Reply #29: It was

[Emit]

and it is an odd choice of books for Bush. I wonder if it was on his required reading list? Albert Camus is an intriguing historical figure -- existentialist, absurdist, political activist and resister against the elitist establishment, rejector of totalitarianism...a pied-noir who sympathized with Algerian Muslims, yet rejected Algerian Muslim nationalism -- pretty heavy for Bush.

Maybe he's been told to try to get into the mind of the opposition?

As far as the specific book, though, as I recall, in The Stranger, more emphasis was placed on the main character's refusal in the end to seek Christian forgiveness or to accept God (and his lack of appropriate love or mourning for his mother following her death was central, too), than on the crime of killing an Arab (wasn't his lawyer frustrated that he wouldn't fabricate an excuse for killing an Arab -- something that, at the time, would've been a simple thing to gain the sympathy of the courts?).

For some reason, I am thinking of the movie with Mimi Rogers called The Rapture. Ever seen it?

Anyway, apparently the other books on Bush's summer reading list included "two books on Civil War President Abraham Lincoln..."

http://www.abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory?id=2307529