Ten Lessons for a Post-Pandemic World by Fareed Zakaria

My second read of the year was a terrific read and I'm so glad I hastily bought it before the end of the year. Ten Lessons for a Post-Pandemic World by Fareed Zakaria lays out how the pandemic has exposed weaknesses in such things as American healthcare (the most obvious) but also covers a lot of other territory: past and present economic policies including taxes and tariffs; globalization and why it's been painted as a boogeyman but isn't going away; historic and present-day politics and nationalism; how life changed after past disasters, for better or worse. He even covers Artificial Intelligence and how it may affect our future. 

Zakaria also discusses how and why some countries handled testing, tracing, and halting spread of the virus better than others and what we can learn from them. He zones in on places like Taiwan, where previous outbreaks of deadly disease gave the country experience that enabled them to prepare for the current pandemic. I just looked up a graph of Taiwan's Covid-19 cases and their peak — the highest number of cases reported in a single day — was 18. Impressive.

Across all these topics, Zakaria discusses where we've succeeded and failed and what the current president has done to improve or diminish our place in the world. 

Highly recommended - Excellent writing and a fair-minded viewpoint of how the pandemic could lead to positive change and reduced inequality if handled right. My only problem with the book was that I had to reread some paragraphs a few times to get what he was saying, but that's more a factor of my own lack of understanding of such things as economics than a problem with the writing. In fact, I found the writing very clear and the subject matter educational. But, wow, Fareed Zakaria is one sharp dude. I am not on his intellectual level. If I can find the time, I may reread it in the future so that I can hopefully get an even better understanding. 

©2021 Nancy Horner. All rights reserved. If you are reading this post at a site other than Bookfoolery or its RSS feed, you are reading a stolen feed. Email bookfoolery@gmail.com for written permission to reproduce text or photos.

Trumpocracy by David Frum

First things first: Trumpocracy by David Frum (a conservative journalist) is outdated as it only covers the current president's first year in office. That's important to know but it's still worth the read, in my humble opinion. Some of Frum's conclusions turned out to be wrong and I don't always agree with him but he nicely lays out the many corrupt actions the president took during his first year, as well as those of his family, plus his many business connections to Russia and the back-channel connections put in place by his son-in-law. No, the Russian connections are not a hoax. Read the Mueller Report if you're scowling, at this point. And, while the president tried to convince the public that he had separated himself from his business interests, early on, Frum also goes into how and why it was obvious that wasn't the case. 

I read much of this as it was unfolding but had forgotten quite a bit. Some of it was new to me, but very little. Frum's explanation as to why House and Senate Republicans did an immediate about-face and fell into line behind the incoming president after so many senators said electing him would be a disaster makes perfect sense: an unpopular president tends to drag the rest of his party down with him in elections. So, they had to prop him up. 

Frum has a newer book coming out and I'm curious what he has to say, 3 years on, but I don't know if I'll read it. The new book, Trumpocalypse, comes out in May of 2021. 

Recommended but outdated - Outdated or not, I still enjoyed reading Trumpocracy for the reminder of what I'd already forgotten, how immediately and completely the president showed himself, his family, and his cabinet's corruption. Again, I don't always agree with Frum. He has opinions that don't meld with mine, although he's very up-front about what he believes and I think that his candor allows the reader to understand where he's coming from without feeling as if he's trying to hammer home his own viewpoint. It's also quite an organized read without a lot of bouncing back and forth in time, which I definitely appreciated. 

©2020 Nancy Horner. All rights reserved. If you are reading this post at a site other than Bookfoolery or its RSS feed, you are reading a stolen feed. Email bookfoolery@gmail.com for written permission to reproduce text or photos.

On Democracy by E. B. White, ed. by Martha White

Treason is too narrowly interpreted to suit us. Our courts call it treason when a restaurant-keeper helps a German flier to escape, but nobody calls it treason when a congressman helps a touchy issue to escape "until after the elections are over." We hang a man for the first kind of treason; we reelect a man for the second. 

[...] It is not only treacherous to help the enemy by postponing questions which involve the lives of all of us but it is the greatest insult which can be offered to the electorate of a democracy. When you hear it announced that such-and-such an issue cannot be raised now because it is "political dynamite," the implication is that you yourself are mixed up in a cheap trick perpetrated by one section of the people on another section.

