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'A Time to Fight: Reclaiming a Fair and Just America'
I first encountered Jim Webb in Robert Timberg's remarkable portrait of five Naval Academy graduates, " The Nightingale's Song."
Profiled with the likes of John McCain, Bud McFarlane, John Poindexter and Oliver North, Webb shines as a brilliant, thoughtful, courageous man who loved his country dearly and with eyes wide open. After returning from Vietnam as a highly decorated Marine officer, he wrote several well-received novels of the war, became Assistant Secretary of Defense and Secretary of the Navy, in turns, and his new book, "A Time to Fight: Reclaiming a Fair and Just America," is written from the vantage of his current position as the junior senator from Virginia.
Webb is by any measure just the sort of man one would hope to find in the corridors of power: intelligent, compassionate and determined to stand for the poor and middle classes against moneyed interests. This book is a rich mix of personal history -- Webb was a boxer, a newsie, a soldier, the grandson of a woman who chopped cotton and slept on a corn shuck mattress -- and practical considerations for how we need to come together to ensure the safety and peace of the Republic.
Political polemics and hagiographies are a dime a dozen these days, but Webb is a statesman and his book is both unusual and much-welcomed.
'Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Greg Heffley's Journal'
Jeff Kinney's "Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Greg Heffley's Journal" has been riding high on children's bestellers lists and on-hold lists at the library, but the book was written and intended for adults. And should you want your junior high school years to come back to you with horrifying, hilarious immediacy, this is the book for you.
Young Heffley, a kind of "Everyjrhighschooler," displays the trademark self-centeredness and casual ethics most of us did while trying to become popular in middle school. Not to mention all the idiotic mistakes and unkindnesses that will plague you the rest of your life. (Like letting his geeky best friend Rowley take the fall when Greg terrorizes the kindergarteners as a Safety Patrol officer.)
"Diary of a Wimpy Kid" is uncomfortable in its precision, but snort-worthy in its humor -- for all ages grade 5 and up.
• Laura Wadley is a librarian with the Provo City Library. E-mail her at
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