2008, The Good Fight: Hard Lessons from Searchlight to Washington. By Harry Reid with Mark Warren. (ISBN: 039915499X )

Book Description: Putnam Pub Group, New York, 2008. First Edition Thus, number line on copyright page reads 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1. Blue Hard Cover Boards and Spine with Gold Text. This is a First Edition remainder book which is new and never used. 291 pages, B&W photos, 6.25" x 9.375" tall, 1." thick. New copy - Never read - Not price clipped. Beautiful copy of book and dust jacket. COLLECTOR'S COPY.

Book Condition: Brand New.

Dust Jacket Condition: Brand New. NON price-clipped DJ [$25.95 US].

About This Book: One of the remarkable books of this season— a tough, plainspoken, deeply passionate narrative by one of our most important national figures.

We all know them: politicians’ books that read as if they’ve been cobbled together from old speeches. The Good Fight is as far from that as it is possible to get.

In a voice that is flinty, real, and passion-filled, Senator Harry Reid tells the tale of two places, intertwining his own story, particularly his early life of deep poverty in the tiny mining town of Searchlight, Nevada—“a place that boasted of thirteen brothels and no churches”—with the cautionary tale of Washington, D.C.: “If I can do nothing greater in this book than explain those two places to each other, then I will have done something important."

Reid is inspired by obstacles. Brought up in a cabin without indoor plumbing, he hitchhiked forty-five miles across open desert to high school. He worked full-time as a Capitol Hill policeman to get through law school, after the school refused him financial aid, telling him he wasn’t cut out to be a lawyer. As head of the Nevada Gaming Commission, he led an unrelenting fight to clean up Las Vegas, despite four years of death threats —and much worse. And in Congress, Reid’s spent more than twenty-five years battling those who would take the country in the wrong direction: “The radical ideologues degrade our government, so much so that when they are in charge of it, they do not know how to run it."

And, always, it all comes back to Searchlight: “Who I am now, and what I am doing now, began in that town, with those people, in those mines.” This book is the story of a man who knows what a good fight is, because he has had to fight like hell for everything his whole life. It is populated by a rich and raucous cast of great and failed men, eccentrics, visionaries, gangsters, and presidents who make up his life and times. And it is for all those who not only like a good story, but wonder what we should do now in America.

Synopsis: The Senate Majority Leader presents a narrative tale of Washington politics interspersed with the story of his own life, during which he describes his impoverished rural childhood, his dangerous stint at the head of Nevada's Gaming Commission, and his decades in Congress.

About The Author: Harry Mason Reid (born December 2, 1939) is the senior United States Senator from Nevada, serving since 1987. A member of the Democratic Party, he has been the Senate Majority Leader since January 2007, having previously served as Minority Leader and Minority and Majority Whip.

Previously, Reid was a member of the U.S. House of Representatives, representing Nevada's 1st congressional district, and served in Nevada local and state government as city attorney of Henderson, a state legislator, Lieutenant Governor, and chairman of the Nevada Gaming Commission.

Early life: Reid was born in Searchlight, Nevada, the third of the four sons of Inez Orena Jaynes, a laundress, and Harry Vincent Reid, a miner. His paternal grandmother was an Englishwoman immigrant from Darlston, Staffordshire. Reid's boyhood home had no indoor toilet, hot water or telephone. Searchlight had no high school, so Reid boarded with relatives 40 miles away in Henderson, Nevada to attend Basic High School where he played football, and was an amateur boxer. While at Basic High he met future Nevada governor Mike O'Callaghan, who was a teacher there. Reid attended Southern Utah University and graduated from Utah State University. He then went to George Washington University Law School earning a J.D. while working for the United States Capitol Police.

Family and personal life: In 1959, Reid married his high school sweetheart, Landra Gould. They have five children, a daughter and four sons. Their eldest son, Rory Reid, is an elected Commissioner for Clark County, Nevada, and 2010 Democratic nominee in the election for Governor of Nevada. Another son recently ran for municipal office in Cottonwood Heights, Utah.

Reid (who was raised agnostic) and his wife (who was born to Jewish immigrant parents and grew up in Henderson), converted to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (the Mormon or LDS Church) while Reid was a college student. In a 2001 interview he said, "I think it is much easier to be a good member of the Church and a Democrat than a good member of the Church and a Republican." He went on to say that the Democrats' emphasis on helping others, as opposed to what he considers Republican dogma to the contrary, is the reason he's a Democrat. He delivered a speech at Brigham Young University to about 20,000 students on October 9, 2007, in which he expressed his opinion that Democratic values mirror Mormon values. Several Republican Mormons in Utah have contested his faith because of his politics, such as his statements that the church's backing of California's Proposition 8 wasted resources.

Source: Read more at Wikipedia.