Rule Makers, Rule Breakers by Michele Gelfand

Rule Makers, Rule Breakers: How Tight and Loose Cultures Wire Our World by Michele Gelfand
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I read this as part of the GW Alumni Book Club. Although I was familiar with a lot (but definitely not all) of the underlying information in this book, I thought that the particular lens of analysis of the book, “loose” or “tight” social norm and rules, was a really eye-opening way of examining a lot of conflicts- personal, national, and international. I highly recommend this one.

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The Diviners by Libba Bray

The Diviners by Libba Bray
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

While I enjoyed the character of Evie, the plot was pretty played out and boring.

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The Ends of the World by Peter Brannen

The Ends of the World: Supervolcanoes, Lethal Oceans, and the Search for Past Apocalypses by Peter Brannen
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This is the sort of book the fictional Ross Geller would have deeply enjoyed. A lot of this was covered in The Sixth Extinction more briefly and more rivetingly but if you want the ins and outs of prehistoric life (not dinosaurs, all the other life) then this is the book for you.

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When by Daniel H. Pink

When: The Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing by Daniel H. Pink
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

A short book about how timing affects both our personal decisions and business plans. There is definitely some repeat information that most people are aware of already, but the book is so short that it's worth reading to get a sense of the overall psychological impact of timing decisions correctly.

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Election 2020 Reading

To see all the books I read tagged Election 2020 click the link.

Top 10 Democratic Candidates, By Polling:

Joe Biden, 76, Vice President, former Senator from Delaware, read Promises to Keep (also wrote Promise Me, Dad)

Elizabeth Warren, 69, US Senator from Massachusetts, read 1) This Fight is Our Fight, 2) A Fighting Chance, 3) All Your Worth

Bernie Sanders, 77, US Senator from Vermont, read 1) Bernie Sanders Guide to Political Revolution, 2) Our Revolution (also wrote a million more books)

Kamala Harris, 54, US Senator from California, read The Truths We Hold (also wrote Smart on Crime)

Pete Buttigieg, 37, Mayor of South Bend Indiana, read Shortest Way Home

Cory Booker, 50, US Senator from New Jersey, read United

Amy Klobuchar, 58, US Senator from Minnesota, currently reading The Senator Next Door

Julian Castro, 44, Cabinet Member, HUD, Mayor of San Antonio, read An Unlikely Journey

Beto O’Rourke, 46, Congressman from Texas 16th District, (to read Dealing Death and Drugs)

Andrew Yang, 44, founder for Venture for America, (to read The War on Normal People)


Remaining 11 Candidates by Alphabetical Order:
Michael Bennet, 54, US Senator from Colorado, read The Land of Flickering Lights
Bill de Blasio, 58, Mayor of NYC, no book
Steve Bullock, 53, Governor of Montana, (My Name Is Steve Delano Bullock)
John Delaney, 56, Congressman, Maryland 6th District, no book?
Tulsi Gabbard, 38, Congresswomen Hawaii 2nd District, (book coming in 2021, Is Today the Day?)
Kirsten Gillibrand, 52, Senator from New York, read Off the Sidelines
Wayne Messam, 44, Mayor of Miramar, Fl, not in debates, no book
Tim Ryan, 45, Congressman from 16th district, (A Mindful Nation)
Joe Sestak, 67, former Congressman, not in debates, (Walking in Your Shoes to Restore the American Dream)
Tom Steyer, 62, billionaire donor, not in the debates, (Drawdown?)
Marianne Williamson, 66, founder of Project Angel Food and author, lots of books I won’t read

Dropped out:
Mike Gravel, 89, Senator from Alaska (38 years ago), not in the debates, (two books I won't read)
John Hickenlooper, 67, Governor of Colorado, read The Opposite of Woe
Jay Inslee, 68, Governor of Washington, (Apollo’s Fire)
Seth Moulton, 40, Congressman from Massachusetts 6th District, not in debates, (Called to Serve)
Richard Ojeda, 48, former West Virginia state senator
Eric Swalwell, 38, House representative from California's 15th

Republicans 
Donald Trump (R)
Bill Weld (R)
Joe Walsh (R)

Climate Change:
Please drop everything and read: 1) The Uninhabitable Earth: Life After Warming by David Wallace-Wells
2) Green Metropolis by David Owen
3) The Ends of the World by Peter Brannen (currently reading)

