Finished This Week

 

 

I’m not going to waste a review day on Fire and Fury because everybody knows what is in it by now so here’s a mini review.  For me, there weren’t any real revelations in here.  I’ve always been of the opinion that he is too stupid for public office.  I’ve never been able to take the leap of faith that makes some people think that he is some kind of master manipulator who just wants you to think that he’s stupid.  This book confirms what I previously thought. 

It was sort of helpful to read this to help get a sense of the timeline.  There have been so many bad actors in this story already that you find yourself getting them confused.  Reading this book helped set me straight a few times when I found I was confusing who was who. 

I was disappointed that there wasn’t any coverage of the effects of protests.  There was no mention of the Women’s March.  No mention of response to the airport protests and apparently the repeal of the healthcare bill failed purely because of Paul Ryan and not millions of phone calls made to Senators.  So much was made in the book about him just wanting everyone to like him that I would have loved to see something about the effects of the protests on him.

 

What Am I Reading?

Sundown Towns – “In a provocative, sweeping analysis of American residential patterns, Loewen uncovers the thousands of “sundown towns”—almost exclusively white towns where it was an unspoken rule that blacks could not live there—that cropped up throughout the twentieth century, most of them located outside of the South. These towns used everything from legal formalities to violence to create homogenous Caucasian communities—and their existence has gone unexamined until now. For the first time, Loewen takes a long, hard look at the history, sociology, and continued existence of these towns, contributing an essential new chapter to the study of American race relations.“

Son of a Trickster – “Everyone knows a guy like Jared: the burnout kid in high school who sells weed cookies and has a scary mom who’s often wasted and wielding some kind of weapon. Jared does smoke and drink too much, and he does make the best cookies in town, and his mom is a mess, but he’s also a kid who has an immense capacity for compassion and an impulse to watch over people more than twice his age, and he can’t rely on anyone for consistent love and support, except for his flatulent pit bull, Baby Killer (he calls her Baby)–and now she’s dead.

Jared can’t count on his mom to stay sober and stick around to take care of him. He can’t rely on his dad to pay the bills and support his new wife and step-daughter. Jared is only sixteen but feels like he is the one who must stabilize his family’s life, even look out for his elderly neighbours. But he struggles to keep everything afloat…and sometimes he blacks out. And he puzzles over why his maternal grandmother has never liked him, why she says he’s the son of a trickster, that he isn’t human. Mind you, ravens speak to him–even when he’s not stoned.”

What Am I Listening To?

 

Yeah, still.  I had a weird week.  My office (my less than a year old, beautiful office) flooded because of a water pipe break on an upper floor.  We were off work for most of the week because of drying out and the repairs.  So, I didn’t drive to work and that’s when I get most of my audiobook time.  That’s why this one is taking a while.

I also listen to audiobooks when I sew but I found some other entertainment.  I listened to a radio play version of Neil Gaiman’s Anansi Boys done by the BBC.   It was wonderfully done and you can listen to it for a while longer.  I’ve also started listening to The Wicked Wallflowers podcast featuring interviews with romance authors. Â