Review of "Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House" by Michael Wolff

Author Michael Wolff

"Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House" by Michael Wolff is a tell-all about the President's first nine months in office. The book was an instant best seller, and has been reviewed and quoted extensively, so most people are probably (at least) somewhat familiar with the contents.

In a nutshell, the book is an unflattering portrait of the President and his closest advisors - who jostle for power and backstab each other at every opportunity. No one is in charge and no one seems to be running the government.....especially not the President.


President Donald Trump

I'm just going to present some of my takeaways from the book, illustrated with quotations from the narrative.

*****

Like many people I was shocked when Donald Trump won the presidency, and apparently he was too. President Trump seemingly didn't expect to win, didn't want to win, and isn't prepared for the job. Moreover, Trump isn't interested in learning the ropes, and his inner circle is equally clueless.

“It’s worse than you can imagine. An idiot surrounded by clowns. Trump won’t read anything—not one-page memos, not the brief policy papers; nothing. He gets up halfway through meetings with world leaders because he is bored. And his staff is no better. [Son-in-law Jared] Kushner is an entitled baby who knows nothing.


Jared Kushner

[Chief Strategist Steve] Bannon is an arrogant prick who thinks he’s smarter than he is. Trump is less a person than a collection of terrible traits.”


Steve Bannon

"But not only didn’t he read, he didn’t listen. He preferred to be the person talking. And he trusted his own expertise—no matter how paltry or irrelevant—more than anyone else’s. What’s more, he had an extremely short attention span, even when he thought you were worthy of attention."

“He had somehow won the race for president, but his brain seemed incapable of performing what would be essential tasks in his new job. He had no ability to plan and organize and pay attention and switch focus; he had never been able to tailor his behavior to what the goals at hand reasonably required. On the most basic level, he simply could not link cause and effect.”

“If the Trump White House was as unsettling as any in American history, the President’s views of foreign policy and the world at large were among its most random, uninformed, and seemingly capricious aspects. His advisers didn’t know whether he was an isolationist or a militarist, or whether he could distinguish between the two. He was enamored with generals and determined that people with military command experience take the lead in foreign policy, but he hated to be told what to do. He was against nation building, but he believed there were few situations that he couldn’t personally make better. He had little to no experience in foreign policy, but he had no respect for the experts, either.”

*****

President Trump is essentially a salesman who wants people to like him, and can't understand why they don't.

“The President couldn’t stop talking. He was plaintive and self-pitying, and it was obvious to everyone that if he had a north star, it was just to be liked. He was ever uncomprehending about why everyone did not like him, or why it should be so difficult to get everyone to like him."

“For every member of the White House senior staff this would be the lasting conundrum of dealing with President Trump: the “why” of his often baffling behavior. “The president fundamentally wants to be liked” was [Senior Aide] Katie Walsh’s analysis. “He just fundamentally needs to be liked so badly that it’s always … everything is a struggle for him."

*****

President Trump's inner circle - Steve Bannon, [Chief of Staff] Reince Priebus, and Jarvanka (Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump) - had an adversarial relationship with each other, with no consensus about what Trump wanted or what direction the government should take. They consistently undermined one another and tried to ingratiate themselves with the President at the expense of their rivals.

“Bannon, Kushner, [Advisor Kellyanne] Conway, and the president’s daughter actually had no specific responsibilities—they could make it up as they went along. They did what they wanted.”


Kellyanne Conway


Ivanka Trump

“As Walsh saw it, Steve Bannon was running the Steve Bannon White House, Jared Kushner was running the Michael Bloomberg White House, and Reince Priebus was running the Paul Ryan White House. It was a 1970s video game, the white ball pinging back and forth in the black triangle.”


Reince Priebus

“Priebus had an agenda of his own: heeding Senate leader Mitch McConnell’s prescription that “this president will sign whatever is put in front of him,” while also taking advantage of the White House’s lack of political and legislative experience and outsourcing as much policy as possible to Capitol Hill.”


Mitch McConnell

“Kushner had his personal press operation and Bannon had his. The leaking culture had become so open and overt—most of the time everybody could identify everybody else’s leaks—that it was now formally staffed.”

“Bannon invariably found some reason to study papers in the corner and then to have a last word; Priebus kept his eye on Bannon; Kushner kept constant tabs on the whereabouts of the others.”

“Here was yet another battle to be won or lost. Bannon regarded Kushner and [Economic Advisor Gary] Cohn (and Ivanka) as occupying an alternative reality that had little bearing on the real Trump revolution. Kushner and Cohn saw Bannon as not just destructive but self-destructive, and they were confident he would destroy himself before he destroyed them."


Gary Cohn

“Bannon, with mounting ferocity and pubic venom, could abide [Jarvanka] less and less every day.”

