Recommended reading -- for punks

I snagged a promo copy of Rise Against's 2006 album "The Sufferer and the Witness" at a recent Californian "sale for charity" (we sell promotional items that companies to the newspaper and donate the proceeds to a local charity). 

I loved Rise Against's fury and intelligence whenever I heard them on XM but I never pulled the trigger on buying a full album. So getting "The Sufferer" for $3 and benefiting a good cause was a no-brainer. 

I'm still wading through all the music (a video of "The Good Left Undone" from the album is above) but I was struck by something I caught at the tail end of the liner notes: recommended reading from the band.  

Halloa?

So, check out Rise's Against's recommended reading list:

• "Brave New World" by Aldous Huxley
• "People's History of the United States of America" by Howard Zinn
• "The Fountainhead" by Ayn Rand 
• "Lies My Teacher Told Me" by James W. Loewen
• "Slaughterhouse-Five" by Kurt Vonnegut 
• "Ishmael" by Daniel Quinn

One might argue with the politics of those choices -- the band is named Rise Against, after all -- but isn't it nice to see a band promoting reading and intelligent thought instead of simply rattling off thanks to friends and equipment suppliers?