Shattered by Jonathan Allen, Amie Parnes

Shattered: Inside Hillary Clinton's Doomed Campaign by Jonathan Allen, Amie Parnes
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Even though I witnessed most of these events- I was an election junkie and watched all the debates and read all the articles- I was still captivated by this fairly straightforward account. The authors got all of the information for the book "on background" during the election in exchange for not going public until after the election. The writers do a great job of giving everyone and everything that happened a lot of life and movement. I think this book will be especially helpful as a historical account one day. Because honestly, no one will be able to understand how this horror happened unless we get it down clearly now.

It's a pretty good campaign playbook complete with dos and don'ts, though the authors put a lot of blame on Robert E. Mook, campaign manager for Hillary Clinton's 2016 presidential campaign, who relied a lot on "analytics." It also places blame on Hillary, Bill, Senator Bernie Sanders, and former FBI Director James Comey.

This book mentions but does not really examine the Russian involvement which seems like a huge oversight when the numbers were in tight in numerous states and the Russian advertisement was targeted at precisely the people who did vote for Trump. Nor does it talk about the two third-party candidates who also drained votes. But that's just not what this book about. This is fairly solidly about what Democrats did wrong, not what others contributed to this mess.

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Fire and Fury by Michael Wolff

Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House by Michael Wolff


I'm not going to give this a star rating for the time being. I'm just going to share my thoughts for now.

For me, the first question is how do I know anything in this book is true? Well, the most convincing thing is that there isn't a lot of "new" information in this book so much as there is a more complete picture based on behind-the-scenes information from inside sources. A lot of what is in this book has been public information in terms of Trump speeches, interviews, and tweets. The author himself was given White House access and claims to have been there for a lot of the events. About a half of the book is information and impressions that must have been provided by Bannon. Bannon's information appears colored by his dislike of Jared and Ivanka Kushner but does not appear otherwise significantly biased. (By which I mean that Bannon is pretty open about the ways in which he's evil, and isn't too bothered about it.) Jared Kushner himself leaked a great deal of information which seems to be in play in the book as well-- especially trash talk about Bannon. That leaves very little which I have any reason to doubt. Perhaps there isn't any good reason to believe the details of Trump's relationship with Melania, but that appears to be it.

Even though there's not a lot of new or shocking information, I think the book's full narrative of events is useful. For example, before reading this book, I kept thinking that maybe Donald Trump was "crazy like a fox." But after reading this, my impression is that he's just really ignorant (more than I thought) and even less curious about reality than I thought he was. He seems to believe he can just invent his own reality and buys into it to a certain degree. All of this is puzzling and troubling and definitely gives different coloring to how I view recent political events.

The conclusion is that Trump is unfit to be president according to his own advisors. Additionally, his advisors are unable to educate him or restrain him in any meaningful way. He is inconsistent and has poor impulse control. The "fire and fury" quote which the title uses is from Trump's threats to North Korea, but the book ends before the bulk of his North Korea threats. The whole world is at danger from this presidency and everyone knows it, but the people with the power to do anything about it, Senate Republicans, refuse to do anything.

PS: The Prologue and Chapter 1 aren't written as well as the rest of the book. If you find the beginning annoying you might want to reserve judgment until Chapter 2.

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Team of Rivals by Doris Kearns Goodwin

Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln by Doris Kearns Goodwin
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Really interesting, but too long. I saw lots of places it could have been edited down. (Though it's not really 900 pages. It's about 750 pages, plus about 150 pages of index.)

The abolitionists are the heroes of this book, and of American history. I didn't know much about Secretary of State William Seward or Secretary of Treasury Salmon Chase previous to reading about them about here. My favorite parts were the meetings with Douglass Frederick. I have read Frederick's Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass and My Escape from Slavery but I didn't know about these amazing meetings with Lincoln. I'm glad I read his autobiography first, because then when I read about the meetings, I could more fully grasp their significance. These meetings are probably the happiest parts of the book.

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John Adams by David McCullough

John Adams by David McCullough
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I love this book, the author, and the subjects John Adams and his wife Abigail. It might have benefited from a little editing for greater brevity but otherwise a perfect book. My favorite parts were all the beautiful quotes about morality from Adam's personal journals.

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A Call to Action by Jimmy Carter

A Call to Action: Women, Religion, Violence, and Power by Jimmy Carter
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

How wonderful is it that former President Jimmy Carter wrote a book about feminism? He's the best, and I love him.

The book is sometimes difficult to read because terrible things are happening to women on a daily basis in both in the US and abroad, and Carter isn't shy about going into great detail in his anecdotes (with statistics to back up the larger points he is making).

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My Life by Bill Clinton

My Life by Bill Clinton
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I feel like I should throw myself a party for finally reading this book- in its entirety- after owning it since July of 2004. Over 12 years!

This is a very in-depth autobiography/ memoir of Bill Clinton's life from birth to 2001. At first, I was frustrated that it appeared to mention everyone he ever met and every policy he ever implemented. As I gave in to the detailed nature of the book though I began to appreciate the opportunity of seeing a president's entire story. It was also a good opportunity to relive the important events of 1992-2000 when I was mostly too young to fully appreciate them.

I went to the book signing on July 7, 2004:



You had to go twice, the first time for a bracelet and the second time for the signing. This is me and my friend Julie in 2004 with our copy and our bracelets for the signing.



My copy :



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41: A Portrait of My Father by George W. Bush

41: A Portrait of My Father by George W. Bush
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I loved this book. Former President George W. Bush writes a biography of his father former President George H. W. Bush. I'm a liberal and so I don't think all the interpretations of events are precisely accurate, but I moved by the way George H. W. Bush lived his life in public and in private. I am also impressed by his accomplishments. This is both a celebration of George H. W. Bush specifically and American values and democracy generally. Over and over again, W talks about H.W.'s efforts to reach out to political opponents at home and abroad. As a result, he developed some of the surprising friendships, including with the Clintons and Obamas.

This is also an amazing palate cleanser for everyone suffering through the current election.

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Dreams from My Father by Barack Obama

Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance by Barack Obama
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I loved this memoir. The title is a bit of a misnomer. It should be something like "Dreams of My Family." So interesting to hear about the President's extremely diverse family and how they all interacted. I didn't know that much about his family before. I feel like I got a better sense of who Barack Obama is, in his own words, but since it was written before he ran for Senate there's something very open, revealing, and non-political about how he talks about his experiences and family.

My only criticism is that this book does not contain nearly enough Michelle.

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Profiles in Courage by John F. Kennedy

Profiles in Courage by John F. Kennedy
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

What is the point of this book? I think the point is that these politicians were courageous in opposing their political parties for what they perceived to be the best for "the union." But I'm not actually totally clear on the thesis. It was not about voting your conscience because the second story is about abolitionist Daniel Webster sacrificing his abolitionist beliefs to keep the union together and out of what would be the Civil War for what turned out to be only a decade. This is courage? This seems like the worst possible racism and cowardice to my modern scruples.

I can't even handle discussing Taft's opposition to the Nuremberg Trials. This is a "courage" example.

This book gives no background into the history of how the Constitution was set up with the expectation that politicians would stand up for their conscience above their political parties and wrote in a number of measures to help them do so- such as by not logging the name of the voter.

Finally, even though the book is short, the middle of the book is painfully boring.

I love John F. Kennedy, and I read that Ted Sorenson mostly wrote this book, but that's no excuse. I assume he read this before he put his name on it. I don't understand why this won a Pulitzer.

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