~from pp. 39-40 "Treason, Defined"(originally published in 1942) in Advance Reader Copy of On Democracy by E. B. White

One of my all-time favorite pieces of writing in the world is by E. B. White, a tribute to Pullman cars (railroad sleeping cars) in a book of essays published some time in the 1940s. It's a lovely, moving, brilliant piece of writing. So, I figured White probably had some wise and wonderful things to say about democracy and jumped at the chance to read and review On Democracy, a book of his essays and a handful of rhyme-heavy poetry.

I was correct. There's plenty of wisdom in On Democracy. But, it is also an excellent showcase for White's wit and humor and a reminder that America has survived similar attempts to attack truth and the rule of law to what we're currently experiencing, although I confess that I didn't find the fact that such attacks eventually failed all that soothing because we now have so many huge issues to address. Among them: potential human extinction being ignored and/or suppressed by an entire administration, massive voter suppression, newly-created poll taxes, refusal to address a foreign attack on our voting system (machines that can be easily compromised and which contain no paper backup are being bought by states at an alarming rate), and a political party that talks big about transparency whilst going out of its way to hide absolutely everything that may or may not say something untoward has been done by them while declaring investigations (which they themselves recently drove into the ground with at least 7 investigations that proved absolutely nothing bad about the same exact issue) pointless and partisan. These are huge challenges.

With the fate of humanity on the line the stakes, it can be said, are much higher. Still, it's heartening to know that there have been times in the past when newspapers were being heavily bought out by a single purchaser who pushed his political slant on the reportage, corruption has run rampant, and executives in government have attempted to hide documents important to the public.

A few quotes from the book:

Fascism is openly against people-in-general, in favor of people-in-particular. Nationalism, although in theory not dedicated to such an idea, actually works against people-in-general because of its preoccupation with people-in-particular. 

~p. 45, "Definition of Fascism," published 1943


When you think with longing of the place where you were born, remember that the sun leaves it daily to go somewhere else. When you think with love of America, think of the impurity of its bloodlines and of how no American ever won a prize in a dog show. 

[...] 

Save the world by respecting thy neighbor's rights under law and insisting that he respect yours (under the same law).

~pp. 60-61, "Instructions to the Delegate," published 1946


There's not much news to report. Roger and Evelyn had a baby girl a couple of weeks ago, and Roger is supporting it by working for a magazine called Holiday, a travel publication based on the perfectly sound idea that everybody in the United States would like to be somewhere else. 

~p. 80, Herald Tribune ("Hollywood Ten" letters), published 1948


Misinformation, even when it is not deliberate, is at the bottom of much human misery. 

~p. 95, "The Thud of Ideas," published 1950


Some of the published news was distorted, but distortion is inherent in partisan journalism, the same as it is in political rallies. I have yet to see a piece of writing, political or nonpolitical, that doesn't have a slant. All writing slants the way a writer leans, and no man is born perpendicular, although many men are born upright. The beauty of the American free press is that the slants and the twists and the distortions come from so many directions, and the special interests are so numerous, the reader must sift and sort and check and countercheck in order to find out what the score is.

~p. 121, "Bedfellows," published 1956

[Editorial insert: In our modern world of brief sound bites, I'd be willing to hazard a guess that less than a quarter of the American population takes the time to "sift and sort and check and countercheck" as readers of the 1950s may have done, hence the creation of the term "echo chamber."]


The Herald Tribune headed the story, "PRESIDENT SAYS PRAYER IS PART OF DEMOCRACY." The implication in such a pronouncement, emanating from the seat of government, is that religious faith is a condition, or even a precondition, of the democratic life. This is just wrong. A President should pray whenever and wherever he feels like it (most Presidents have prayed hard and long, and some of them in desperation and in agony), but I don't think a President should advertise prayer. That is a different thing. Democracy, if I understand it at all, is a society in which the unbeliever feels undisturbed and at home. If there were only a half a dozen unbelievers in America, their well-being would be a test of our democracy, their tranquility would be its proof.

~p. 124, "Bedfellows," published 1956


Highly recommended - While not exactly what I expected (heavier on the wit and humor than I anticipated), E. B. White was a brilliant writer whose thoughts on democracy were at once light-hearted and serious, penetrating and cogent. I was fascinated by the fact that White was hell-bent against the formation of what was then known as the "United Nations Organization" because he feared a world government would trample on the rights of individual nations to create and execute their own laws.

