Cannonball Read 14

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

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The Book We Need For This Moment

Reign of Terror: How The 9/11 Era Destabilized America and Produced Trump by Spencer Ackerman

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The best, simplest review I can give it is to quote from political operative Robert Wheel (@bobbybigwheel on Twitter): You know it’s a good book because every page pisses you off. I was 17 years old when we invaded Iraq. At the time, I was a champion for the war because I believed our government. Why would our government lie? Even as I began to question things in 2003 and 2004, I still voted for George W. Bush in my first presidential election. I was […]

Obama and Biden—but they fight crime.

Hope Never Dies by Andrew Shaffer

Hope Rides Again by Andrew Shaffer

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“Barack once told me that, at the end of the day, every one of us is just part of a long-running story. All we can do is try to get our paragraph right.” Joe Biden is lamenting the end of his bromance with former President Obama, the man himself shows up at his house, lurking in the shadows to inform him his address was found in the pocket of a body hit by an Amtrak train. With an unrelenting need for justice, Amtrak Joe sets […]

So much careful reflection, such a treat :)

A Promised Land by Barack Obama

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So I warn you that this review will have an extremely liberal internationalist bias, and I don’t want to create unnecessary drama, which politics will inevitably do sometimes. So feel free to skip this review if you don’t want to read about this. We’re all book lovers, let’s be civil 🙂 I’m not sure if I have mentioned this before, but most days I drive to work with a friend, and we always listen to an audiobook 🙂 And because this is a long book […]

Obama-rama pt.1

A Promised Land by Barack Obama

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Like many people, I’m sure, I was very excited to read President Obama’s memoir. As I do almost exclusively now, I listened to it and was delighted to find that he narrates it himself. It was absolutely delightful to listen to him speak for hours. I started my year off with this book as I hope it would set the proper tone for the new year. A whole lot happened while I listened to this book, namely the insurrection at the Capitol, so it was […]

Whistleblowers are an integral part of any free society

The Unarmed Truth: My Fight to Blow the Whistle and Expose Fast and Furious by John Dodson

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Around the middle of January, I kept seeing a meme getting passed around that listed the last several presidents and their biggest controversies. I don’t remember all of them, but the basic gist was that Republican presidents have been riddled with controversial policies and/or behavior (Watergate, Iran/Contra, Iraq, the entirety of Trump’s presidency…). What stood out to me, though, was that the most controversial part of Obama’s presidency, according to this meme, was that he wore a tan suit once. Even though this was just […]

“Whatever you do won’t be enough. Try anyway.”

A Promised Land by Barack Obama

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It is readily apparent from the length of this book that President Obama has enjoyed the works of Dostoevsky, and every page of this book is worth the read. This is not a good memoir. This is a good book full stop. I can’t tell you the number of times I laughed, cried, and was otherwise deeply moved by this, the first volume of Obama’s record of his time in office. I went for the audio book, as I often do with autobiographies read by […]



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