The wisest book I read this year was Eduardo Galeanos Children of the Days: A Calendar of Human History (Nation Books).

• Author: Rothschild, Matthew
• Position: Our Favorite Books of 2013 - Brief article - Book review

The wisest book I read this year was Eduardo Galeanos Children of the Days: A Calendar of Human History (Nation Books). You get more pith for page here than anywhere else. On July 5, for instance, he writes about "the right to laugh." On December 5, he discusses "the longing for beauty." And his allegory for May 1, International Workers' Day, about geese goes like this: "Each takes a turn, forward and back, and none of them believes he is supergoose because he flies first or that flying last makes him a loser."

The most important book I read this year was Dollarocracy: How the Money and Media Election Complex Is Destroying America (Nation Books), by John Nichols and Robert

W. McChesney, with a great foreword by Senator Bernie Sanders. The authors show how the big money machine is contaminating our democracy. They call out the rightwing designers of this plot, and they show how elections have become the playthings of the superrich. They include crucial chapters on the fall of journalism and the limitations of the Internet, and they offer specific ideas...