How smart is my Pajamas colleague Roger Kimball?  Dude, put it this way.  If you added together the IQ’s of, say, the entire editorial staff of the New York Times, you would have enough to make Roger a single personal assistant–if by personal assistant you mean Igor from the Frankenstein movies.  Roger doesn’t just wear the bowtie.  He’s earned the bowtie.

Roger is the co-editor and publisher of the essential culture journal New Criterion and President and Publisher of Encounter Books.  And Encounter Books has begun a terrific new series called Broadsides, which I highly recommend.

Now, as I understand it, under the Obama administration, I can go to prison for, like, life for recommending books on my blog, but all the same, these are genuinely excellent so, hey, I’ll fight the power.  Broadsides are short pamphlets by top authors on hot-button subjects.  They’re meant to give you the argument ammunition you need to take your great-aunt’s head off when she starts spouting her liberal garbage around the dinner table this Thanksgiving or Christmas.

I’ve read the first three:  Obama’s Betrayal of Israel, by Michael Ledeen; How the Obama Administration Threatens to Undermine Our Elections by John Fund; and Why Obama’s Government Takeover of Health Care Will Be a Disaster by David Gratzer.  Each one of them was by the exact author I would want to hear from on the subject and each one strengthened my convictions with solid reporting and sound reasoning.  Good reads; good stuff.

Plus, when you’re done, you can roll them up and whap your great-aunt over the head with them.

Happy Thanksgiving!