It Was All A Lie, Stuart Stevens

 

It Was All A Lie: How the republican party became Donald Trump by Stuart Stevens is another book about Republicans.

Started: 10/12/2020
Completed: 10/13/2020
Recommendation: Mild Recommendation
Recommended By:  My wife

Review:

This is a book written by a conservative for conservatives.  As such, some of the positions assumed made me queasy.  Having said that, however, it is an interesting insight into how Republicans have moved away from a party of principal and become a party of power.  Some of the history of the modern conservative movement was new to me and did not focus on things like the Heritage Foundation and the Koch brothers as so many others have.  It did spend a lot of time on Nixon's "Southern Strategy" and basically made the argument that the party has skewed to the party of white people (a diminishing demographic).  There is little doubt that things like the Lincoln Project (the author is part of that effort) and Principals First will try to bring the Republican party back to fundamental principals and this author is surely making that effort.  I wonder if it will work.  Being able to use "alternative facts" (because facts have a liberal bias as Stephen Colbert says) is heady and frees the Republicans from reality, but it also untethers them from reality.  I would rather have a constructive dialog with someone argues from facts instead of someone yelling how great their candidate is.

The Space Between Worlds, Micaiah Johnson

 

The Space Between Worlds by Micaiah Johnson is a book about understanding the multiverse.

Started: 10/10/2020
Completed: 10/12/2020
Recommendation: Recommended
Recommended By: Nobody

Review:

This is a nice angle on the multiverse.  There is a good explanation for not being in two worlds at once and an interesting approach to moving between worlds.  There is a little romance on the side that is pretty clear and there is lots of abuse to explore.  This is a rich novel with a lot of different ways of experiencing the same story.  The superstition and the science mesh nicely as good alternate explanations.

Twilight of Democracy, Anne Applebaum

 

Twilight of Democracy: The seductive lure of authoritarianism by Anne Applebaum is a book reviewed in The Atlantic.  Of course, it is more about the risk of Trump.

Started: 10/7/2020
Completed: 10/10/2020
Recommendation: Recommended
Recommended By: The Atlantic

Review:

How can he think that?  This question comes to my mind most times I hear Trump speak.  The platitudes, the vicious attacks, the simplistic thinking from him nearly drives me crazy.  "It turns out it was a lot more complicated then I thought" is the phrase that always follows once he drives down some ridiculous path ("just replace Obamacare with something better").  This book addresses that.  There are people who are comfortable with complexity and people who are comfortable with simplicity.  Trump is a simplistic thinker who has managed to change his past to maintain his simplistic thinking.  The reason he turns everything chaotic is because the thinking is so remarkably black and white and he is comfortable changing on a dime from one simple approach to another.  Applebaum argues that this black and white thinking leads to authoritarianism and as the convoluted speech of Jefferson, Franklin, and Adams demonstrate, the founders were comfortable with complexity.  Oh.

Conditional Citizens, Laila Lalami

 

Conditional Citizens by Laila Lalami is a book reviewed in the New York Times.  It seemed like a good book to read about immigrants.

Started: 10/7/2020
Completed: 10/7/2020
Recommendation: Highly Recommended
Recommended By: Nobody

Review:

This book is mostly about personal experience (with some good statistics thrown in to suggest that the personal experience in many cases is typical).  The value is high.  The particular examples are useful to identify casual insults, casual disregard, and intended attacks on those who are citizens, but not treated as equals.  I like this book because of the diversity that is built into the author, her family, and her community.  Lalami is insightful, she carefully surrounds her point with analysis from diverse points of view.  The hollow voices on the periphery (and sometimes at the center) demonstrate their ignorance as Lalami does her best to be understanding, to be considerate, and to wonder how someone could think that the bizarre position held is somehow reasonable.  I love this kind of careful analysis.

Benjamin Franklin, Walter Isaacson

 

Benjamin Franklin: An American life by Walter Isaacson caught my eye as I was looking for a different book on Franklin.

Started: 10/4/2020
Completed: 10/6/2020
Recommendation: Mild Recommendation
Recommended By: Nobody

Review:

I have read an early Franklin biography (I typed it into Project Gutenberg).  I learned things from this biography that the previous simply omitted.  This biography, however, remains an homage to Franklin.  There is nothing wrong with that, but it obscures the individual.  I was interested to learn about his first son and the complications that came with it.  It seems to me that an entire book could reasonably be written on that topic and not explore it fully.  I was disappointed with the author taking Franklin's position with regard to John Adams, whom I deeply respect.  It certainly affected my view of the biography and, no doubt, leaves me an unfair reviewer.

Rage, Bob Woodward

 

Rage by Bob Woodward is the source of outrageous statements of a new and different kind.

Started: 10/2/2020
Completed: 10/4/2020
Recommendation: Mild Recommendation
Recommended By: Everyone

Review:

This is good reporting.  It ties together perspective on current events in near real time.  It is unsettling to hear Trump talk about his own actions.  It brings together, in my opinion, what it must be like to talk to Trump about direction.  It seems that things go back and forth...that he generates a sense of how critical his own decision making in in retrospective.  He is uncomfortable with sharing credit.  He seems to have a set of internal talking points (things like his position in the poles, the state of the economy, etc.)  He does say things at points that make sense--things that surprised me.  In general, however, the surprise is that his opinion was so normal.  For the most part, however, his opinions vary over time and seem to be whatever clicks as an internal "best bet." His bottom line is money.  Always money.  Everything comes back to money.

Evil Geniuses, Kurt Andersen

 

Evil Geniuses:  The unmaking of America, a recent history by Kurt Andersen is a look at how robber barons returned to the USA and how to move forward.

Started: 9/26/2020
Completed: 10/2/2020
Recommendation: Highly Recommended
Recommended By: Nobody

Review:

Andersen is brilliant.  His ability to do thorough research and then bring the vast knowledge he acquires to bear on a single topic is truly impressive.  He views the issues through many lenses although his focus is how the USA has become afraid of the new.  The United States used to wrap its arms around newness and wring as much from it as possible.  The conservative (and more the libertarian) movement has quashed the desire to embrace the new and Andersen shows why and how this happened.  There is no doubt that we need to move away from socialism for the rich and brutal capitalism for the rest.  We need a way to share the wealth that all of the United States generates with all of the United States.