1991 Christmas List, http://www.rasmusen.org/_amazon/xmas91.htm

• 1. The Next computer. Twenty files in RAM are accessible at the flick of a mouse, I can speed like lightning through a text file, and I can preview TeX files before I print them. Maybe an Apple is as good, but this mouse-based system is a revelation to an IBM user like me.
• 2. Winston Churchill. Great Contemporaries. 1937. Churchill supported himself by writing for magazines, and this is a collection of his pieces. He knew every politician and could write better than any journalist.
• 3. Guzano Rojo Mezcal. Tasting this liquor, made from century plants, makes me think of the desert liquefied.
• 4. Dick Francis novels. Francis has written an immense number of adventure novels: Proof , Long Shot , Blood Sport , Banker, and more. They are full of interesting ways of life (often connected with horse-racing), and the protagonist is always a likable guy.
• 5. Desert roads in the Mohave. Go to Randsburg or Johannesburg, and wander around in the desert past old mine shafts and through the desert tortoise country.
• 6. Sopapillas. These are a New Mexico staple--- deep-fried bread, I think--- that I discovered driving across country. They don't serve Mexican food there---it's New Mexican food.
• 7. Richard Kluger. Simple Justice , 823 pages, $20.00, 1975. A history of Brown v. Board of Education and the litigation leading up to it.
• 8. Reader's Digest. Back to Basics: How to Learn and Enjoy Traditional American Skills. $18.87, 1981. A practical guide on how to build a log cabin, bake bread, tan hides, and make brooms, with a mixture of the modern and the colonial.
• 9. James Clavell. Tai-Pan . $6.39,1966. A novel about the founding of Hong Kong that pulls the reader along irresistably. Like Lord of the Rings , it gives you the feeling that the author has five times as much material as he needs and has chosen only the best.
• 10. William Riker. The Art of Political Manipulation $14.00, 152 pages, 1986. A series of political stories of agenda manipulation and rivals forced into corners, interpreted carefully and entertainingly.