Joe Lieberman: The Historic Choice

by Stephen Singular

About the Author:

Stephan Singular is well known for his work as a journalist and freelance writer. He is the author of nine nonfiction books. His book, Talked to Death: The Life and Murder of Alan Berg, is the basis for Oliver Stone's 1989 film Talk Radio. His New York Times bestselling A Killing in the Family: A True Story of Love, Lies and Murder became the NBC-TV mini-series Loves, Lies and Murders. He is also well known for his other books, perhaps most notably Presumed Guilty: An Investigation into the JonBenet Ramsey Case, the Media, and the Culture of Pornography and The Rise and Fall of David Geffen.

249 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published August 21, 2000

About the author

Stephen Singular is the author or co-author of 22 non-fiction books, many of them about high-profile criminal cases. He’s also written sports and business biographies and social commentary. Two of the books have been “New York Times” bestsellers.

His first book, Talked to Death, set the tone for his journalistic career. Published in 1987, it chronicled the assassination of a Denver Jewish talk show host, Alan Berg, by a group of neo-Nazis known as The Order. The book was nominated for a national award — the Edgar for true crime — and became the basis for the 1989 Oliver Stone film, “Talk Radio.” Talked to Death was translated into several languages and explored the timeless American themes of racism, class, violence, and religious intolerance.

Reviews

[Claw Machine · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is really a campaign biography, barely critical of Lieberman in most cases (though willing to admit he has a different appeal than traditional Democrats). It's written finely enough so I guess if you just wanted to know about Lieberman, the maybe next vice president of the US, it's fine. Unfortunately, that means its usefulness has passed since about 24 years ago; there's very little analysis, and very little new content that's interesting. You get a sense of who Joe was, sure, and a few key decisions he made, but there's very little you couldn't find elsewhere. It's a fine enough basic overview but unfortunately, there's not much else written about Joe except for this, a short, brief, overly basic overview. Better than the ChatGPT crap that came out after he died though.

Also, this book just has one chapter where they tell you what Judaism is, and list a bunch of Jewish traditions. Explaining which ones he followed and his relationship to his faith was good, but literally just, "this is what keeping Kosher is, this is what Rosh Hashanah is," was not particularly helpful towards understanding the subject.

Overall, a pretty mediocre portrait of him, not super useful to those modern day researchers seeking to understand the guy who killed the public option. Fine enough I suppose if you're living in October of 2000 though.

[Matt Kratz · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed reading this. I learned a lot about the man!