The essays/poetry span a significant time period, from 1928-1976, so there's a lot of ebb and flow from war to peace and back, through presidencies left and right, in and out of corruption, through arrests for speech we would now consider protected and threats to the press and university professors, and spanning other challenges to democracy. I recommend it to anyone interested in solid writing, politics, essays, history, and/or the topic of democracy in tumultuous times. Apparently, there have not been very many stretches without some form of upheaval. It does give one hope but also serves as a reminder that in order to maintain genuine hope, the requirement for action on the part of the populace is axiomatic.

My thanks to HarperCollins for the review copy.

©2019 Nancy Horner. All rights reserved. If you are reading this post at a site other than Bookfoolery or its RSS feed, you are reading a stolen feed. Email bookfoolery@gmail.com for written permission to reproduce text or photos.

What Happened by Hillary Rodham Clinton

I feel like this review needs a disclaimer. When What Happened came out, I had no interest in reading what I presumed would be a rehash of what happened in the 2016 election to make it go wrong for Hillary Clinton. But, then seemingly every old, white male in America (or, at least, those with access to Twitter) and everyone on Fox simultaneously appeared to tell Hillary Clinton to "sit down and shut up", "take up knitting", or simply said her days in politics were over and she should be ignored. I ordered a copy of What Happened, then, in defiance of the narrative that told the candidate who got the most votes in the 2016 election that she shouldn't be heard. But, again, it wasn't a book I was all that interested in reading so it went on the stacks and sat there for about a year. I picked it up to read when I realized March was Women's History Month. As a long-time public servant and the first female presidential nominee, Hillary Rodham Clinton has certainly made history for women.

What Happened is not just about the election or the election season as a whole. In the book, former Secretary Clinton reflects on her many years of public service, her beliefs and their roots (including how her beliefs as a Methodist influenced her decision to go into public service), her mother's influence, and her own experience as a mother, wife, and female. Here, for example, is a quote in which she reminds readers of the real meaning of the word "feminism", which has recently become badly distorted:

While we're defining things, let's take a moment for feminism: "the advocacy of women's rights on the basis of the political, economic, and social equality of the sexes." Not domination. Not oppression. Equality. Or as the English writer and philosopher Mary Wollstonecraft put it 225 years ago, "I do not wish women to have power over men, but over themselves."

~p. 132

And, here's a quote that I thought described how the other candidate managed to dodge scandal while Clinton was buried in a controversy (also described in detail -- how and why Clinton chose to use a home server and why her choice to use a personal phone was not unusual at the time).

Most of the press was too busy chasing ratings and scandals, and Trump was too slippery to be pinned down. He understood the needs and impulses of the political press well enough that if he gave them a new rabbit every day, they'd never catch any of them. So his reckoning never came. 

~p. 232

I was surprised how much I learned from the reading of What Happened. There were a lot of subjects from which I'd skimmed the surface but Hillary Clinton, having been a First Lady, a senator, and a Secretary of State, knows the dangers of Putin intimately, for example. She knows his history, his methods, and has interacted with him on many occasions. She understands his motivation. I knew enough to say, "Uh-oh," when I heard that the Republican platform had changed in a way that benefitted Putin, and I knew much of Trump's history with the Russians but my knowledge lacked depth. I also had a vague understanding of the connection between what she calls "Christian morality and white nationalist purity and power" and Putin, and had connected the dots with the help of some people I follow (to what Trump is doing: suppressing LGBTQ and women's rights) but she clarified it nicely.

And, finally, there were plenty of stories that were reported so badly that I always wondered what on earth the reporters and my right-wing friends were going on about -- she explained these well. For example, I had friends who said that Hillary Clinton planned to put coal miners out of business and that she was evil for taking away jobs. I'd seen the clip but was never able to find the context of what was said. She repeats the entire paragraph from which her comment -- making it sound like she was happy to be putting people out of work -- was taken, so that you can see how the context was about her understanding that a move to clean energy would put people in the coal industry out of work, so it was important (in her viewpoint) to make sure those people were taken care of with transitional help and job training in order to make sure they were able to continue to survive. This particular story certainly shows how poorly the press covered Hillary Clinton. I couldn't even locate the full transcript online, at the time when friends were talking about Hillary "gleefully" putting people out of work. I presumed the full story wasn't being told but reading her book was the first chance I had to truly understand what she was attempting to get across to viewers.

