Book Reviews

The Daily Signal provides thoughtful book reviews with conservative analysis of political books, policy volumes, historical works, conservative philosophy, biographical works, and influential literature shaping the American right and constitutional conservatism.
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    • News

    Peter Navarro’s Book Is a Raw Retelling of His Experience in Prison

    Peter Navarro, who spent four months in federal prison for a contempt of Congress order over the Jan. 6 investigations and now serves as senior counselor for trade and manufacturing, said in an interview about his newest book “I Went to Prison So You Won’t Have To: A Love and Lawfare Story in Trump Land”…
    Salena Zito
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    • News

    EXCLUSIVE: Consumer Group Targets ESG-Pushing Pact Under Antitrust Review

    FIRST ON THE DAILY SIGNAL: A nonprofit organization dedicated to addressing the concerns of consumers called Consumers’ Research is calling out the U.S. Plastics Pact for pushing environmental, social, and governance policies that have made doing business more difficult in Ohio. While the U.S. Plastics Pact is hosting a conference in Columbus on Tuesday and…
    Rebecca Downs
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    • Opinion

    The Left’s Narrative About ‘Book Banning’ Is Bogus

    The Left is obsessed with the idea that conservatives are the real book banners. California Democrat state Sen. Scott Weiner took to X recently to bash “MAGA” and assumedly Florida, accusing them of banning one of the most famous memoirs about the Holocaust. “Florida banning the Diary of Anne Frank tells you everything you need…
    Jarrett Stepman
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    • Opinion

    Faithful Children’s Books Shine With Word of Fire Votive

    Bishop Robert Barron’s evangelical powerhouse combines classic stories with truly unmatched aesthetics. What is a tongue-stone? Well, it’s just that: a triangular stone that looks an awful lot like a tongue, found in the high inland places of Europe since at least the Middle Ages. Their origin was mysterious until the 17th century, when a…
    Mark Guiney
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  • Judge Blocks School Board From Removing Explicit Books, Saying It’s Unconstitutional to Follow ‘Conservative Values’

    A school board in Colorado cannot remove sexually explicit, profane, and “transgender” books from school libraries because the school board is conservative, according to a federal judge touted as the first openly lesbian judge west of the Mississippi. The ACLU’s Colorado chapter filed a suit on behalf of two minors, the NAACP Wyoming State Area…
    Tyler O’Neil
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  • Idaho’s Pluckiest Christian Publisher Offers a Colorful Storybook Romp 

    Crispin wants to reclaim the legendary Lightning Blade. His sister Rose wants to host a nice picnic. Whose plan will win out?   In the swashbuckling romp that is "Crispin’s Rainy Day", Crispin charges off into a grand adventure, in which he leads his pirate crew on a daring quest. To his annoyance, his sister Rose…
    Mark Guiney
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  • Tom Cotton’s New Book Addresses China’s Global Threat You Can’t Talk About

    Sen. Tom Cotton’s new book, “Seven Things You Can’t Say About China,” asks the reader to give renewed focus on perhaps America’s greatest nemesis—the People’s Republic of China. In seven chapters, Cotton outlines the nature and severity of the threat—and it’s a warning that is sorely needed. While many Americans pay attention to a few high-profile…
    Horace Cooper
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  • Ethics Complaint Claims Booker Improperly Linked 25-Hour Talkathon With Fundraising

    While Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., spoke for 25 hours on the Senate floor last week, a series of emails with contribution links and links to his campaign store was sent out, according to an ethics complaint from the Foundation for Accountability and Civic Trust.  FACT, a conservative nonprofit watchdog group, says that violates Senate ethics…
    Fred Lucas
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  • Books Banned in Prisons, but Allowed in Schools? Texas Mom Wants Them Out

    A Texas mother is looking to pass several bills through the state legislature this session after discovering what she calls “vulgar,” “profane,” and “indecent” books in public school libraries across the state. Bonnie Wallace, a member of the Llano County Library Advisory Board and mother to a former Llano County Independent School District student, began…
    R.E. Wermus
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  • Let’s Review Lessons From Trump’s Second First Week

    WASHINGTON—What did President Donald Trump learn during his four-year hiatus from the White House? For one thing, he seems to have learned how to listen. But also, to judge by the first week of his second term, Trump 2.0 seems more focused, mission-driven, and prepared to get things done at warp speed. Here’s a short…
    Debra Saunders
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  • Major Textbook Publisher Caught Spreading LGBTQ and DEI Ideology in Schools

