Griffin Mckay

Helped Me Better Understand "The Other Side"

Revisado: 02-21-21

I genuinely have wanted to understand how so many Christian people could support, excuse, rationalize, and adore a president who seems, to me, to be the antithesis of what I believe Christianity to be about. While I still see an enormous disconnect, this book at least helped me better understand some of the motivations and why people have been pleased with this president.

There are times when I felt the book got bogged down with things that veered a little from its main thesis, but I did find it helpful. I still think those that view Trump as someone who actually cares about their Christian rights are mistaken since I think he only cares about himself, but I guess they do (or if they don't, they feel the ends justify the means), but this book at least helped me get in their heads a bit better.

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Enormously Helpful but Very Scholarly

Revisado: 02-21-21

I found this book enormously helpful at helping me better understand my own white privilege and systemic racism in general. It is presented in a more scholarly, textbook-y kind of way than I would have preferred, but it is still definitely worth reading (or in this case, listening to).

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Honest Account of Trump from His Former Attorney

Revisado: 02-21-21

This book didn't necessarily contain a lot of new or particularly surprising information, but it did reaffirm my belief that Trump is an amoral con man. While I think Michael Cohen himself has often been dishonest and amoral himself in the past, I genuinely do believe he is trying to atone for that in some way (in addition to earning some money) by giving a firsthand account of what Donald Trump is really like.

He seems forthright in this book and owns up to his own mistakes and weaknesses. I find his account believable. It was an interesting listen. The reader does a good job of capturing Cohen's voice and persona.

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Charming, Realistic Gay Love Story

Revisado: 02-21-21

I really quite liked this book. It felt romantic but real. Noah Galvin and Froy Gutierrez play the two main characters and take turns narrating alternate chapters, propelling the story from their characters' respective points of view. The story doesn't have a tidy ending, but it felt like a realistic one. I also felt the book captured the innocence and sometimes messiness of first love.

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One of the Best Books I've Listened to on Race

Revisado: 10-18-20

I thought this book was excellent. As one who was born as a white male into a middle-class family, I have not always recognized my privilege or my part in a society that has been built on systemic racism. This book is one of the best I have ever read. Designed for both white readers and people of color, the book gives lots of practical advice on how we can can talk about and do specific things to combat systemic racism and have the difficult, and often uncomfortable, conversations required to enact change.

This really opened my eyes like no other book on race has quite done. It helped me better self-examine my own deficiencies and biases, but also gave me tools to help me make changes and improvements not only to myself, but to the system in which we live. I implore you, especially if you don't think you have a racist bone in your body, to read this book. It may positively change your perceptions about these important issues. It has positively affected mine.

Bahni Turpin is one of my favorite readers, too. She's terrific.

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Interesting, but Not Woodward's Best

Revisado: 10-12-20

I like a lot of Bob Woodward's books. This one for me didn't really shed much light on things that I didn't really already see or suspect. It's well written, but does meander at times.

Basically, Woodward, through 17 or 18 interviews with Trump, comes to the firm conclusion that Donald Trump is the wrong man for the job. I could have told you that.

There are interesting tidbits here and there, and even though Woodward uses deep background for many of his sources, it's very likely that former Secretary of Defense Jim Mattison, former Director of Intelligence Dan Coats, and former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson are among them. Lindsey Graham, Jared Kushner, and Donald Trump himself are directly quoted, and the final picture of Trump is, indeed, a poor one, even unintentionally backed up by his supporters.

Woodward mainly focuses on Trump's weaknesses as they apply to national security and his administration's response to the coronavirus pandemic. It's still interesting reading, but there's nothing particularly new here, in my opinion.

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Trump Exposed by His Niece

Revisado: 10-12-20

I enjoyed this book, although it reaffirms how I feel about Donald Trump. Told by his niece, Mary Trump, a clinical psychologist with a PhD in that discipline. As both a psychologist and a family member, Mary Trump has insight into why Donald Trump is the way he is.

She seems pretty forthright about the things she has firsthand knowledge about, speculates about the things she has secondhand knowledge about, and admits the things she does not know about, so I find her account and experiences credible.

She gets into the parenting that affected both Donald Trump and her own father, Fred Trump Jr., specifically by Fred Sr. She affirms much of what I believe about Trump—that he is dishonest, narcissistic, toxic, and deeply insecure.

Really good book. A nice behind-the-scenes look at the Fred Trump Sr. family and their descendants from one family member's point of view.

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I Love Dan Rather

Revisado: 10-12-20

This is a recording of a presentation Dan Rathet gave before a live audience (a sort of "An Evening with Dan Rather"-type of thing). He tells interesting stories and shares his experiences. I really enjoyed it.

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Mildly Interesting Book Marred by a Sub-par Reader

Revisado: 10-12-20

I was listening to an interview on NPR that featured Aimee Groth and her book about Tony Hsieh, Zappos, and Las Vegas's Downtown Project. As a resident of Las Vegas, I found the interview interesting and thought I might find the book interesting. I finally got the chance to listen to it, and it's . . . okay. Nothing special.

Groth focuses a lot on Zappos's business philosophy, holacracy. What starts out as a "ride along" into Zappos's move to Las Vegas and exploration of Hsieh's Downtown Project turns more into an exposé about Zappos's cultish atmosphere and Groth's disappointment in the dream Hsieh has tried to sell.

But at the end of the day, it feels like Groth is trying to create a story rather than just telling one. While I find Hsieh's business model interesting, there is also something that strikes me as a bit pretentious and immature about how that business model operates, almost like, "Look how different and innovative we are," when it ends up behaving in many ways like any other capitalist business model.

But aside from the content of the book (which was more interesting to me as a resident of Las Vegas than I think it would have been otherwise), the biggest flaw with the audio version of this book is Angela Brazil's robotic reading, which distracted incredibly from the book's content. When you overemphasize every syllable of every word, everything becomes unimportant. Why overstress articles and conjunctions? Why. Break up sentences. Into disjointed fragments? You might as well have had Siri or Alexa read this book. There is no flow. It's a disjointed mess. Very disappointing.

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Great Reading, Okay Story

Revisado: 09-19-20

Bahni Turpin, as usual, does a terrific job of performing the book. While the story is interesting, I found myself getting bored at times. I feel like some of Whitehead's narrative could use some streamlining at times. However, I think if I had read the book rather than listening to it, I might have a different opinion. I think this may be a better novel to read rather than listen to.

I find the subject matter very interesting; I just had a hard time focusing, which may very well be my fault rather than the author's.

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