Melania and Me by Stephanie Winston Wolkoff

Melania and Me: The Rise and Fall of My Friendship with the First Lady by Stephanie Winston Wolkoff
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This is a good primer on what happens when you try to befriend the devil or the devil's "sweet" wife. But this doesn't just apply to the Trumps or evil people in politics more generally, I think it's a pretty good breakdown on how and why you can't expect to successfully deal with people who break rules, laws, take advantage of others, or lack basic empathy.

It's also an excellent reminder of why it's important not to sign non-disclosure agreements, though frankly, I have signed one myself. Often, when people are confronted with such agreements they are tied to money and the signee feels that they don't have a choice of whether or not to sign. But if you don't absolutely have to sign one, do not sign!

Also, I find am very suspicious of Maggie Haberman's journalism now.

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Talking to Strangers by Malcolm Gladwell

Talking to Strangers: What We Should Know About the People We Don’t Know by Malcolm Gladwell
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

While Gladwell makes some interesting points and connections which deserve attention and action particularly in policing, I think he has too much sympathy for the devil in general. There is no mention for example of how police feel they deserve complete respect or to what extent they feel comfortable abusing their (basically unlimited power). Furthermore, there is no discussion about how racism, both conscious and subconscious, causes white people to expect complete respect from black people, even when they have no cause to expect or merit such perfect and high respect. And the deadly consequences of both such mindsets especially in combination. Trying to explain the Sandra Bland tragedy without more than an allusion to those issues is completely unbalanced.

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The Life We Bury by Allen Eskens

The Life We Bury by Allen Eskens
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

The first 70 percent or so was well-written, thoughtful, and enjoyable, but then it jumped the shark into ridiculous thriller territory and I lost all interest. I finished the book but didn’t ultimately like it that much. I only gave it 3 stars because I think that if someone were specifically looking for a thriller they might enjoy this.

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The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander

The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness by Michelle Alexander
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This is a good introduction to systemic racism in America as it exists currently. While it does discuss politics it very evenhandedly explains the forces that have led both the right and the left to contribute to the broken system. It's not a complete history nor does it cover all the relevant legal concepts that contribute to the system but it's a strong and persuasive introduction. It's also excruciatingly sad.

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Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil by John Berendt

Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil by John Berendt
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This was such a different reading experience. It's true crime but I was a few pages in before I realized it was nonfiction because it read like a really fun fiction book. I've been to Savannah and I love it-and unlike some reviews, I didn't necessarily think it evoked the Savannah the place, but rather the behind-the-scenes culture and society in Savannah. And ooh the characters! Amazing. Chablis! I'm so sad that she passed away in 2016. She was an American icon.

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Catch and Kill by Ronan Farrow

Catch and Kill: Lies, Spies, and a Conspiracy to Protect Predators by Ronan Farrow
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I didn’t think I was interested in this book because I figured I knew the basics about the #metoo movement but this book blew my mind. It’s All the President’s Men + Bad Blood + pick your favorite true-crime thriller.

I honestly think I need to reread this because it covers so many important topics. 1) The importance of ethical and dedicated journalism, 2) the power and often evil of the good-old-boys network, 3) the inequality of a justice system that allows for SLAPP suits and countersuits to burden people with the cost of a legal defense until they abandon their claims, 4) the deep shadiness of Non-Disclosure Agreements and the general harm they cause to our society, 5) how impossible it is to get people to believe women were sexually assaulted even when EVERYONE KNOWS they were sexually assaulted.

Also, I didn't think it was possible for me to hate Matt Lauer more than I already did, but, yeah, it's possible.

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Doing Justice by Preet Bharara

Doing Justice: A Prosecutor's Thoughts on Crime, Punishment, and the Rule of Law by Preet Bharara
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

It started off slowly but was a very interesting non-political book about the practice of law. I wish I'd read it in law school (though it didn't exist then). My only complaint was that I wish I could unread the chapter about cannibals though I suppose there is some value in grappling with the particular problems sociopaths when applying the law.

