Spent a chunk of the weekend reading a new book on the 2008 presidential election written by John Heilemann and Mark Halperin, “Game Change: Obama and the Clintons, McCain and Palin, and the Race of a Lifetime.”

The Atlantic Monthly summarized the book this way: Political scientists aren’t going to like this book, because it portrays politics as it is actually lived by the candidates, their staff and the press, which is to say — a messy, sweaty, ugly, arduous competition between flawed human beings — a universe away from numbers and probabilities and theories.

It certainly is a little different than the “Making of the President “books made famous by Theodore White, but it’s an interesting read. (Neither John nor Elizabeth Edwards come off as very likable people.) The New York Times offers this review and New York magazine has these excerpts.