Book Review: Playing with Fire: The 1968 Election and the Transformation of American Politics by Lawrence O’Donnell
I’ve never read a more intense political history book than Playing with Fire by Lawrence O’Donnell. The subtitle tells it all, and yet doesn’t touch the events’ complexity: The 1968 Election and the Transformation of American Politics. Considering it was the bizarre...Book Review: Beyond the Messy Truth: How We Came Part, How We Come Together by Van Jones
On Election Night 2016, Van Jones said something on CNN that I’ll never forget—it was a Messy Truth. This book expands on those thoughts about Republicans, Democrats, red states, blue states, and whether we’ll ever learn how to be purple. Jones shares his personal...Book Review: What Unites Us: Reflections on Patriotism by Dan Rather & Elliot Kirschner
Dan Rather’s What Unites Us is a book of consummate steadiness in a world rolling among considerable waves. As a child of the 1960s, it was Rather whose voice I heard during my childhood and early adulthood. We always turned on the television news after dinner, and...Book Review: Hacks: The Inside Story of the Break-ins and Breakdowns That Put Donald Trump in the White House by Donna Brazile
Donna Brazile’s memoir / political history book, Hacks: The Inside Story of the Break-ins and Breakdowns That Put Donald Trump in the White House, offers a relevant perspective on the 2016 election cycle. Given her decades of political experience, Brazile writes with...Book Review: Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House by Michael Wolff
Michael Wolff’s book Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House is that accident you just have to rubberneck. Wolff begins the book by saying he strove to be a “fly on the wall” in the White House during nearly the entire first year of Trump’s presidency. While I...Book Review: The Gatekeepers: How the White House Chiefs of Staff Define Every Presidency by Chris Whipple
As I was reading Chris Whipple’s book, The Gatekeepers, I couldn’t help but notice how much access he had to the group of 17 White House Chiefs of Staff since Nixon’s H.R. Haldeman. Then I learned that the book was the byproduct of a documentary series on Discovery....Book Review: We Were Eight Years in Power: An American Tragedy by Ta-Nehisi Coates
To say Ta-Nehisi Coates covers a lot of ground in We Were Eight Years in Power is a true understatement. This book has done more to explain to me the state of the U.S. today than several of the other books I’ve read since the election combined. Coates reaches...Book Review: What Happened by Hillary Rodham Clinton
What Happened, Hillary Rodham Clinton’s exposition on the election cycle of 2016 proves her to be a great political thinker. That she’ll not also be a great political leader is the result of many things, and she willingly takes personal responsibility...Book Review: Who Thought This Was a Good Idea? By Alyssa Mastromonaco
Alyssa Mastromonaco’s memoir of her political career, including her time in the Obama White House, is funny, inspiring, and vulnerable. When I bought it, I was wishing for a reminder of what made Obama’s presidency exemplary. I really had no idea tampon...Book Review: Al Franken, Giant of the Senate
I bought Al Franken, Giant of the Senate after binge-watching the latest season of House of Cards. And, of course, during all the shenanigans created by the 45th President’s administration and family. I needed to feel something other than horror about politics....Book Review: On Tyranny by Timothy Snyder
On Tyranny shook me. It’s supposed to do that. Timothy Snyder offers 20 concrete actions to take that can resist tyrannical behavior. Some of the actions he recommends are internal – such as believe in truth. However, he also takes that thought process and...Book Review: Night by Elie Wiesel
Night is devastating. There’s no better way to describe it. Reading Elie Wiesel’s first-hand account of the Holocaust is deeply emotional. Despite it being one man’s story, the scale of moving thousands of people in trains comes alive. (Of course,...Currently reading
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