Protecting Democracy:
1) Report on the Investigation into Russian Interference in the 2016 Presidential Election by Robert S. Mueller III 
2) Facts and Fears: Hard Truths from a Life in Intelligence by James R. Clapper
3) How Democracies Die: What History Reveals About Our Future by Steven Levitsky
4) Good and Mad: The Revolutionary Power of Women's Anger by Rebecca Traister

American Healthcare:
1) Deadly Spin: An Insurance Company Insider Speaks Out on How Corporate PR Is Killing Health Care and Deceiving Americans by Wendell Potter
2) An American Sickness: How Healthcare Became Big Business and How You Can Take It Back by Elisabeth Rosenthal

Guns: 
1) Parkland: Birth of a Movement by Dave Cullen
2) American Gun by Chris Kyle (currently reading)

The Senator Next Door by Amy Klobuchar

The Senator Next Door: A Memoir from the Heartland by Amy Klobuchar
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Klobuchar is clearly a good person, but wow, I was deeply unimpressed by this book. Nearly 3/4th is just memoir, which speaks of the excessive self-importance shared by candidates like Hickenlooper.

Additionally, I don’t think Klobuchar is part of the modern Democratic Party. There are too many urgent issues in this era, many of them caused by the far right, and it’s my opinion that centrists such as Klobuchar or Biden properly belong in a third party. The Republicans won’t have them, and neither should Democrats.

She seems to lack large vision and is mired in accomplishing little fixes. It wasn’t even clear if she failed to cover her policy in this book or if she’s completely lacking policy. I know she’s “tough on crime” and that she thinks we can’t be isolationists. Other than that, I don’t know too much about her policies after one of the lengthiest candidate’s books. Well, maybe it just felt like the lengthiest.

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Brief Answers to the Big Questions by Stephen Hawking

Brief Answers to the Big Questions by Stephen Hawking
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I enjoyed this collection of Hawking's last essays on "the big questions." But 1) skip all the introductions, 2) I wish scientists stopped opining on the concept of God in general on the basis of science specifically. If Hawking were still alive I'd ask, what if God is hiding in a parallel universe but He can see us perfectly well? What if He's inside a black hole? What if God is in all the particles of dark matter? What if He’s the fabric of space-time? What if He's inside us? What if He's the most important metaphor ever created by man come to life? What if He's any combination of those or even something else entirely? What then, Stephen? What could science have to say about any of that?

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Green Metropolis by David Owen

Green Metropolis: What the City Can Teach the Country About True Sustainability by David Owen
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Full of good interesting points, not a lot of things we can apply outside a large policy-level scale. Also, he completely ignores how climate change is likely to wipe out large coastal cities like New York.

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My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Ottessa Moshfegh

My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Ottessa Moshfegh
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Floored.

This is wonderful writing with such complete and real characters, relationships, palpable despair, sublimated feminist rage, an empty unmoored society, all of which are still very much recognizable today even though this book takes place in 2000. The only difference now is maybe that feminist rage is less sublimated now.

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The Uninhabitable Earth by David Wallace-Wells

The Uninhabitable Earth: Life After Warming by David Wallace-Wells
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I really want everyone to stop whatever they're doing and read this book. After reading this book, climate change now overshadows all my other concerns. It is worse than I thought, and of course, I knew it was already currently happening but he compiles the data on current natural disasters in a way that clearly separates them from previous weather events.

I moved to Nebraska a year ago. Nebraska is not even mentioned in the book. And yet, we have what are apparently new permanent bodies of water since the flooding events that have occurred since I moved here a year ago. They look like lakes or little rivers and they've survived even our record-breaking hot summer. There were multiple floods in the Spring, and the flooding in March cost over a billion in damages, a lot of which I think has not actually been repaired. See: https://www.npr.org/2019/03/21/705408364/nebraska-faces-over-1-3-billion-in-flood-losses. The book was already out by then, but I bet we still wouldn't have made it into the book because so many more damaging weather events are occurring all the time now.



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The Land of Flickering Lights by Michael Bennet

The Land of Flickering Lights: Restoring America in an Age of Broken Politics by Michael Bennet
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Bennett was hardly on my radar for the presidential candidates for the 2020 election but he has my attention now. I appreciate that he’s both reasonable and angry though possibly that’s the prerogative of white men running and not for the other candidates as much. This is a policy book more than a memoir which is the kind I find most useful going into the primaries. I recommend it to both Democrats trying to pick their candidates and Republicans trying to figure out why Democrats are Democrats. (Still voting Warren but Bennett is a solid candidate.)