*****

The charges of colluding with Russians gained traction when the meeting led by Donald Trump, Jr. was exposed. The cover-up and subsequent firing of FBI Director Comey was inadvisable.....and asking for trouble.

"On June 9, 2016, Don Jr., Jared, and [Campaign Manager] Paul Manafort met with a movie-worthy cast of dubious characters in Trump Tower after having been promised damaging information about Hillary Clinton......It was a case.....not of masterminds and subterfuge, but of senseless and benighted people so guileless and unconcerned that they enthusiastically colluded in plain sight."


Paul Manafort


Donald Trump Jr.


Hillary Clinton

“The chance that Don Jr. did not walk these jumos up to his father’s office on the twenty-sixth floor is zero,” said an astonished and derisive Bannon, not long after the meeting was revealed. “The three senior guys in the campaign,” an incredulous Bannon went on, “thought it was a good idea to meet with a foreign government inside Trump Tower in the conference room on the twenty-fifth floor—with no lawyers. They didn’t have any lawyers. Even if you thought that this was not treasonous, or unpatriotic, or bad shit, and I happen to think it’s all of that, you should have called the FBI immediately.”

Offering forceful and dire warnings, Bannon told the president: “This Russian story is a third-tier story, but you fire Comey and it’ll be the biggest story in the world."

“Most of all don’t let him piss off the intel community,” said one national Republican figure to Kushner. “If you fuck with the intel community they will figure out a way to get back at you and you’ll have two or three years of a Russian investigation, and every day something else will leak out.”

"The firing of FBI director James Comey may be the most consequential move ever made by a modern president acting entirely on his own.”


James Comey

“On May 17, twelve days after FBI director Comey was fired, without consulting the White House or the attorney general, [Deputy Attorney General Rod] Rosenstein appointed former FBI director Robert Mueller to oversee the investigation of Trump’s, his campaign’s, and his staff’s ties to
Russia.”


Rod Rosenstein


Robert Mueller

*****

Trump couldn't bear not to come out on top and needed to be 'the brightest star' in any situation. He thought he could put one over on most anyone and seemed to believe the President could order everybody to do what he wanted - even the FBI. This was a miscalculation.

“Trump did not enjoy his own inauguration. He had hoped for a big blowout [with more A-list stars].”

“He was the winner and now expected to be the object of awe, fascination, and favor. He expected this to be binary: a hostile media would turn into a fannish one.”

“Trump’s extemporaneous moments were always existential, but more so for his aides than for him. He spoke obliviously and happily, believing himself to be a perfect pitch raconteur and public performer, while everyone with him held their breath. If a wackadoo moment occurred on the occasions—the frequent occasions—when his remarks careened in no clear direction, his staff had to go into intense method-acting response. It took absolute discipline not to acknowledge what everyone could see." (To me this is the most hilarious moment in the book.)

“The conundrum was that conservative media saw Trump as its creature, while Trump saw himself as a star, a vaunted and valued product of all media, one climbing ever higher. It was a cult of personality, and he was the personality. He was the most famous man in the world. ”

“Insecurity was soothed by entitlement.”

“He hopelessly personalized everything. He saw the world in commercial and show business terms: someone else was always trying to one-up you, someone else was always trying to take the limelight.”

"But now there seemed to be a new understanding: Donald Trump believed he had vastly more power, authority, and control than in fact he had, and he believed his talent for manipulating people and bending and dominating them was vastly greater than it was. Pushing this line of reasoning just a little further: senior staff believed the president had a problem with reality, and reality was now overwhelming him."

“Trump quite profoundly seemed unable to distinguish between his political advantage and his personal needs—he thought emotionally, not strategically.”

“Trump was Trump—careless, capricious, disloyal, far beyond any sort of control.”

“They were all concerned that Trump did not understand what he was up against. That there was simply not enough method to his madness.”

*****

There's plenty more scuttlebutt in the book, about President Trump's antipathy to 'smart people'; his xenophobia; his relationship with his wife Melania (not great); his passion for playing golf; the pleasure he takes in putting people down and calling them names; his habit of retiring to his bedroom in the evening with a cheeseburger.....and compulsively watching his three TV screens and calling friends/advisors to get advice, rationalize his behavior, and complain about the media; Trump's falling out with Steve Bannon - who thought he should be in charge of policy and liked to call himself President Bannon; Ivanka and Jared's ambitions to be future Presidents; the rapid-fire hiring/firing/and quitting among the President's senior staff; and much much more.


Melania Trump

The book is interesting from a sensationalist point of view, but it's a bit plodding and repetitive....and many 'facts' are not unattributed to appropriate sources. Still, I'm glad I read it, and feel I now have a better understanding of President Trump's actions and behavior. 