I've seen similarly misleading stories happening in my own world in real time. When the Mississippi River was flooding, a few years ago, we went to downtown Vicksburg to see how far the water had gone. Vicksburg used to have the nickname "The San Francisco of the South" because of its steep hills and while there are still homes in various flood zones (at least one entire subdivision, away from the river, was bought out because it flooded so frequently), most of the city and surrounding area sits well above the flood plain. So, what did you, the viewer, see on the national news during this historic flood? The cameras were positioned on a hill, where tons of people were happily walking around, looking down upon a former train station (now a museum) that floods every single time the Mississippi leaves its banks. It was incredibly misleading but dramatic. This is the way Hillary Clinton says her email "scandal" was portrayed. You didn't get the full story, ever. It was nice to read the full story.

Highly recommended - Written with grace and humility, Hillary Clinton's memoir of the election, with reminiscences of her life in public service, is both nicely written and informative. I was surprised how much I learned and how much I enjoyed her voice. I have only two small complaints. It appears that the book was rushed to press. There are a few errors. Most are not major; they just jumped out at me for their inaccuracy. She said, for example, that Narcan "can save lives by helping prevent overdoses". Narcan actually reverses the effect of narcotics on the system (often painfully so, depending on how skillfully it's administered) but it doesn't prevent overdose. I hope this misstatement has been changed in subsequent printings. The other complaint is that I thought she hammered James Comey's influence on the election a little too hard. I agree with her that he made some mistakes and they likely swung the election but two mentions would have been enough. I counted four. Otherwise, I found What Happened so interesting that I may reread it, at some point.


©2019 Nancy Horner. All rights reserved. If you are reading this post at a site other than Bookfoolery or its RSS feed, you are reading a stolen feed. Email bookfoolery@gmail.com for written permission to reproduce text or photos.

Fighting Fascism: How to Struggle and How to Win by Clara Zetkin, Ed. by Mike Taber and John Riddell

Fighting Fascism: How to Struggle and How to Win by Clara Zetkin is a series of writings about fascism. Clara Zetkin wrote the main work in this book in 1923. At that point in time, Mussolini had been in power for 4 years and fascism was spreading. Zetkin, a Communist, had a plan. She first described the elements of fascism and the spread of fascism in Italy. Notably, fascism always begins with the frustration of the working class -- exactly what led to the election of Trump, who has been compared by those who study fascism to hisorical fascists (there's a little about this in the introduction). Zetkin pointed out where the fight against fascism in Italy had gone wrong, what the fascists promised and how their promises had not only fallen flat but often rights were taken away, workers' hours made longer and pay reduced, the rich became richer and corporations more corrupt, promises were broken consistently.

Zetkin suggested that people needed to be educated about fascism at all levels and that the masses needed to unite in protest and prepare for violent response by fascists, who were already killing and imprisoning those who spoke out against them. She said ideology and politics were less important than unity -- that it would take a strong, united front to defeat the growing movement.

Unfortunately, the text (and notes) eventually goes on to describe how her platform was adopted and then rejected. The movement splintered and weakened as a result. And, just after her last speech, where Nazis were waiting and wanted to kill her (she was ill and nearly blind), she died. That was 1933. We all know what happened after that point.

Zetkin stressed that it would be easy for most people to just keep their heads down and try to get through fascism but defeating fascists can't work without strength in numbers. And, then she had to watch her predictions come true.

Highly recommended - Important reading during a time of upheaval such as what we're currently going through. Sad from a historical viewpoint but also very informative. I'd like to see this particular book written in more common language, so that people who don't understand words such as "proletariat" and "bourgeoisie" could understand it. Zetkin herself recognized that peasants in Germany and elsewhere would not understand the terminology and one of her suggestions was to print brochures and books that would explain fascism and how to fight it for all levels of education.

It's pretty amazing that Clara Zetkin survived to die of old age. There's a glossary of important characters and organizations in the book and many of the characters described were killed for their activism.

