celebrating books & the literary lifestyle

Category: Non Fiction

‘A WARNING’

Following his or her shocking, bombshell essay in the New York Times last year, an anonymous senior official in the Trump administration has gone into more detail in this new book: A Warning.

Our first question is: Who is writing this book? After reading it, I cannot tell you who it is though I expect we will know soon enough, surely this person will come clean and claim some fame sometime in the next 1 – 5 years when we have a new president.

I can tell you that the author is a lifelong republican. He or she is deeply trusted in the administration. He or she sees Trump on a daily basis, when he emerges each morning from his “prime tweeting hour.” He or she began to question loyalty to the President after John McCain’s death and what he or she saw as the President’s “spite” towards a dead man. He or she has a great interest in history. This person claims to have stayed in the administration to try and guide the president’s impulses as best as one can. However, this author wants Donald Trump voted out of office in November of 2020 and has written this book to help that cause.

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THE BOOK FOR PEOPLE WHO LOVE THE LIBRARY

Decades ago I sat at a bar next to a older man who – with great pride – pulled a stack of library cards out of his wallet.

“I’ve moved a lot in my life, and the first thing I did in any new town was get a library card,” he said.

Writing this post triggered this memory I hadn’t thought of in years but it speaks towards the variety of people who use libraries. This man was a character although an intelligent one. And at that point in my life (early 20s) I wasn’t necessarily using my library although I had grown up visiting the library. These days, however, I am there at least once a week if not more. So when I heard great things about a book that is about libraries I had to check it out! And add it to my winter reading list.

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‘A Higher Loyalty’ – an objective (as possible) summary

A saying that has stayed with me is “You can’t hate someone if you know their story.” Well James Comey’s story A Higher Loyalty: Truth, Lies, and Leadership starts with this:

At age 16 he was held at gunpoint in his home by the “Ramsey Rapist” right after his parents left for a night out. [He was not raped; likely the rapist was after his sister who was not home.]

These and other details about his early life were not what I was expecting from this book, which I expected to be “all about Trump” based on media coverage.

First, this is actually a good book, and he is a good writer and storyteller. And James Comey comes across as a person of integrity, almost annoyingly so. I read this book quickly, and I would have posted this review/summary two days ago, but our internet went out. I was joking it was Russian hackers taking me down, but we realized it was actually my husband who hit the buried wire with a lawn aerator. Oops.

I recommend you read this book if you want to know how the FBI functions and its various investigations of the past several years. But I also understand why many people don’t want to buy or read this book for various reasons. For those people, I am going to give an extensive summary below. Consider this a spoiler alert.

I can break Comey’s book down into five major sections: 1) His early life 2) His early career including work under W. 3) His work with and thoughts on Obama 4) Hillary Clinton’s emails, and finally 5) His work with Trump. Seriously a third of this book is about Hillary Clinton’s emails!!

Also I want to reiterate this is not a political blog and though it is not hard to figure out where my ideologies lie, I tried to read this book objectively and summarize it as objectively as possible. I previously did the same with Fire and Fury.

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Drawdown and what the normal person can do to reverse global warming

A couple of months ago I almost pushed “share” on – yet another – cataclysmic warning about the future of our planet due to global warming.

But instead, I decided to (attempt to) help with the solution rather than spreading more fear (even though the fear is valid).

So I researched books about global warming and found this one: Drawdown: The Most Comprehensive Plan Ever Proposed to Reverse Global Warming, which is both critically and scientifically acclaimed.

This is a very long and intensely detailed book. Although it reads mostly in layman terms it is just not something the normal person would read, and honestly I have been “reading” it for several months. (I am soooo sick of seeing it on my goodreads “reading now” list.) I now owe $40+ to the library for a “lost book fine” which they will waive when I return it after I finally write this post.

So here on my blog I wanted to talk about this (super long and detailed) book and recommend some more read-able books to help with what surprised me as the most highly rated way to “drawdown” carbon. HINT: It involves food!!

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What I read this weekend Part I – Fire and Fury

I was set to finish The Goldfinch: A Novel (Pulitzer Prize for Fiction) this weekend, and I will write a post on that later because it more than met my expectations.

However, just as I was looking forward to my weekend of reveling in the greatness of this book – and wow I already miss reading it – something else suddenly came up:

The publication of Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House was moved up a few days due to the White House trying to stop the publication of this book. Of course this book was already on my radar, but would I have dropped everything to read it without this new drama surrounding it??  Maybe not….

But I did drop everything and read it (along with half the country). I don’t consider this a political blog, though it’s not difficult to infer where my allegiances lie with my occasional mention of environmental and social justice issues, but please know I tried my best to read and review this book objectively.

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What do people REALLY ask Google?

I stepped away from my summer reading list to read (quickly!!) some non-fiction: Everybody Lies: Big Data, New Data, and What the Internet Can Tell Us About Who We Really Are.

The author, Seth Stephens-Davidowitz, spent several years analyzing Google data.

What is Google data? It is that phrase or question you type into the search bar in the privacy of your own computer or device.

Would you tell people everything you ask google? Probably not. And thus the appeal of this book (to me anyway). I wanted to know what people are asking Google!! Stephens-Davidowitz takes it further, of course, to explain how this data can be used.

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