Rating: 3.5 stars

Review of "Robert B. Parker's Damned If You Do: A Jesse Stone Novel" by Michael Brandman

This 12th addition to Robert B. Parker's 'Jesse Stone' series is written by Michael Brandman. In this book, the Police Chief investigates the death of a prostitute. The book can be read as a standalone.

*****

Jesse Stone is the Police Chief of Paradise, Massachusetts, a small city near Boston.



As the story opens Jesse is called to a local motel, where a young prostitute has been stabbed to death. The woman has no identification, so Jesse needs to find out her name as well as who killed her. During his investigation Jesse talks to the local crime boss, Gino Fish, as well as some pimps who run prostitutes - none of whom is very forthcoming.



Nevertheless, Jesse pushes on, determined to find the murderer and return the victim to her family for a proper burial.

Meanwhile, Jesse is worried about his former accountant, Donnie Jacobs, who's suffering from Alzheimer's disease. Donnie lives in an elder care facility called 'Golden Horizons Retirement Village', whose owners have a reputation for over-medicating patients, tying them to their beds, and generally mistreating them.



The owners of Golden Horizons have good lawyers though, and it's been impossible to shut any of their facilities down. The people who run the elder care centers get a shock, however, when they discover how clever and ruthless Jesse can be.



The new author does a good job capturing Jesse's manner of speech and personality. Brandman's Jesse still speaks in clipped sentences, for example, and continues to be more respectful to criminals than your average cop.



Other regular characters also have authentic voices, but they make very brief appearances. In fact we hardly see Molly and Suitcase, which is disappointing.





Lastly, the plot is overly simplistic with very little development. Thus, fans of Jesse Stone might enjoy the story but the book is not up to Robert B. Parker's standards.

Rating: 3 stars

Review of "Dust: A Kay Scarpetta Thriller" by Patricia Cornwell

In this 21st book in the 'Kay Scarpetta' series, the medical examiner is on the trail of a sadistic murderer. The book can be read as a standalone, but familiarity with the series is a bonus.

*****



Medical examiner Kay Scarpetta has an abundance of troubles: she's traumatized after the Newtown, Connecticut school shootings; she's recovering from a bad flu; and her head investigator Pete Marino has bailed on her.



Kay's FBI profiler husband - Benton Wesley - is on the outs with his boss;



And a serial killer seems to be at work in Cambridge, Massachusetts where she lives.

As usual in Patricia Cornwell's series, Kay and Benton are in the cross-hairs of self-serving or demented bad guys - and have to contend with them while concurrently chasing criminals. Pete Marino is also true to form, resentful that Kay never fell in love with him and determined to make her life difficult by behaving in a childish, crude, and unpleasant manner. Personally, I've had about enough of Pete Marino and wish that Kay would cut him loose so he'd disappear from future books.

Kay's genius niece Lucy is also on hand - and in this book she's behaving a little better than usual -refraining from getting involved with psychopaths and using her IT skills to help the investigation.



Lucy, however, is a hard to believe "over-the-top" character: she drives around town in an armored SUV worthy of the Russian mob, flies helicopters, hacks into any computer anywhere, and so on.



I liked Lucy much better when she was a youngster in the early Scarpetta books.

The plot of the book is fairly straightforward. Kay is determined to help capture a sadistic murderer who apparently killed several people in Washington, D.C. before heading for Massachusetts. Kay is thwarted, however, because the head of the FBI seems to be tampering with the evidence and a large, wealthy, corrupt corporation is also obstructing the investigation. Kay carries on trying to catch the perp, however, and does numerous forensic examinations that are described in great detail. Readers interested in this type of thing will probably like this book.



Though this book is a little better than the last couple of books in the Scarpetta series it isn't as good as the early books. I'd mildly recommend it to mystery fans, a little more if they're huge Scarpetta fans.

Rating: 3 stars

Review of "Inspector Singh Investigates: A Bali Conspiracy Most Foul" by Shamini Flint

In this second book in the 'Inspector Singh' series, the homicide detective investigates a murder in Bali. The book can be read as a standalone.

*****

Following a terrorist bombing in Bali, Inspector Singh is sent from Singapore to help catch the terrorists. Homicide detective Singh knows nothing about hunting terrorists, however, and is at a loose end. Then, it's discovered that one 'bomb victim', a British expat named Richard Crouch, was actually shot in the head before the blast and Singh is in his element - looking for a murderer.



Singh, a short plump Sikh who always wears a turban, suit, and white sneakers, has a high opinion of his own investigative skills and likes to be the boss. Thus Singh is annoyed when he's partnered with Australian Federal Policewoman Bronwyn Taylor, a big woman who has no homicide experience.



Nevertheless, Singh and Bronwyn make a good team and - after sharing innumerable dangerous rides in a rickety Balinese taxi.....



.....and too many high-calorie meals in local eateries - become something like friends. 