I bought Fighting Fascism from Haymarket Books (along with 3 other titles). I've been so impressed with the 3 I've read, so far, that I'm hoping to buy more from them in the future.


©2019 Nancy Horner. All rights reserved. If you are reading this post at a site other than Bookfoolery or its RSS feed, you are reading a stolen feed. Email bookfoolery@gmail.com for written permission to reproduce text or photos.

From the Corner of the Oval by Beck Dorey-Stein

From the Corner of the Oval by Beck Dorey-Stein is the memoir of a woman who worked as a stenographer in the White House from 2012 to 2017. Originally a teacher, the author was balancing 5 jobs when she saw a job listing on Craigslist and applied. It was not clear that the job was in the White House until she went for the interview.

As a stenographer, Dorey-Stein's job was to make sure there was audio recording of almost everything Obama said, then transcribe what she'd recorded. She was one of five stenographers in the White House. Obama was big on transparency and accuracy. It was important to him that everything be recorded so that if he was misquoted he could simply refer to the transcript or recording of anything he said. Dorey-Stein also briefly worked in the Trump Administration, but only for a couple months. Trump's team had the opposite approach, everything public on video, little else recorded at all.

Beginning with her search for the job and the interview that she at first blew off because she was running late at one of the jobs she already held, Dorey-Stein describes her time working in the White House and her life both in and out of the job -- the long hours, hurry-up-and-wait activity, the travel on Air Force One and a second plane carrying reporters and staff, her rare interactions with the President. But, much of the focus is on her private life, her partying and love life, the friendships she developed at work, and how her writing developed as she took notes on everything that she experienced and shared some of her writing with the people around her.

Recommended but not a favorite - If you're looking for a solid memoir of life in the White House that focuses on Obama, his personality, and what it was like working for him, you might be a little disappointed. From the Corner of the Oval is fascinating but fluffy. There are glimpses of Obama but they're brief. Dorey-Stein's job was "in the bubble" (the people who circled around and traveled with the President) but not within the President's inner circle. What you get is an understanding of the hectic life people within the White House lead, how working there dominates your life, and how the people working for Obama felt about him (they admired and adored him; he was highly respected). Mostly, though, the book is about Beck.

There are some frustrations in reading her story. She spent a great deal of time partying with her co-workers, drinking heavily, gushing about her boyfriend, and sleeping with someone else. Her boyfriends are practically archetypes -- the boyfriend who's perfect except for the fact that he isn't present when she really needs him; the lothario who has a long-term girlfriend but flirts widely and sleeps around then typically ignores women after sleeping with them; the man found at an online dating site when desperation took over. I found myself frequently putting the book down, particularly during scenes in which Dorey-Stein was either drunk or sleeping with the lothario, yet again, and blaming it on her weakness. I was often frustrated with the author, her lack of control over her drinking, her inability to stop sleeping with a man who was clearly never going to choose her over the long-term girlfriend. But, I enjoyed reading about the hectic lifestyle, learning a little about the intensity of life in the White House and the President's schedule. From the Corner of the Oval is definitely fun for that peek into the White House. And now I want to read further, preferably a book or two by people who were in the inner circle during the Obama years.

©2018 Nancy Horner. All rights reserved. If you are reading this post at a site other than Bookfoolery or its RSS feed, you are reading a stolen feed. Email bookfoolery@gmail.com for written permission to reproduce text or photos.

Minis: Al Franken, Giant of the Senate by Franken and The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas

I've decided I'm going to do several sets of mini reviews to get myself caught up (again) since a good portion of the books I have left to review are from my personal stacks. Any books from publishers will get separate, full reviews.

I ordered Al Franken, Giant of the Senate because I figured it would be a funny book about life in the Senate and I've liked Al for as long as I can remember. Boy, was I surprised. Al Franken, Giant of the Senate is more than I could have imagined. It's funny, yes, but it's also educational. Rather than just describing his senate years, Franken goes back to his early life and explains how and why he became a liberal, a satirist (he prefers "satirist" over "comedian"), a Harvard grad, and a senator, his difficult entry into politics, and the challenges he faced specifically because of his background in show business.