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The Sum of Small Things by Elizabeth Currid-Halkett

The Sum of Small Things: A Theory of the Aspirational Class by Elizabeth Currid-Halkett
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Oh, this made me laugh. I know these people, some of them live in my house. Not sure what we're supposed to do about it though.

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Blackbird House by Alice Hoffman

Blackbird House by Alice Hoffman
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is a collection of short stories interlinked by families and houses on Cape Cod. I really enjoyed this collection and it was beautifully written. It’s very rare that I fall in love with characters this quickly. I'm not likely to forget Violet or the people she loved any time soon. I’m very interested in reading more by this author.

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Number9Dream by David Mitchell

Number9Dream by David Mitchell
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

I reserve “1 star” for books that are a net negative to the world. But I thought this book was a hot mess. I didn’t enjoy it at all, I thought it was unnecessarily confusing, meandering, and pointless.

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An Unlikely Journey by Julian Castro

An Unlikely Journey: Waking Up from My American Dream by Julian Castro
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This is entirely a memoir and has no policy whatsoever. As a memoir, it’s cute, but it entirely skips his winning election for Mayor, and his time as Mayor, which is the period of time he is best known for. Additionally, that period of time is the time when he started developing a relationship with President Obama which ultimately led to his position on the cabinet for HUD.

I was pleasantly surprised by the HUD program to help homeless veterans pay for housing that was able to give vouchers to every homeless veteran that qualified and wanted help. Impressive work.

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The Theory of the Leisure Class

The Theory of the Leisure Class by Thorstein Veblen
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

An important economic classic for bringing a new perspective to the cultural value of the consumption of items, but also of conspicuous leisure. Definitely interesting but very academic in tone.

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United by Cory Booker

United: Thoughts on Finding Common Ground and Advancing the Common Good by Cory Booker
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Cory Booker isn’t my favorite candidate for the Democratic nomination but I was pleasantly surprised by his memoir. After reading this, he’s moved way up my rankings. The memoir dealt with some but not all of my policy concerns: poverty and the prison-industrial complex. He only briefly touched on environmental issues. I would have preferred a more comprehensive explanation of his policy perspectives.

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Nevertheless, We Persisted by Amy Klobuchar, et al.

Nevertheless, We Persisted: 48 Voices of Defiance, Strength, and Courage by Amy Klobuchar
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

The title of this book strikes me as opportunistic capitalizing on a phrase that was popularized by Senator Warren’s political dedication. It’s an essay collection by various authors with an introduction by Senator Amy Klobuchar... and no essay by Warren. This collection is all over the place. Some of the essays are related to issues of political oppression or representation and overcoming challenges. Some of the essays seem only tangentially related to the theme. More importantly, some of the essays are poorly written and poorly edited- full of self-help-style cliches and positive magical thinking. This collection is fine if you want a gift for a young person but I’d advise you to skip it if you’re an adult.

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A Thousand Acres by Jane Smiley

A Thousand Acres by Jane Smiley
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Great plotting, great sentences, and (unlike some of the other readers) I did feel for Ginny and Rose. I was surprised that this novel about feminine rage was written and acknowledged in the 1990s, though of course, everything we're talking about now in the #metoo is a great deal older that. But it was the palpable anger that seemed different than a lot of other novels I've read, giving it a completely different aspect, which feels very modern now. We all know Larry Cooks now, even if we don't always know their secrets. One thing which makes me unable to properly view this book though is that it's based on King Lear and I haven't read King Lear yet, so that's my next task.

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Deadly Spin by Wendell Potter

Deadly Spin: An Insurance Company Insider Speaks Out on How Corporate PR Is Killing Health Care and Deceiving Americans by Wendell Potter
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Every American should read this as soon as possible. It's a tell-all by a health care insurance insider. Reading this book is critical to understanding, and not just the health care debate taking place in this country right now, but many of the political debates we're all wallowing in.

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The Invention of Childhood by Hugh Cunningham

The Invention of Childhood by Hugh Cunningham
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This is specifically a history of childhood in Great Britain. It's interesting but not as interesting as a larger examination of childhood throughout the world and throughout history. You can't draw any specific or scientific conclusions from the book. It serves more as entertainment than a book to clarify your thinking on the topic of childhood. I also thought the writer was a little overly-casual about the instances of child sexual abuse he covered.