There are many suspects for the murder, including Richard Crouch's wife and the small community of expats that comprise her social circle. There's a lot going on in this community, including bad marriages, gambling debts, and illicit romance, all of which is quite entertaining.



Before long evidence emerges that Richard spent a good deal of time with Muslim immigrants in Bali, who also become suspects in the killing.



Most of the Muslim characters are members of the same family, and it's illuminating to see the interactions among a devout Muslim man, his very much younger wife, and her two brothers - even the youngest of whom feels free to criticize and chastise his sister. I was happy when she finally upped and slapped him across the face :)

The expats and Muslims are well-rounded, believable characters, most of whom have something to hide. Thus, Singh and Bronwyn are obliged to question and re-question them, organize surveillance, and step outside the law (a little bit) as they search for the truth.

Singh is an interesting man, a clever detective who often muses about his expanding belly, difficult wife, and desire to go home. Bronwyn is a likable gal, sympathetic to almost everyone, and holds her own in the investigation. There are also a variety of secondary characters including a helpful taxi driver, a hunky tan Australian surfer, a pimply hotel clerk, and an ambitious Balinese police officer.



I enjoyed the story and almost felt like I could experience the ambiance of Bali - the oppressive heat, crowded roads, crazy drivers, Hindu temples, devout citizens, countless snack booths, and friendly native people.

I'd recommend this book to mystery fans, especially readers who enjoy exotic settings.

Rating: 3.5 stars

Review of "Harry Potter: A Journey Through a History of Magic" by British Library

In 2017 'The British Library' mounted an exhibition called "Harry Potter: A Journey Through a History of Magic" to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the publication of the first Harry Potter novel. This is a companion book to the library's presentation. Harry Potter fans will find much to like in this tribute, which is BEAUTIFUL to look at and FUN to read.





The book contains a variety of wonderful tidbits related to the Harry Potter series. Examples follow.

The volume contains original sketches by J.K. Rowling, drawn while she was writing the books. These include: the Hogwarts school and grounds (including the Giant Squid and the Whomping Willow); Harry and the Dursleys (I love this one - Dudley is a mini-Vernon); Harry and his friends (Neville, Ron, Hermione, and Gary....who was later renamed Dean); Professor Sprout and her magic plants; Argus Filch (looking exceptionally creepy); Nearly Headless Nick (showing why he's 'nearly headless'); Professor Snape; and more.







The book also has copies of original manuscript pages by J.K. Rowling, featuring: annotated handwritten and typed pages from 'Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone'; emended pages from 'Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince'; an edited handwritten copy of the 'Sorting Hat' song; a handwritten story from 'The Tales of Beedle the Bard'; and others.



Also included are Rowling's handwritten lists of classes and teachers at Hogwarts and a detailed plan (in chart form) for 'Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.'

All this shows a little of Rowling's 'writing process', which is interesting and instructive.

*****

The book has numerous GORGEOUS drawings by Jim Kay, illustrator for the illustrated editions of Harry Potter. These pictures include: Professor Dumbledore; Professor McGonagall; a busy Platform Nine and Three-Quarters; Professor Snape; Fluffy (the three-headed dog); Professor Sprout (surrounded by mandrakes); Diagon Alley; a Hippogriff; Aragog (the giant spider); Fawkes (the phoenix); winged keys; and many many more.

















*****

The publication features examples of books, objects, and factoids that relate to 'magic', like: a bezoar stone in a gold filigree case; a cauldron from 800 B.C.; an actual mandrake root (this looks exactly like a little person); medieval books about herbology and potions; a medieval witch's broom owned by Olga Hunt of Manaton - who allegedly rode it during the full moon; an Arabic astrolabe (used by ancient astronomers to chart the night sky); a witch's scrying mirror (used for divination); a fortune telling cup and saucer (for tea leaves); magic wands; illustrations of constellations; names of stars; and innumerable others.







Snippets from - and anecdotes about - the Harry Potter stories are linked with the things mentioned above - to demonstrate how they may have inspired Rowling.

*****

There are also miscellaneous engaging segments scattered through the book, such as: Nicholas Flamel (featured in 'Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone') was a real person; a man called George Ripley wrote a book about how to make a Philosopher's Stone (which apparently didn't work because he died in 1490); many modern medicines are based on plants (digoxin, quinine, aspirin); Leonardo DaVinci wrote notes in mirror handwriting (which reads from right to left); people once believed that the smell of a weasel could kill a basilisk; and lots more.





*****

Lastly , the book includes suggested activities for children (with instructions), such as: how to make a color-changing potion; how to make flowers change color; how to make a charmed banana (sliced inside it's intact skin); and how to find the lines on your palm (for palm reading).

I'm a big Harry Potter fan and I thoroughly enjoyed the book. I highly recommend it to fans of the series, both kids and adults.

Rating: 5 stars