“Certain norms do matter. Our adversaries are not our enemies; the law is not a political weapon; objective truths do exist; fair process is essential in civilized society.”― Preet Bharara

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American Gun by Chris Kyle

American Gun: A History of the U.S. in Ten Firearms by Chris Kyle
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

It's not in the book but Kyle was a marine and war hero, and the deadliest marksman in United States military history. (Of "American Sniper" fame.) After his return to the US, in 2009, he foiled two men trying to carjack him by grabbing his gun and shooting them before they were able to shoot him. Did he have any philosophical thoughts about guns in war or in domestic use? No, not really. His one thought is that having the best guns in war saves lives on your team. Other than that, this is just the facts and no analysis.

The historical facts, as stated by Kyle, are interesting. And the facts certainly persuade me that having the most up-to-date technologically advanced guns are necessary for warfare. However, Kyle talks about how mobsters in the US starting buying Tommy guns, the nickname for "Thompson submachine guns" with nary a commentary about what a complete disaster that was. Glocks became popular with police and criminals at the same time. What does that say about the lack of gun regulation? No thoughts from our gun expert Kyle.

Of course, the whole time I was reading this I kept thinking about what ultimately happened to Kyle. Kyle was murdered at 38 years old with his own .45-caliber pistol. He was murdered by a 25-year-old marine that Kyle knew was mentally ill but took to a shooting range because he believed shooting had therapeutic value. If Kyle had had a psychic premonition of his own death, would he have developed some analysis? What would that analysis have been?

Here are some more facts: https://lawcenter.giffords.org/facts/gun-violence-statistics/

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The Mueller Report by Robert S. Mueller III

Report on the Investigation into Russian Interference in the 2016 Presidential Election by Robert S. Mueller III
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The beginning of the report reminds us that all of our intelligence agencies confirmed that the Russians "influenced" our election by 1) buying lots of ads that were pro-Trump and anti-Hillary, 2) posing as Americans in online social media, 3) hacking Democratic and Republican email servers and releasing only Democratic emails, 4) attempting to hack directly into voting machines (but were stopped by the Obama administration on this count). Numerous Russians have also already been prosecuted for this in the US.

Part 1 of the Report: Conspiracy with Russian Interference in U.S. Election

Paul Manafort joined the Trump Campaign on March 2016 and was campaign chairman from June to August 2016. (Manafort has been under investigation by the FBI since 2014 and under investigation by all branches of US intelligence since at least 2017 for communications and financial transactions with the Russian government.)

On August 2, 2016, Paul Manafort met in New York with Konstantin Kilimnik, "who the FBI assesses to have ties to Russian intelligence." Kilimnik delivered "....a peace plan for Ukraine..." (for those of you not following along, Russia has been occupying the Ukraine for some time, "peace" means letting Russia get away with that). "... "Manafort acknowledged to the Special Counsel's Office was a 'backdoor' way for Russia to control part of eastern Ukraine; both men believed the plan would require candidate Trump's ascent to succeed (were he to be elected President)."

"They also discussed the status of the Trump Campaign and Manafort's strategy for winning Democratic votes in Midwestern states. Months before that meeting, Manafort had caused internal polling data to be shared with Kilimnik, and the sharing continued for some period of time after their August meeting." This was not just a one-off event, Manafort was illegally working with the Russian government for years.

He was charged in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia with conspiracy to defraud the United States, money laundering, failing to register as a foreign lobbyist, making false statements to investigators, and witness tampering. He is a F#$#% TRAITOR. He is now a convicted felon.

Michael Flynn began as an adviser to the Trump Campaign in February 2016. 1) Flynn accepted money from foreign entities without the required approval. 2) On Flynn December 29, 2016, he asked Russia's ambassador Sergey Kislyak, "to refrain from escalating ... in response to sanctions that the United States had imposed against Russia that same day." The sanctions were imposed on Russia for their interference in the American elections. [Presumably, Flynn offered them something to avoid retaliation. Maybe lifting of these sanctions once Trump was inaugurated?] 3) Flynn then lied to the FBI about this meeting. Trump appointed Flynn to be National Security Advisor from January 23, 2017, despite warnings from numerous people about his potential crimes.

On December 1, 2017, Flynn pleaded guilty to "willfully and knowingly" making "false, fictitious and fraudulent statements" to the FBI regarding conversations with Russia's ambassador. He is now a convicted felon.

