Independent’s Day: Awakening the American Spirit, by Lou Dobbs. A wake-up call hoping to jar Americans into reclaiming their values and voice, populist Dobbs points to near-epidemic levels of scandals, ethics violations, and spin in our government, concluding that ignoring the will of the people and rationalizing away the common good is the new status quo.

The First Campaign: Globalization, the Web, and the Race for the White House, by Garrett M. Graff. Tech-evangelist Graff (who was Howard Dean’s webmaster in 2004) contends that five new technologies – small-dollar online fundraising, blogging, cell phones, online video, and social networking sites – will transform the 2008 race for the presidency, giving tech-savvy candidates a chance to pull people in and get them involved in the political process.

Faith of My Fathers and Worth the Fighting For are John McCain’s two memoirs, the first detailing his life from youth until his release from a Vietnam prisoner-of-war camp, the latter covering his two decades in Congress, including his short-lived 2000 campaign for the presidency.

Hard Call: Great Decisions and the Extraordinary People Who Made Them, by John McCain. In this follow-up to his previous book, Why Courage Matters, McCain examines the leadership qualities of some men and women who shaped key moments in 20th century political and cultural history, seeing in them both courage and faith, the two qualities he says he values most.

Citizen McCain, by Elizabeth Drew. In a fly-on-the-wall manner, Drew tracks McCain’s 2001 Congressional struggle to reform campaign-finance laws. At the top of McCain's agenda was the series of bills (eventually enacted in revised form) meant to curtail the corporate soft money that keeps congressmen in power, bills mostly opposed by his fellow Republicans. Drew captures McCain in action as he works the floor gathering bipartisan support, giving vivid details on the array of enemies he attracted as he pressed his cause, not least of them President George W. Bush.

Dreams From My Father: a Story of Race and Inheritance, by Barack Obama. Obama’s memoir of growing up bi-racial is a moving statement on the impact of racial consciousness in America. With a white mother from Kansas and a black father from Kenya, living in Hawaii and Indonesia before returning to the US, Obama fit no established pattern, and he struggled for years to define a racial identity.

The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream, by Barack Obama. This book, published after Obama’s electrifying 2004 convention keynote address but before his campaign for the presidency took off, is a glimpse of how he believes American government should work for all citizens – and can again.

Obama: From Promise to Power, by David Mendell. Mendell, a reporter with the conservative Chicago Tribune, tracks Obama's rise as a community organizer in the rough-and-tumble world of Chicago politics to the no less challenging milieu of the U.S. Senate, drawing on interviews with Obama, his wife, family, friends, aides, and rivals, as well as his own extensive coverage since Obama's days in the Illinois Senate.

DVDs

Barack Obama. A&E Biography follows Obama through his teenage struggles for self-identity, his student days at Columbia University and Harvard Law School, his political career in Chicago, and finally, his exciting journey to the 2008 Democratic Convention.

John McCain. A&E Biography updates its 2003 profile, following the senator through his student days at the United States Naval Academy, his early political career in Arizona, and finally, through the 2008 presidential primaries.

Senator Obama Goes to Africa. From South Africa to Kenya to a Darfur refugee camp in Chad, Senator Obama explores the vast continent that is gaining increasing importance in this age of globalization.

By the People: Democracy in the Wild. An insider's look as events unfold over the 11 days preceding the 2004 Presidential election; revealing who and what it takes to put on an American election.