The only things I really knew about Franken as a senator (as opposed to Franken the satirist) before reading Al Franken, Giant of the Senate, were the facts that he's a Democrat and that he asked by far the best questions of any senator when he vetted people for cabinet seats in the current administration. I'd paid little attention to him, otherwise, but I was definitely impressed at the precision of what he asked and the clear knowledge and/or research behind his questions. And, it turns out there's good reason for his amazing questioning skills: Al Franken did his research.

By the time I read Al Franken, Giant of the Senate, Franken had already been forced out of the Senate by female senators who ganged up on him without granting him the investigation he was willing to go through and deserved. So, it was particularly interesting to read about the ways he had to defend himself in the past, the challenge of trying to get the Democratic party to endorse him, the vetting he submitted to in order to make sure that nothing like what ended his career in the Senate would happen, and the sacrifices of Franken and his family to do a job that he felt driven to do because of his passion to help others. I never believed he got a fair shake, in the end, and I'm doubly convinced after reading his story; but, I do believe I understand why he gave up so easily. Al Franken was one of those rare politicians who was in it for his constituents, not to make himself piles of money. An excellent book, highly recommended. I'd like to go back and read some of his older books, when I have the time.

The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas is a book I read with an online book group. Seemingly everyone else on the planet has read and reviewed the book, so I feel like I'm a little late to the ballgame and I liked it perhaps a bit less than most, but it's a powerful story that I'm very glad I read.

16-year-old Starr lives in an impoverished neighborhood but attends a school in an upscale part of town, so she's learned to shift between the two worlds. On her home turf, she speaks the dialect of those around her; in school, she softens her language to match that of her fellow students. Putting on a different front at school takes effort, but it becomes even harder to hide her true feelings and self after an old friend is killed by a police officer when the officer mistakes the handle of a hairbrush for a gun. Starr is in the car when he's shot and sees him die.

Shocked by her experience, Starr does everything she can to see justice served but is stunned to find that nobody takes her seriously. Is there anything Starr can do to change the outcome and prevent more of the same, or will Starr's childhood friend always be known as just another drug-dealing black guy who made the wrong move, even though he did nothing wrong?

I thought The Hate U Give was excellent, powerful, important, and necessary. I only had one real problem with it and that was the vernacular. I did try to look up some of the words and expressions that I didn't know but was unable to find all of them. In general, I tend to really dislike books that are written in dialect. But, it was crucial to Starr's character to show the two sides of her. So, I looked up what I could and guessed at other words. Fortunately, I was eventually able to ask around and find out the meaning of the words I was unable to locate definitions for online. But, not knowing while I read frustrated me and that's why I gave the book 4 stars. Still . . . an emotional read that is truly of the moment. The Hate U Give shines a light on a uniquely American problem.

I read The Hate U Give electronically, so it won't appear on my stack of February reads when I get around to posting my Month in Review (running late on that, clearly). It was a good one to read for discussion because of both the difficulty I had with the lingo and the fact that the people in my discussion group had a lot of unique insight to contribute. I really appreciated reading other viewpoints. Recommended.


©2018 Nancy Horner. All rights reserved. If you are reading this post at a site other than Bookfoolery or its RSS feed, you are reading a stolen feed. Email bookfoolery@gmail.com for written permission to reproduce text or photos.

Mini reviews - On Tyranny by T. Snyder, Simon and the Homo Sapiens Agenda by Becky Albertalli

It's time to play a little catch-up and, since I've already reviewed almost all of the ARCs I've read, I'm going for mini reviews of those I have not. Afterlife by Marcus Sakey is the only remaining ARC I need to review and I'll give it a full post.

On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century by Timothy Snyder is a book that is meant as a guide for how to behave with an authoritarian in power. While the author didn't mention our current American president by name a single time, he did refer to him on occasion in generic terms. Some examples of the "lessons":

• Do not obey in advance.
• Defend institutions. 
• Beware the one-party state. 
• Believe in truth. 
• Contribute to good causes.
• Be kind to our language. (This chapter includes an exceptional list of recommended reading material to offer additional perspective, as well as some advice readers will love: "... get the screens out of your room and surround yourself with books").
• Be as courageous as you can.

