Putin’s People by Catherine Belton

Putin’s People by Catherine Belton

Putin's People is a clearly well-researched, possibly slightly biased, history of Putin, the KGB, and Russia from the fall of the Soviet Union to a couple of years ago. This was obviously published before the current war, but you can still see it coming. Honestly, the war is why I picked it up. I don't read much history or politics or economics, but then something happens and I wish I had more background to draw on. I am probably not the best audience for this book. There are tons and tons of people, places, companies, very few of which I'm familiar with. It's a dense book and I won't remember many of the details, but it's also well laid out and at times almost reads like a thriller. The Russia of today isn’t much different from the Russia before 1991 and the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Not only are the viewpoints, world views, and goals for the most part...
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Dear Madam President by Jennifer Palmieri

Dear Madam President by Jennifer Palmieri

First of all, I'm tired of these articles/essays pretending to be books. I picked up the audio of this one for a couple of reasons, but it was only like 2½ hours long. At 190-ish pages, that's really short. I don't know if the pages are an odd size or the print is huge, but it's a bit of a rip off for the price, hardback or audio, in my opinion. Onto the reasons I picked Dear Madam President up. From the blurb, I knew Jennifer Palmieri was the Director of Communications for Hillary Clinton's 2016 campaign who I did vote for, but it also assured me that it was a not solely about that campaign, that it was a book for all women regardless of politics. The reviews on Goodreads and Amazon are overwhelmingly positive. I read the opening on Margot's blog, Joyfully Retired, last week and it caught my attention. I have to say I was a little disappointed. Palmieri has...
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On Tyranny by Timothy Snyder

On Tyranny by Timothy Snyder

My Kindle needed re-charged last night, so even though I really wanted to finish my current read - I'm ready to be done with it, I had to pick up something else. I'd been planning on reading On Tyranny soon, so I grabbed it off my shelf and settled in. It's a quick read, more of an essay than a full-fledged book, but full of good nuggets. Snyder opens the book with “History does not repeat, but it does instruct,” and goes on to give us 20 mini-lessons we can learn from history, most notably from the Hitler, but also from Eastern Europe, the Soviet Union, and Putin’s Russia. The warnings and lessons are well-presented, easy to read and understand and they're important. Some quotes I want to share: "Take responsibility for what you communicate with others. (72)"  "Since in the age of the internet we are all publishers, each of us bears some private responsibility for the public's sense of truth. If we...
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