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The Big Money by John Dos Passos

The Big Money by John Dos Passos
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

I'm not sure why I continued with the trilogy when I wasn't especially impressed with the first two books. I found them historically interesting mostly. I wasn't riveted by the writing.

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The Dance of Intimacy by Harriet Lerner

The Dance of Intimacy: A Woman's Guide to Courageous Acts of Change in Key Relationships by Harriet Lerner
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I read this because I read Dance of Anger which was good. I thought this one would be on a slightly different topic of intimate connections with romantic relationships but it wasn’t. It was the same as Dance of Anger about tensions with family members in general. It was good, but I think Dance of Anger was better.

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The Houseguest by Kim Brooks

The Houseguest by Kim Brooks
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This novel is full of beautiful writing. I'm looking forward to whatever Brooks writes next.

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The Opposite of Woe by John Hickenlooper

The Opposite of Woe: My Life in Beer and Politics by John Hickenlooper
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

First of all, this book is too long, so right off the bat, you get the impression that Hickenlooper thinks too much of his importance. I read short books and super long books, but I can forgive a lot of writing gaffes if you manage not to waste my time. On the flip side, if your book is a tome, I expect you to provide Anna Karenina-levels of spiritual fulfillment. Don't get me wrong, I also thought Bill Clinton's My Life and Ron Chernow's Grant were too long at twice the length and twice the political importance of this.

Why is it so long? The first 60% of the book focuses on Hickenlooper's early foibles and every woman he ever dated. Some of this background is important so that we can see why he became the type of leader he became, but certainly, not most of it. In defense of this section though, Hickenlooper can be very very funny.

The remaining 40% is the important part, but by that time I'd lost a lot of interest and focus. Considering that Hickenlooper is running for President just 3 years after the publication of this book, there was a noticeable lack of overall policy. Rather, he recounted his process and decisions along the way. While I appreciate that his process is facts-based, as that seems to be lacking in governance these days (though especially in Republican governance), quite often, his fact-gathering was insufficiently comprehensive. Other times he emphasized public opinion over fact-gathering, making for somewhat inconsistent results. For example, I thought his explanation and support for fracking seemed to be lacking in any views inconsistent with the limited facts he'd gathered as an insider in the industry. Okay, he drank some fracking fluid that a government agency said was technically safe for drinking, congratulations. But just off the top of my head, here are some things he failed to investigate or mention: 1) how comprehensive are these government requirements when corporations and conservatives constantly lobby to loosen or remove envirnmental regulations? 2) safe for whom? testing on pregnant women and children is not allowed and at best are a guess. I didn't even take a single Tylenol when I was pregnant, do you honestly think pregnant women drinking fracking fluid is safe when it's not even tested? But this is just one example of his lack of rigorous thinking which stood out mainly because of his constant self-congratulation on his rigorous thinking. Don't get me wrong, he's still 100% better than Trump for the leader of the free world, but that appears to be true also of most people I know.

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Off the Sidelines by Kirsten Gillibrand

Off the Sidelines: Raise Your Voice, Change the World by Kirsten Gillibrand
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I read this because Gillibrand is one of the 2020 Presidential candidates. Unfortunately, this isn’t a policy book; it’s part memoir and part resume of her legislative pursuits on behalf of New York. That said, I think it’s difficult to be a woman/mother in my age-group and not be delighted by Gillibrand’s personality. She’s funny and very relatable and to the extent that she mentions her current policies, which is not very much, I’m in agreement with her positions.

On the other hand, she tried to address one of my central concerns about her, her House gun record, but I don’t think she did so persuasively enough.

She’s not my preferred candidate, and she’s not currently polling well. Nonetheless, if by some miracle she became the Democratic nominee, I’d be pleased to vote for her.

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White Noise by Don DeLillo

White Noise by Don DeLillo
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is an actually funny satire, that's also interesting and true. I'm very hard to please on the humor front, and I still didn't laugh out loud, but I found myself smirking and smiling a lot as I read along. I really enjoyed the exploration of how people do or don't conceptualize death.

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Runaway by Alice Munro

Runaway by Alice Munro
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Great writing, but I didn't find myself passionately loving any of these short stories the way I sometimes love stories.

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