club, members of the new club will be offered a slate of books each month, reviewed and chosen by a panel that includes the novelists Michael Chabon, Erica Jong and Barbara Kingsolver; John Podesta, president of the Center for American Progress; Katrina vanden Heuvel, editor of The Nation magazine; and Todd Gitlin, the author and a journalism and sociology professor at Columbia University.
The first lead selection is “The Big Squeeze: Tough Times for the American Worker†by Steven Greenhouse, a reporter at The New York Times. Other offerings for June include “Outright Barbarous: How the Violent Language of the Right Poisons American Democracy†by Jeffrey Feldman, and “Mudbound,†a debut novel by Hillary Jordan. The club will also offer about 200 older titles like “Common Sense†by Thomas Paine and “Silent Spring†by Rachel Carson.
Markos Moulitsas Zúniga, publisher and founder of Kos Media, which publishes the Daily Kos blog and is one of the book club’s “alliance partners,†said he did not expect the club to generate much revenue for his company. “I’m not doing this for financial reasons,†he said. “I’m doing it for movement-building reasons.â€
Some in the publishing industry questioned whether liberals need a specific book club. Voicing an oft-repeated maxim, David Rosenthal, publisher of Simon & Schuster, said, “One might say the entire book industry is largely a progressive book group.â€
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