Cannonball Read 13

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

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Trump’s Bunker

Landslide: The Final Days of the Trump Presidency by Michael Wolff

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Large parts of this book, I really enjoyed. For those of us made miserable by the 4-year mistake that was the Donald Trump presidency, there’s nothing better than seeing him flail about helplessly, our febrile democratic checks finally providing an exit ramp to this nightmare. I had always eschewed Trump/Nazi comparisons, mainly because they detract from the awfulness of American history in favor of grafting on another racist society. But if there’s one thing I have found similar from reading The Rise and Fall of the […]

To Play the King

King Richard: Nixon and Watergate, An American Tragedy by Michael Dobbs

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The Trump era made me a Watergate junkie. It’s as simple as that. If there’s a new book on Watergate, I’m reading it. I’ve become fascinated with the twisted story of Nixon and his cronies, especially how power can imbue one with a sense of dignity and grace, at least in the public eye. Most of us need to go to bed at night assuming our leaders are competent adults who wouldn’t hurt a fly unless it was absolutely necessary and who have it all […]

I Got A Plan

Vice: Dick Cheney and the Hijacking of the American Presidency by Lou DuBose and Jake Bernstein

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In the Trump years, there was this strand of liberalism/centrism in the Discourse that pined for a Republican administration under George W. Bush. Say what you will about Bush but at least he didn’t (insert latest evil thing Trump did) blah blah blah.  To which my reply was always: Yeah no. George Bush was awful. In many (not all) respects, he was worse than Trump. And one of the main reasons was Dick Cheney. I’m one of the few defenders of Adam McKay’s Vice because I feel like it was a […]

Vacation Reading

Stonewall: The Definitive Story of the LGBT Rights Uprising that Changed America by Martin Doberman

The Pursuit of Pearls by Clara Vine

Lust, Caution by Eileen Chang

While Justice Sleeps by Stacey Abrams

The Rocksburg Railroad Murders by K.C. Constantine

March Violets by Philip Kerr

Can't Knock the Hustle: Inside Brooklyn's Season of Hope: How Basketball Helped Us Survive Power, Politics, and a Global Pandemic by Matt Sullivan

The Lime Pit by Jonathan Valin

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I was on vacation last week and, as you can tell from the stack in the header, I read a LOT… Stonewall: The Definitive Story of the LGBT Rights Uprising that Changed America **** I wish this had focused more on the Uprising itself, as opposed to being a semi auto-biography on those who were involved in it. But it’s still a fascinating story at the nascent days of the LGBTQIA+ Movement, the challenges and complexities, and what emerged from it. A good gateway into learning […]

Choose this day whom you will serve.

The Kingdom of God Is Within You: Christianity Not as Mystic Religion But as a New Theory of Life by Leo Tolstoy

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I took a long, weird road to this book. I grew up in Texas with public-service-minded parents of faith. I was a political science major turned public-interest lawyer turned political staffer. Public service, making the world a better place, all of it. In my mind, Jesus’ line about rendering to Caesar what’s Caesar’s meant that, in my democratic context, I had to work the system for good. I navigated the classic political argument of the “problem of dirty hands” with all of that in mind […]



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