Also, on June 9, 2016, Donald Trump Jr., Jared Kushner, and then-campaign chairman Paul Manafort met with a Russian lawyer to get opposition research on Hillary Clinton (which is illegal). Trump Jr. keeps claiming it was mostly about adoption but the Mueller Report explains how the Russians offered to help the campaign with information about Hillary in exchange for working to lift the Magnitsky Act. The Magnitsky Act was a 2012 bipartisan bill passed by the U.S. Congress to punish Russian officials responsible for the death of Russian tax accountant Sergei Magnitsky in a Moscow prison in 2009. It authorizes the US government to sanction human rights offenders, freeze their assets, and ban them from entering the U.S.

Meanwhile, Trump, through Cohen, was trying to negotiate with Russian authorities to build hotels in Russia. They also lied about how long this continued.

There are many more horrible things in this part but these are the most important I think. We can get lost in the mountains of crimes coming out of this administration, but it's important to see the worst offenses in the Mueller Report clearly as they are an attack on our country and our democracy. On the other hand, note that a lot of evidence is missing because it was encrypted and Donald Trump refused to be deposed for the investigation. So this might just be the tip of the iceberg.

Part 2 of the Report: Obstruction of Justice

Part 2 is basically just a laundry list of the hundreds of times Donald Trump obstructed justice by impeding the investigation into confirmed Russian interference in the election. I may or may not be exaggerating "hundreds," because I lost count but triple digits is not impossible. (Here are the main groupings of his obstructions: https://time.com/5573521/donald-trump. Obviously obstruction of justice is a crime, so if Donald Trump were not currently President he'd be in jail as a convicted felon for these offenses. I realize that many people don't care about this. However, they really should especially care about all the instances where Trump specifically obstructed the investigations into Manafort and Flynn who sold out our country.

Our survival as a democracy depends on enough people mustering up some righteous indignation about not just Russia's acts, but all the traitorous acts against us by US citizens.

Full report available here: https://www.justice.gov/storage/report.pdf.

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Parkland: Birth of a Movement by Dave Cullen

Parkland: Birth of a Movement by Dave Cullen
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I put off reading this book for a couple of months because I was worried it would be about the shooting itself. Thankfully, it's not, and once I picked it up I flew through it. It's about the survivors of the Parkland shooting and their lives and political action since the shooting. A lot of it is instructive and inspirational to the rest of us and is so important. I think this book is a great companion to March by John Lewis, about the civil rights marches. Action is hard and takes a very long time, but history moves forward if we're all willing to work, and we really all need to get to work.

When I was 22 at my first job in DC, I met a Columbine kid who was working on some political action regarding th shooting at a nonprofit located in the building I worked at. Columbine is now seen as the beginning of the school shootings, and it's been 18 years, and many school children have died, and now I have my own kids in school. My kids regularly practice "active shooter" drills. They did so when they lived in New York, and they do so in Nebraska because nowhere in our country is safe now. It's a horror, and I wish I’d done more starting 18 years ago.

I really do not understand the conservative position in this country, especially regarding assault weapons. These people are opposed to abortion but are comfortable giving everyone the weapons to instantly "abort" hundreds of children and adults? Do they lose sleep worrying about their own children and grandchildren? Some of the Republican congressmen who were personally shot claim that they don't think guns are the problem. This is especially insincere because they refuse to give money to the National Institute of Health to study the problem so that we can all point to what is and isn't specifically the problem. And look, this isn't my first book on the gun problem, I get that the statistics point to a bigger problem with gun-related suicides, urban violence, or gun owners turning the guns on their own family members, but those issues are also important to me. It's not this gun problem versus that gun problem. It's the huge toll of all the gun deaths together. It's hard to imagine where we go from here beyond talking to the younger generation but it's clear that the gun control movement needs our time and our donations.

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The Red Parts by Maggie Nelson

The Red Parts by Maggie Nelson
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

A lot of interesting thoughts about death, tragedy, feminism, and the justice system. And Nelson’s prose kept me rolling along despite the dark topic of her aunt’s murder.

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The Library Book by Susan Orlean

The Library Book by Susan Orlean
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

There are some interesting parts, but it feels very meandering and overly long. I love books and libraries so I imagine I am the target audience. I was surprised not to love this book as much as I expected.

