The title of this book was really misleading, although the photos on the cover might have given me a hint that it wasn't going to be a romance novel.  A memoir written by a well-known presidential historian, the center of the memoir is her husband, who was a speech writer for JFK, Lyndon B Johnson, and Bobby Kennedy.  The audio version includes audio clips from some of the speeches she talks about. Perhaps the title refers to the triumph of love over hate in the American political landscape or to the love that they had for the country, because romantic love was not at the center of the story, at least not until the very end when they are working together on this project.  I wish the book had told us more about their interpersonal dynamics, a 1960's power couple at a time when two careers and children was uncommon, probably especially so in the highly charged DC world.  I would have been really interested to have had that explored more.

As a history of the Democratic party, it was a detailed historians account--at times deeply interesting and at times fairly mundane and boring.  What I liked the most, though, was the reminder that this moment in time, when it feels like the country has reached the end of its capacity to endure the political divides that it is based on, is not unique.  It is not even the moment in time in which the demise of the country appears the most imminent.  Hearing the first hand account of the turmoil, of the violence, of the divisions in the country, especially during the five year span of time in which MLK and the Kennedy brothers were assassinated, provided some solace for me, knowing that the country has been here before and has returned from the brink of implosion many times, that it is still possible that it could right itself.  

I don't know that I have ever heard or read many of the speeches from that era, but they were not only actually inspiring, but still relevant.  It is hard to remember sometimes how far we have come and that this was accomplished not only with protests in the streets and with education in classrooms, but also with leaders in the system with a vision and willingness to show up to do the hard work of leadership.

The hesitation that I have in making a recommendation on this one is just that there really were sections that were dull, including a few that I fell asleep to multiple times before finally just skipping, something I rarely do.

Recommended, but a soft recommend.  

Click here to purchase this book and support My 50 Bookish Friends blog project.

After watching the new Bob Dylan bio-pic (A Complete Unknown) a few weeks ago, I realized that I didn't know as much about Pete Seeger's experience with the House Un-American Activities Committee during the McCarthy Era, so I went looking for a biography that might provide a deep dive into this topic.  Alas, this was the only thing I could find on an available audio version.  It wasn't bad, it just wasn't as in depth as I would have liked.  I was hoping for something more like the recent CIA and FBI books I have read.  Seeger is such an inspiring example of lifelong activism and commitment to his values and I really wish there had been more that just a quick overview.
​
Not not recommended.

Click here to purchase this book and support My 50 Bookish Friends blog project.

This was one long-ass book.  But I learned so much about the Edgar Hoover and the shocking history of the FBI.  For sure, I knew some things about both the agency and its most notorious director, but I had no idea how much more there was to know and now I really, really know a lot about the topic!  I am not sure I retained all of it because there were some sections that were quite boring and parts where I am sure I let my attention wander.  In some places, it felt like the author had learned something that took her a long time to discover and she just really wanted to make sure it was included. I imagine her editor saying, "You know, we could cut some of this part because it is a little boring" and her response being so passionate and her defense of the passage so detailed and intense that it was easier to just leave it in than to cut it.  Even with that flaw, I found the topic fascinating and her obvious dedication to the material inspiring.  It will renew your paranoia about government overreach and commitment to making sure that civil liberties, particular of young radical left activists are protected. It is something more people should study and really sit with.

Recommend.

Click here to purchase this book and support My 50 Bookish Friends blog project.


​

Written by a history professor, but billed as a "primer" on the the American system of democracy, I found that was it was a decent progressive survey of what we are facing right now.  I also, however, found it shallow and at times it felt preachy and like it was just propaganda for the left.  It felt well researched, but there wasn't a time when I felt like my beliefs were being meaningfully challenged or even added to.  For someone just coming into political awareness or who hasn't been paying attention to politics for the last decade, I could see it being useful, interesting, and capable of keeping ones attention.  I just didn't get much out of it.

​Not recommended.





Click here to purchase this book and support My 50 Bookish Friends blog project.

This was not at all what I was expecting.  A deep dive into the CIA starting with WWII and continuing through the assassination of Bobby Kennedy was not on the list of things I would have picked up to read, like not ever.  But, this was fascinating.  It takes conspiracy theory and just doubles down on it, presenting tons of details that appear so well documented that it is hard not to start thinking that the deep state has indeed run the world for a very long time.

The book starts in the build up of Nazi Germany, when Allen Dulles and, to a lesser extent, his bother John Foster Dulles (for whom the DC airport is named) develop close connections to Hitler and his upper administration.  The graphic depictions of the Holocaust is a precursor to other atrocities throughout the book, but while it was not bedtime reading, the details of the horrors felt important to an understanding of exactly what these men knew about what was happening, when they knew it, and the opportunities they had to alter the course of the genocide.  As not only Nazi sympathizers, but as active friends and colleagues with the Nazi leadership, the CIA's founding fathers did not get off to a good start.  That this agency and the men behind it became so powerful as to run a shadow government, even after they let the agency is shocking.

