Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time


Join the CBR18 Book Bingo Reading Challenge—Now Underway!   

Stingers

Scorpions' Dance: The President, The Spymaster, and Watergate by Jefferson Morley

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Hmmm. This is tough. I was loving the first part of this book. It was maybe my favorite non-fiction read of the year. It almost read like a thriller. It traces the early political careers of Dick Helms and Richard Nixon respectively, along with the trajectory that would lead them to Watergate and the close of their careers. Then it got to the Kennedy stuff. And I realized Jefferson Morley is a Kennedy conspiracy theorist. Not a hardcore one. He doesn’t seem to believe anything […]

Persisted

The Watergate Girl by Jill Wine-Banks

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Watergate has become a later-in-life hobby of mine. I’ve devoured books on the subject, though I missed the news of last year’s release of Jill Wine-Banks’ account, likely due to covid related distractions. Banks was the only female on the Watergate special counsel’s prosecution team at a time when things were changing for women in the workforce. Her experience not only is critical for progress in America but occurs at a pivotal moment in our nation’s history, where the well-being of institutions are criticized and […]

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 […]

Keep A Diary

Washington Journal: Reporting Watergate and Richard Nixon's Downfall by Elizabeth Drew

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Read as part of CBR11 bingo: History Elizabeth Drew’s Washington Journal is making me wish I had kept a diary about the Trump era to document these last few years. I often talk about how the Trump Era is the “lol nothing matters” times of nihilism and obstinance. Seems like a lot of that was going on in 1973-1974. Drew covers the last year of Nixon’s presidency from the perspective of an insider journalist living in the hermetically sealed bubble of Washington, DC. She did a great […]

Founded on a tautological proposition that no one challenges.

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It’s easy to pick on Richard Nixon. The list of his crimes, aspersions against his character, and embarrassments he forced on this country is long enough that it could take up this entire review. He was a blight on the office he felt so entitled to. He is the avatar for nefarious public officials limited by a base cunning and furtive guile. His promise was ambrosia; his delivery: brinksmanship. Richard Nixon savored attention, but skulked in the darkness of public derision. Every friend was an […]



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