I liked that she wrote about Overdrive. I'm obsessed with borrowing ebooks and audiobooks from the library through Overdrive and hopefully, more people will know about it now thanks to her book.

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Born a Crime by Trevor Noah

Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood by Trevor Noah
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is a memoir only of Trevor Noah's childhood in South Africa during and immediately after apartheid. Really interesting to read a personal account of living under apartheid by a person uniquely situated inside the insanity and hypocrisy of it all.

He stops before his comedy career and that was really disappointing. There wasn't even a mention of how his career began.

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Bad Blood by John Carreyrou

Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup by John Carreyrou
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I’m not that interested in Theranos specifically, but what is interesting about this book is all the patterns of corruption that I’ve seen before in numerous places: bullying people through numerous expensive bogus law suits, wanting employees to be loyal instead of highly qualified (which often includes nepotism), toxic work environments, numerous firings: especially when people are fired for questioning appropriate work practices, lying or loose ethical standards by management, employees that are so stressed that they start keeping written records of their interactions with management.

The employee suicide was a horror, and they should have focused on that part more. Also the involvement of General Mattis is super weird. Otherwise, the book could have benefitted from a lot of editing though because it keeps talking about how the product wasn't working and they kept pretending it did. Okay, I get it.

Surprisingly the end of the book was the most exciting. It was a meta section about how difficult it was to get the story of Theranos corruption published. Another reminder of how important free journalism is.

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A Death in Belmont by Sebastian Junger

A Death in Belmont by Sebastian Junger
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is a really interesting and responsible account of one murder that took place during the reign of the Boston Strangler, written by the author of The Perfect Storm.

Everyone should read this book: 1) as a reminder not to open the door to a stranger, ever, seriously, I don't; 2) to understand one account of how the grinding wheels of the legal system can trap a (potentially?) innocent person; 3) how systematic racism can be quiet, insidious, harmful to all, and deadly to many; 4) because the book is riveting generally.


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In Cold Blood by Truman Capote

In Cold Blood by Truman Capote
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The events are horrific and reading about it is tortuous, but the book is so well-written it is just bearable.

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Conspiracy of Fools: A True Story by Kurt Eichenwald

Conspiracy of Fools: A True Story by Kurt Eichenwald
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Very thorough and interesting account of all the myriad of things that went wrong at Enron and Arthur Anderson. The culture is very familiar to me from my days in big law.

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The Orchid Thief by Susan Orlean

The Orchid Thief: A True Story of Beauty and Obsession by Susan Orlean
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The writing is great, especially for nonfiction. The people she writes about are fascinating, even when Orlean is writing about past people she hasn't met. She definitely manages to convey the excitement these people feel for orchids- all of the sudden I am super interested in orchids too and googling them. I really want a monkey orchid now, though I'm not good at keeping any plants alive so I probably shouldn't pursue that interest. Florida, in particular the Fakahatchee Strand State Preserve, is almost its own character in the book- wet, muddy, dangerous, and crowded with life.

I was a bit disappointed with the ending. I felt like Orleans led one way and then left us elsewhere. Relatedly, she suggests wanting to be personally transformed by her investigation of these people's passions but doesn't give us any indication that this has happened.

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Freedom Is a Constant Struggle by Angela Y. Davis

Freedom Is a Constant Struggle: Ferguson, Palestine, and the Foundations of a Movement by Angela Y. Davis
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Mind blown. This is a lot like stepping into an intermediate or advanced class on intersectionality which is tough for me because I'm still trying to get a beginners' foundation in feminism, race equality, and intersectionality. Nonetheless, wow. I can't believe that I managed to get a law degree without ever even hearing about the prison abolition movement.

There's so much in here, so much to process, that I can't tackle all my thoughts on it yet. It makes me feel like I need to do a lot more reading to fully wrap my mind around the concepts Davis introduced.

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Long Way Down by Jason Reynolds

Long Way Down by Jason Reynolds
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This is incredibly sad, dark, witty, funny, and awesome. It reminds me a little of A Christmas Carol, but it's completely its own. I also love the conceit of the poetic form to the dribble of the ball on the court or in the small space of an elevator.

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