No, Glenn Beck isn’t as crazy as some critiques quoting one of his many characters would make you believe, but whenever someone writes or speaks about politics, it’s impossible to avoid contradictions and Glenn Beck is no exception in “An Inconvenient Book”. The book is funny (in a fat man running around in a inflatable duck raft way) and interesting (in a “I just had that idea the other day, but hey, Beck’s pretty darn good at voicing it” way) and the author delves fearlessly into ideas that are either on the front burner in American society or should be.

First, the contradictions. The most notable inconsistency is Beck’s relationship with government. First it should be small; then government regulation is necessary for checks and balances; then the author’s a free-market capitalist; then we need to issue licenses for people to have children (yes, I know that was a joke–maybe). The thing is it’s very difficult to write an entire book about small government–it really only needs to be one sentence: government should protect rights and do NOTHING more. So, in order to be entertaining and talk about politics, regulations have to creep in–regulations like commerce laws, immigration laws, and rules about what religious practices people should follow in school. All of these sentiments about keeping America sovereign, keeping immigration legal, and stemming Islamofascism are echoed constantly in the minds of most of Americans daily, but regulation by a more-powerful government isn’t the solution.

Now, on to the goods. Glenn Beck is funny and he has some very interesting perspective. The story about his alcoholism and his “cure” was moving and poignant; his thoughts on polling and statistics were enlightening; and his view of the world population trends was fascinating (though a tad sensationalist). He also makes some very good points about one of his focal points, global warming. If humans are to blame for the climate change and the consequences are as dire as Al Gore insists, why not do some serious good instead of driving a Prius? Beck doesn’t offer real solutions to clean the air, but there are real solutions out there: they would surely involve moving to nuclear power from coal and developing hydrogen fuel cells for mobile transportation.

Fresh off a reading of “Microtrends”, a book with a similar scope but written by someone who shares very little political views with Beck, “An Inconvenient Book” stands out as wildly more partisan, but it is wildly more entertaining.