Democracy: Stories from the Long Road to Freedom

Democracy: Stories from the Long Road to Freedom by Condoleezza Rice, 486 pages. Narrated by Condoleezza Rice and Grace Angela Henry.
Former National Security Adviser and Secretary of State, and current Denning Professor in Global Business and the Economy, Rice is well-suited to tell us the stories of governments in transition moving towards democracy, and then sometimes away from it again.
Rice witnessed the dissolution of the Soviet Union firsthand, as part of George HW Bush's National Security team, and she tells of how Russia, Ukraine, and other regions of the fomer USSR lurched toward a more democratic way of governing and then backed away, sometimes violently.
Yushchenko (leaning towards democracy) versus Yanukovych (leaning towards his good friend Putin) in Ukraine; Uribe against the FARC and the AUC in Colombia, and Ellen Johnson Sirleaf trying to rebuild Liberia after the warlord Charles Taylor was overthrown all have their stories told here. And Rice is an excellent storyteller. She comes across as a supremely intelligent, compassionate, and competent diplomat. Her insider's view of the George W Bush administration makes one nostalgic for a time when you only suspected the President didn't know what he was doing.

Public Library: a Photographic Essay / Robert Dawson 191 pg.

The only thing wrong with this book is the lack of UCPL photos.  We will have to see that this is corrected for the 2nd edition!  A lovely and often sentimental collection of photos of PLs all over the country, from spectacular places like Seattle Public to tiny one-room wooden structures, some of which are no longer operational.  These are the places that put a lump in the throat of anyone who loves public libraries and the particular aspirations they stand for: egalitarianism, the free exchange of ideas, and a level playing field.  It's heartening to think of Americans in remote places erecting these little outposts; it's painful to see them closed.

My only objection (apart from the lack of attention to our great institution) is the insistence in several of the accompanying essays, including Ann Patchett's,  that public libraries are important because they provide info access for the poor.  Of course they do, and that is one of the reasons they are necessary.  But when it comes to ideas, information, literature, and art, none of us should ever have enough.  There should always be something else we need to look at, learn, puzzle over, and laugh at.  And the public library, where you can get what you need without limits, is the only place where we can all fill that need.  I hope - I sincerely hope - I'm never so rich that I don't need a public library.