Before I read On Tyranny, I read some reviews at Goodreads and discovered that it made a few readers burn with anger at the perceived comparison of our current president to the well-known German authoritarian who slaughtered 6 million + people. So, I was watching for direct comparisons. There are none. Not one. There may be comments about behaviors that the latter exhibited and the former is now also showing, but no claims that one is becoming the other. I watched an interview with the author (on video; unfortunately, I don't recall which organization it was that interviewed Snyder, but I expect there are a few available online) and he was pretty clear that comparing 45 to a specific tyrant was not his goal. I highly recommend looking up interviews with Snyder if you intend to read the book.

While not the easiest read, I thought Snyder had some excellent advice, offered from a purely historical perspective, and I plan to reread it soon to help solidify what I learned. It's a quick read, just 126 pages and the book is smaller than a mass market paperback.

Highly recommended to those concerned about today's political climate and certainly not limited to one or the other side. It does help if you take off your red- or blue-tinted lenses and try to remain neutral. Read it for a viewpoint colored by history, not politics.

Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda by Becky Albertalli is the story of a teenager who has developed an email friendship with one of his classmates. He doesn't know who the classmate is; all he knows is that they're both gay and talking to the friend he calls "Blue" is helping him come to terms with his homosexuality. What he wants most is to find the strength to come out.

Unfortunately, a fellow by the name of Martin has gotten a peek into Simon's email account and now he's blackmailing Simon. If Simon won't help Martin get together with the girl Martin admires, he'll spill the beans about Simon's sexuality. Will Simon summon the courage to come out to more than an anonymous friend? Will Martin give away Simon's secret before he's ready? Who is Blue?

I loved absolutely everything about Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda. It's a good book that's well paced with a lot going on, great characters, a mystery (Who is Blue?) and high stakes. It's also a book that treats its characters and their emotions with tremendous respect.

Highly recommended - The timing was pretty awesome. I chose Simon, etc. because it was calling to me without considering the fact that I was starting a book with an LGBTQ character right as Gay Pride Month was beginning. It wasn't till I was in the middle of the book that the timing occurred to me. At any rate, it's a good read for any time of the year.


©2017 Nancy Horner. All rights reserved. If you are reading this post at a site other than Bookfoolery or its RSS feed, you are reading a stolen feed. Email bookfoolery@gmail.com for written permission to reproduce text or photos.

We're With Nobody by Huffman and Rejebian

We're With Nobody: Two Insiders Reveal the Dark Side of Politics is not my normal reading fare. In fact, I would not have given it as second thought, if not for the fact that it's my book club's March selection. So, I was really shocked to find myself enjoying the book.

We're With Nobody is about two men, authors Alan Huffman and Michael Rejebian, and their job working in "opposition research", a job that involves digging through public records in search of any negative information that can be used against a political candidate. They do "oppo" to dig up dirt on opposing candidates or in the backgrounds of the candidates they represent (usually Democrats) to help them prepare for anything their opposition may dig up. And, they have some surprising stories to tell about working both sides.

The chapters in We're With Nobody alternate between the voices of the two authors and are written in a very down-to-earth style; I'm not a political person, but they actually managed to make politics intriguing (if every bit as horrifying as I suspected). Both Huffman and Rejebian are former journalists. I became doubly interested in the book when I realized they both once worked as reporters at the Clarion-Ledger, the newspaper in what I refer to as the "Big City" - Jackson, Mississippi. They talk about how their backgrounds prepared them well for their current job, what exactly they do, some politicians they've investigated (mostly without naming names) and experiences they've had in dealing with clerks who will go out of their way to keep the public from viewing public records. Wait till you hear what they had to say about trying to find information on George W. Bush's years as governor of Texas! You'll want to scrape that "W" off your back window, if you haven't already.

Because I live in Mississippi, I recognized a few of the candidates Huffman and Rejebian didn't name and, I confess, I was shocked and horrified to find that one particular fellow whose toughness I admired after Hurricane Katrina was not only a man who should not have been in a position of authority but likely should have been behind bars. His possible crimes were considered too sordid to publicize by the opposing candidate. I talked that over with my personal trainer and we both felt the same. "We need to know these things!" However, for the men doing the research and writing the book, exposing the nasty doings of the people they research is not their place. It's the decision of whomever they work for to expose their opposition's misdoings or keep the information under their proverbial hats. Disappointing for those of us who would really like to know the whole truth when we place our votes.