I had no idea where the book was headed as I read it, so each new era was fascinating.  Some of the history I knew well, but other pieces were not things I had studied or were familiar with.  More than that, though, the book veers seemingly off course onto remarkably interesting tangents, such as the role race played in Castro's Cuba. So many side stories weaved together to provide the backdrop for the chapters on JFK's assassination. From McCarthyism and The Bay of Pig to Freud and Jung to race relations and the Cold War, this book packs a ton of topics into every chapter.

I wasn't sucked into the book in the way that I sometimes am where I cannot stop reading because the book often reads more like a dense text book than a best-seller, but I did get sucked into the book in the way that sometimes happens where I in the book's world even when I am not reading.  I definitely spent the last few weeks wondering which parts of what is happening now politically are the results of a new guard that is the legacy of the men portrayed in this book.   

On a side note, the number of gay men in the CIA and adjacent is fairly shocking given how many of them were also being blackmailed, pressured, or threatened because of their sexual orientation, not to mention the number of gay men do this to other gay men.  These storylines are almost glossed over, but are painful to think about.  I was also troubled by the author's references to pedophiles and the sexual abuse of boys in the same category.

On a second side note, if you google the book, the first hit is to the CIA website, but when you jump there, it says: "Page not found. CIA.gov has changed . . ."  I am so curious what used to be posted there.

​Recommend.  

Click here to purchase this book and support My 50 Bookish Friends blog project.

I'm not a huge fan of the I-Told-You-So political science academics who write books meant to be best sellers by watering down political theory to apply them to sensationalized contemporary political issues and this was exactly that.  I am unconvinced that this type of rhetoric does anything to move the dialogue in a useful way. It inflames people who are already inflamed, for sure.  To me, this felt like her daring Trump to sue her for libel. While there was interesting background information, some of which I had not knowns before, I just couldn't get into the hyped up tone she used.

Not recommended.

This was a pretty dense biography with quite a lot of information and background, not all of which was interesting, so there were some parts that droned on a bit, reading more like a list of facts in a history book than biography, but there were other parts that were really enthralling.  Even though I have read a number of books about her and her associates (particularly Lorena Hickok and Pauli Murray) in recent years, I still found that this book had new information for me.  From that perspective, I think it was well worth reading as such a great example of leadership by someone stepping into who considered herself unsuited to that role. 
​Recommend.

A lengthy essay, really, this is a history of the #MeToo movement and its aftermath in Australia.  I don't remember now how this came to be on my list of things to read (it wasn't part of my 50 friends list), but it was fascinating, particularly because it played out quite differently than in the States and Canada. In the hyper-masculinized culture there where sexual harassment is/was even more pervasive than in the US, far fewer famous men were impacted by the #MeToo phenomena, but the ones that were public had a significant impact on systems and culture that were really interesting to read about. Lots of food for thought here.

Recommend.

This is a collection of interviews of Russians talking about their post-soviet era experiences of living in Russia.  There are a wide variety of stories and perspectives represented and many of the stories are brutal in the telling.  Perhaps more than anything else what stuck with me was how people you thought were friends and loved ones can turn on you under the oppressive conditions.  These stories of pain weighed on me more than the stories of torture in prisons or the horrors of combat and war.  There are countless assaults and sexual assault told here, in addition to the description of love and joy and survival.  Reading this book in a time where Russia has launched a war on Ukraine was fascinating, as I imagine what these same people are thinking now with the information they are getting.  An interesting read, but not necessarily something I would recommend unless you are particularly interested in the topic.
​
Not not recommended.

I was initially pretty skeptical of this endeavor.  Not a huge Clinton fan to start with, I was wondering if she was just trying to be Stacey Abrams now. But, I typically really like Penny, so I thought I would give it a try.  I was not thrilled with the tone of the writing. It is clearly not Penny's usual Inspector Gemache voice, which I love so much.  It looks quite a while for me to get used to the writing style, which felt less like it was written by a writer and more like it was written by a lawyer, which I suppose makes sense in this context.
So, I got off to kind of a rough start with this one, which didn't really improve until the plot really started to thicken and while the writing never came close to the quality I would expect from Penny, the storyline was enough to win me over.  The complexity of the domestic and international politics was intertwined with family dynamics and personal relationships in a way that once I was sucked in I was really sucked in.  A political thriller bolstered by a sense that Clinton probably brought some semblance of realism to the table. I ended up really enjoying it.  They clearly left the door open for a sequel and maybe a series.
Recommend.