The Five Best Political Novels

I got this from www.politicalwire.com

The Five Best Political Novels

If you have time for reading over the Labor Day weekend, the Wall Street Journal picks the five best political novels of all time:

1. The Prime Minister by Anthony Trollope (1876): "The tale of an unscrupulous man's campaign for Parliament and the prime minister's wife who supports him against her husband's wishes."

2. Shelley's Heart by Charles McCarry (1995): "America's best writer of espionage novels produced this gripping tale of political intrigue that is also an audacious romp through contemporary Washington mores. A scene at a Georgetown dinner party attended by a former president, a Supreme Court justice, a speaker of the House, a reporter and a lesbian ranks as one of the funniest scenes in contemporary American fiction."

3. Death of a Red Heroine by Qiu Xiaolong (2000): "Qiu's inspector-poet risks all when his investigation takes him too close to one of China's untouchable princelings, the son of a high-ranking official in Beijing."

4. Darkness at Noon by Arthur Koestler (1941): "Darkness at Noon recounts the fate of Rubashov, an old revolutionary who is charged with treason and thrown in prison, where he is brainwashed and tortured; he ultimately confesses to imaginary crimes against the state."

5. All the King's Men by Robert Penn Warren (1946): "Robert Penn Warren was the nation's first poet laureate, and it's easy to understand why when lingering over the beautiful language in this lushly written novel. But it's also a rollicking good read. Based on the life of Huey 'Kingfish' Long of Louisiana, All the King's Men is the rags-to-riches story of Willie Stark, a small-town Southern politician who starts out as an idealistic young man of the people and ends up corrupted by the system he had sought to reform."