What I loved about We're With Nobody:

We're With Nobody is very readable and the only book that has ever piqued my interest in politics. I've abandoned a few because they bored me to tears. In general, I tend to be a bit of an ostrich, when it comes to politics. I am well aware that politicians tend to be people who crave power, often without the best of motives, that the system is deeply flawed and awash in favoritism and sometimes crime, that the people we see running for office are at best well-spoken actors with good intentions and at worst criminals. But, somehow Huffman and Rejebian convinced me that I need to pay attention, that we all need the information they spend their time working to provide. They even go so far as to explain how to deal with clerks if/when you need to peruse public records, yourself.

On asking for information without giving away who you are or why you need info:

To always get and never give may seem selfish to some, but offering information to gain information diminishes its value and weakens the interviewer. Questions are a companion; they are a friend. And the more ways you know to ask them, the more successful you will be.

~p. 16

On how unexciting opposition research can be:

All that's left, after a long day of doing research in such a place, is either to retire to your hotel room or drive across the eight-lane highway to the Chili's bar to watch whatever game is on TV. I do not really follow sports, though I'm easily mesmerized by movement on the screen, and in such situations I must concentrate on keeping up with the score and the names of the teams in case someone saunters up to the bar and asks a challenging question such as, "Who's winning?" It's embarrassing to appear to be watching a game on TV and not even know who's playing. Likewise, it's humiliating to spend three days doing intensive research in a small town and come up with nothing of value of interest. You know there has to be something there. There's almost always something there.

~p. 66

On how to get a clerk to cooperate and give you access to the public records you seek to peruse (part 3 of 10 suggestions):

Assume the best, starting out. Smile. Scientists have found that approximately 25 percent of the human population is comprised of assholes; 25 percent, idiots, 25 percent, idiotic assholes; and 25 percent, people who are smart or nice or both. The breakdown is easily observed on any interstate highway. At the outset, assume that clerks are part of the latter group until proven otherwise, and make clear that you are, too. Even if they reveal themselves to be idiotic assholes and you have to fall back on verbal pepper spray, do not make the mistake of assuming a kindred role as a petty nuisance. It will only make things harder, and the people behind you in line will hate you, too. This doesn't mean you can't be forceful.

~p. 81

And, a bit of interesting trivia:

The world "deadline" actually has a deadly origin dating back to the Civil War. In the official records of the Union and Confederate armies is an obscure inspection report from the Confederate captain Walter Bowie dated May 10, 1864. The report describes conditions at the infamous prisoner-of-war camp for Union soldiers at Andersonville, Georgia. In it, Bowie wrote, "On the inside of the stockade and twenty feet from it there is a dead-line established, over which no prisoner is allowed to go, day or night, under penalty of being shot."

The word, of course, has evolved into simply meaning a time limit to complete some activity. And though crossing a deadline today generally won't result in being shot, it can sometimes feel like it.

~p. 138

What I disliked about We're With Nobody:

Occasionally, Huffman & Rejebian's stories were incomplete (as a lead-in to other stories, perhaps) or mildly confusing because they chose not to use names. Not using names meant the use of pronouns, instead. I think they'd have been better off at least giving each individual some sort of moniker, like Gubernatorial Candidate A and The Opposition -- anything to make their stories clearer without altering their choice to keep the subjects anonymous.

Highly recommended - It doesn't matter that the candidates are not named. The bottom line is that We're With Nobody contains information that every voting citizen needs to know. If you're a voter in the United States, you should read We're With Nobody, especially if you're someone who likes to bury your head in the sand, vote straight-ticket (occasionally, the best candidate for the job will be the one you'd oppose) or not vote at all. Although there were times I got the players mixed up because of the lack of names, I found the book easily digestible and extremely informative.

Change of topic:

The small handful of people who are following my private Japan travel blog have probably been perplexed at the lack of activity. Just an FYI for all 8 of you: I misplaced my travel diary. And, since the photos are out of order, the farther I get from the trip, the more things get messed up in my mind. It remains to be seen whether I'll get back to updating that blog, but in the meantime, here's a photo of one of the protected Nara deer -- which can be stunningly obnoxious, pushy animals -- begging for ice cream. If you look right above the jeans-clad woman's right shoulder, you'll see that she's holding a green-tea ice cream cone.

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