Non-Fiction American History

11. A People's History of the United States 1492 - Present by Howard Zinn - history is often written by the victors. This book helped me see all the others in history. 

12. A History of the American People by Paul Johnson - American history seen through the lens of someone not American. 

13. Through Women's Eyes: An American History with Documents Volume 1 and 2 edited by Ellen Carol DuBois and Lynn Dumenil. A more intersectional look at American history. Very academic but still quite readable.

Non-Fiction Disaster

14. The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine by Michael Lewis - it was hard to pick one Lewis book because I am such a fan of his writing, but this was the first I read so on the list it goes. 

15. The Mercy of the Sky: The Story of a Tornado by Holly Bailey - the story of how the Moore, OK tornado happened and the aftermath. Heartbreaking but also the writing kept me turning pages quickly.

16. Lights Out: A Cyberattack, a Nation Unprepared, Surviving the Aftermath by Ted Koppel - a what if? premise that is a very realistic threat. Infrastructure matters.

The end of Snakes and Ladders and BoB helped me push past my usual number of books read. COYER Summer starts tomorrow and BL-opoly is off to a good start, so I am looking at upping my BL/GR goal. I really need to write reviews at least once a week instead of writing all the reviews at the end of the month.

Goals:

BL/GR: 61/75 (80% completed)

Nixon Reading List: DNF the book this month

Challenges:

BoB Cycle 25 - 4 books finished and 3 IG photos

Snakes and Ladders - Finished

BL-opoly: earned $14.00

May Reading List

1. We Fed an Island: The True Story of Rebuilding Puerto Rico, One Meal at a Time by Jose Andres and Richard Wolffe - 5 stars

2. Better Off Wed (Annabelle Archer Wedding Planner Mystery #1) by Laura Durham - 3 stars

3. Black Man in a White Coat: A Doctor's Reflections on Race and Medicine by Dr. Damon Tweedy - 5 stars

4. The Fifth Risk by Michael Lewis - 4.5 stars

5. Are You There Coffee? It's Me, Mom by Kianna Alexander - 3 stars

6. Confessions of a Prairie Bitch: How I Survived Nellie Olsen and Learned to Love Being Hated by Alison Arngrim - 5 stars

7. Bitch Planet, Volume 1: Extraordinary Machine by Kelly Sue DeConnick and Valentine de Landro - 2.5 stars

8. Bitch Planet, Volume 2: President Bitch by Kelly Sue DeConnick and Valentine de Landro - 2.5 stars

9. Bombshells: United, Volume 1: American Soil by Marguerite Bennett and Marguerite Sauvage - 2 stars

10. Step Aside, Pops: A Hark! A Vagrant Collection by Kate Beaton - 4 stars

11. American on Purpose by Craig Ferguson - 3.5 stars

12. The Making of the President 1972 by Theodore White - DNF

13. A Change of Fortune (Ladies of Distinction #1) by Jen Turano - 4 stars

14. On Distant Shores (Wings of the Nightingale #2) by Sarah Sundin - 5 stars

15. Summerset Abbey (Summerset Abbey #1) by T.J. Brown - DNF

16. Gentleman of Her Dreams (Ladies of Distinction #0.5) by Jen Turano - 2 stars

17. Then Came You (Bradford Sisters #0.5) by Becky Wade - 0 stars

Stats

Non-Fiction: 6 (5 read, 1 attempted)

Fiction: 11 (10 read, 1 attempted)

Print: 7

Ebook: 9

Audio: 1

Male Authors: 5

Female Authors: 12

AoC/LGBT: 3 (all AoCs)

Date Published: October 2, 2018

Format: Print

Source: Library

Date Read: May 9-10, 2019

Blurb

What are the consequences if the people given control over our government have no idea how it works?

Michael Lewis’s brilliant narrative takes us into the engine rooms of a government under attack by its own leaders. In Agriculture the funding of vital programs like food stamps and school lunches is being slashed. The Commerce Department may not have enough staff to conduct the 2020 Census properly. Over at Energy, where international nuclear risk is managed, it’s not clear there will be enough inspectors to track and locate black market uranium before terrorists do.

Willful ignorance plays a role in these looming disasters. If your ambition is to maximize short-term gains without regard to the long-term cost, you are better off not knowing those costs. If you want to preserve your personal immunity to the hard problems, it’s better never to really understand those problems. There is upside to ignorance, and downside to knowledge. Knowledge makes life messier. It makes it a bit more difficult for a person who wishes to shrink the world to a worldview.

If there are dangerous fools in this book, there are also heroes, unsung, of course. They are the linchpins of the system—those public servants whose knowledge, dedication, and proactivity keep the machinery running. Michael Lewis finds them, and he asks them what keeps them up at night.

****************************************************************************************************

Review

Another great reading time spent with Michael Lewis. This is a compilation of his work for Vanity Fair at the beginning of the Trump administration. But it goes beyond the incompetency and willful ignorance of the Trump administration - the American people really don't know how governmental agencies work (example #1 - Rick Perry and the DoE). So Lewis did a deep dive into just how the work of three Departments (Energy, Agriculture, and NOAA/NOW) affect the day-to-day life of Americans. The fifth risk comes from "program management" - or lack thereof. Turns out, program management is a huge deal and can have consequences that last a generation or more; unfortunately it is not as scary as disease outbreak or sexy as DoD launching rockets at random countries. This should be required reading for any high school or college civics class. Highly recommend.

My oldest is home today due to one of his wisdom teeth coming in a very painful way (painful enough to make him not sleep at all last night and nauseous which led to mommy cleaning up puke from my living room floor and the 24hour convenience store on base this morning). He is finally sleeping and not in pain, so he is on the road to recovery. 

My reading plans include finishing The Fifth Risk and start working on President 1972. I borrowed season six of Call the Midwife, so that will be my binge watching for the week. My daughter is competing in the British Ishin Ryu Ju-Jitsu Championships on Sunday, so I get to spend Mother's Day in Newmarket watching my girl throw other kids to the floor/get thrown to the floor.. It is her first competition (unfortunately, also her last as her type of ju-jitsu is not taught back in the US so she will have to find a new martial art to study when we move next month).

Hope you all have a safe, wonderful weekend (and here's to hoping the rain will stop and it warms up a bit - hey England, it's May for FFS).

Book: I chose Luck of the Draw (Chance of a Lifetime #2) by Kate Clayborn. 

Task #1

My guilty pleasure reading is what I call the diseases and disasters genre. Doesn't matter if the disaster happened long ago or more recently, I just love to read a deep dive into those situations. Ditto for diseases. I also really like it when my fiction has diseases and disasters as part of the story and the characters have to overcome some serious stuff on their way to love and HEA. 

Non-fiction: Most of Michael Lewis' books, All the Devils Are Here, Polio: An American Story, Flu

Fiction: Homefront Hero and Mission of Hope by Allie Pleiter (former has Spanish flu plotline, the latter takes place right after the 1906 San Francisco earthquake)

Task #2

I know I am going to get some shit thrown my way, but my favorite team EVER is 

My daughter's T-Ball team was the NYY and I was so happy to see her enjoy playing baseball while dressed out in my favorite team's jersey this summer. My heart hurt a little when they didn't beat the dirty socks in the playoffs, but there is always next year.