Book Review: From the Corner of the Oval by Beck Dorey-Stein
Beck Dorey-Stein is a charming and funny young woman, as is her book, From the Corner of the Oval. The day after I finished her book, I met Beck at the Harrisburg Book Festival. She joined former speechwriter and fellow author David Litt on the stage, while they...Book Review: Everything You Love Will Burn: Inside the Rebirth of White Nationalism in America by Vegas Tenold
Everything You Love Will Burn: Inside the Rebirth of White Nationalism in America by Norwegian journalist Vegas Tenold is not light reading. It’s a book that I started while also knowing it would be upsetting. But I can’t walk away from these topics, or allow myself...Book Reviews: Four Short Audiobooks
I love a good, immersive audiobook experience. The longer the better. But recently, my attention span took a deep dive. Call it the challenges of everyday life. Nothing especially dramatic was going on, I just couldn’t face my normal length audiobook. Go figure. Thus,...Book Review: Russian Roulette: The Inside Story of Putin’s War on America and the Election of Donald Trump by Michael Isikoff and David Corn
Veteran reporters David Corn and Michael Isikoff present solid, meticulous reporting in Russian Roulette. They tell the story of Donald Trump’s myriad connections to Russia, both before and during the 2016 election cycle. They integrate this into the Russian...Book Review: A Very Expensive Poison by Luke Harding
Luke Harding takes us back to London of 2006 with his fascinating review of the death of Alexander Litvinenko via A Very Expensive Poison. The book covers about ten years of not just murder investigation but Russian internal and international politics. Harding’s bona...Book Review: A Higher Loyalty by James Comey
Former FBI Director James Comey tells his side of the story in A Higher Loyalty. Plus, he details the big cases that he was part of before the whole Trump White House debacle. He’s a surprisingly good writer, and I enjoyed this book. In addition to the investigations,...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...
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