    “Pretty disgusting” and “grotesque.” That’s how a Florida parent described an online session for students on “gender” provided by two K-12 virtual public schools in November—a session that virtual school officials held without first informing parents. These schools’ attempt to sidestep families is just the latest in a long list of examples demonstrating that some…
    Jonathan Butcher
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  • EXCLUSIVE: Virginia Schools Secretly Remove LGBTQ Book Amid Explicit Images Controversy

    FIRST ON THE DAILY SIGNAL—Public schools in a Northern Virginia county have quietly removed a pro-LGBTQ book after parents criticized it for sexually explicit images, The Daily Signal has learned. Fairfax County Public Schools in the Washington, D.C., suburbs confirmed in emails to parent Stacy Langton that school libraries across the county had removed the…
    Tyler O’Neil
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  • New Book Explores Cultural Entropy Eroding Traditional Marriage, Family Norms

    Center-left media outlets know they can gin up a couple of curiosity- or hate-based clicks by periodically profiling some new “trend” in the upper-middle-class mating scene. “Ethical nonmonogamy” has had its day, “polyamory memoirs” get respectful reviews, and major broadcast networks know they can pull in some rubberneckers curious about pairings that go from “Couple…
    Patrick Brown
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  • Why Michigan Republicans Side With Democrat AG Who Threatened to Prosecute Over Facebook Posts

    The Donald Trump-backed candidate for state attorney general says he supports the move by his former opponent—Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel, a Democrat—to threaten to prosecute a GOP township candidate over her Facebook posts.  Matthew Deperno, Nessel’s former opponent and the lawyer for Michigan’s Kalamazoo County Republican Party, said Kerry Lynn Elieff likely broke a…
    Fred Lucas
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  • Texas High School Refuses to Remove ‘Adult’ Library Books Before 22 Years of Review

    A high school principal in Texas slow-walked a review of nearly 200 books in the school library that parents flagged for sexually explicit material, setting a timetable of 22 years to reconsider them, according to documents and emails obtained by The Daily Signal. Parents in Llano, Texas, told The Daily Signal that they began expressing…
    Tony Kinnett
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  • Fawning NY Times’ ‘Review’ of Michelle Obama’s New Book Is an Embarrassment

    Ben Shapiro was blunt on Twitter. He had discovered “the most sycophantic book review ever written.” The book was the second tome from multimillionaire author and advice guru Michelle Obama. The review appeared in The New York Times, from the paper’s “Help Desk” columnist, Judith Newman. She’s “the help,” all right. Ed Morrissey tweeted back…
    Tim Graham
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  • New York Times Reviews Book Advocating Blowing Up Pipelines to Combat Climate Change

    If the name Tatiana Schlossberg sounds like a brand for white privilege, you would be right. She’s not a top chef or fashion designer. She’s the 30-year-old daughter of Caroline Kennedy and Ed Schlossberg, the granddaughter of former President John F. Kennedy. Like Maria Shriver at NBC News, Tatiana Schlossberg became an “objective journalist” for…
    Tim Graham
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  • Amazon Pulls Negative Reviews of New Marriage Book

    A day after The Daily Signal reported on controversial reviews for Ryan T. Anderson’s new book on Amazon.com, the country's largest Internet retailer said it has removed reviews that included photos of Nazi concentration camps. Anderson’s book, “Truth Overruled: The Future of Marriage and Religious Freedom,” had one-star ratings that included pictures of men in what…
    Marguerite Bowling
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  • Book Review: Disinherited

    Thomas Edison once said that “a good intention, with a bad approach, often leads to a poor result.” Diana Furchtgott-Roth and Jared Meyer’s Disinherited: How Washington is Betraying America’s Young, discusses how while many of Washington’s policies seem to have future generations’ best intentions in mind, some approaches can have adverse consequences for the economy…
    Salim Furth
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  • Book Review: Mike Lee on the 6 ‘Lost’ Provisions of the Constitution

    Sen. Mike Lee has written a fascinating book about the six most important “lost” provisions of the U.S. Constitution, and how they need to be “restored.” According to Lee, a Republican who represents Utah, that is the key to reinvigorating our country and getting rid of “what the founding generation would never have ratified and…
    Hans von Spakovsky
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