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I came away from Tim Weiner's first book on the CIA, "Legacy of Ashes", thoroughly unimpressed. That book covered some of the CIA's more notable paramilitary operations from its founding up to the GWOT. A lot of that book honestly felt bitter, as if Weiner went out of his way to show his disdain for the utility of the operations and the people that conceived and (attempted to) carry them out.

This book has a much different tone. While it ultimately mimics Tim's first CIA book in that it's mostly a catalogue of failures, there is abundant historical context here. You get the sense that the CIA was tasked with extremely difficult - an arguably completely unreasonable - missions during the GWOT, and while they frequently came up short, it was because the circumstances were impossible, not because the people involved were inept or stupid.

Everyone quoted in this book was either drawn from the historical record or interviews to the author. There aren't any "unnamed sources" or "people granted anonymity for fear of reprisal". That's pretty extraordinary given the vitriol surrounding many of these topics, and Tim - and the folks that agreed to speak with him on the record - deserve a lot of credit for that.

Tim doesn't pull any punches and when he thinks that someone was corrupt, dumb, or just plain wrong for the job, he says so plainly. Even so, there are very few people presented in this book that don't have some sort of redeeming quality - there is again the theme of humans making human mistakes in the face of monumental challenges.

I didn't come across much in this text that I hadn't read elsewhere over the years, but Tim does an excellent job tying those topics together and providing context. The book is essentially a one-stop-shop for 20+ years of CIA history and I would easily recommend anyone interested read this rather than nearly two dozen others that cover only part of the story.

Deducting one star due to the author occasionally attributing things to the CIA that were not within the CIA's purview. The US Intelligence Community is large and complex, so I'm not sure if the author was simply narrowing the scope for the sake of simplicity or if he actually didn't know a piece of intel wouldn't have originated from CIA. It's a very minor issue, but one that comes up repeatedly.

I was reluctant to pick this book up after "Legacy of Ashes", but I'm happy I did. I feel it gives a much more balanced look at the CIA's actions since 9/11 and will leave readers with a good sense of the difficulty and importance of CIA's mission.

This book is a bit odd. The author clearly states that covering the full life of Osamu Tezuka would require multiple, encyclopedic volumes, so this book attempts to give some insight into Tezuka through his most popular work, Mighty Atom. But the story of Mighty Atom stretches across multiple decades, and given that Tezuka never imagined the series would last as long as it did, lacks a single overarching theme or narrative.

What you end up with is a sort-of biography combined with a review of the highlights of the manga and animation series. Tezuka dabbled in numerous things, and the book dabbles in Tezuka, so it just feels unfocused and superficial.

To be sure, there is a lot of information in here, but I just felt like it was a little too esoteric for folks with a passing interest in manga and nowhere near in-depth enough for anyone who would want a serious history of the topic. I can't really recommend this book unless you're building a library of books on the same topic.

This book is a selection of posts from the author's now-defunct blog (he still blogs, just at a different service). There's no narrative thread tying the blogs together, just a specific theme.

As with any book of essays (blog posts), it can feel pretty disjoint. The blog posts are generally brief and you can easily work your way through half a dozen in one sitting. Many of the posts are not especially well written and the lack of a single, common theme can make it a little difficult to keep focus at times.

With that being said, the book is never not entertaining. Patrick has a breezy writing style and a sense of humor. Japan's culture appears pretty quirky to outsiders, and it's under-culture, even more so. The author has found himself in interesting places talking with interesting people, and the book gives me the feel of taking a walking tour of Tokyo with a local who has lived there for years.

If you've every found yourself meandering around Shinjuku or Akihabara and wondered what the funky looking sign for the seedy shop on the fourth floor of a building of shops actually meant - but were too chicken to wander up and see for yourself - you'd enjoy much of what's written here.

Matt is an American ex-pat living in Japan and, according the bio on his webpage, his first career was working in the US Patent and Trademark Office helping patent attorneys understand various Japanese intellectual property. As such, he understands what makes Japan intriguing to non-Japanese and also has an excellent ability to trace back through history and distill the essence of subjects.

There is a lot of history in this book. Matt can really dig into a topic and periodically goes so deep down a rabbit hole you're not really sure what story he's setting up. You walk away from these threads with a great understanding of the historical context that lead people to formulate ideas, which ultimately turned into the products that folks in the west would recognize.

He spends a lot of pages describing Japan's political history, which weaves its way into the politics of the US in surprising ways. He makes a compelling case that the United States and Japan are tied at the hip and I even learned a number of things about US political phenomena that I was not aware of.

Even though I would describe myself as a Japanophile who has studied Japan since I was a child, I learned an enormous amount of information. The book is fun read, packed with photos and amusing anecdotes. Highly recommended for any nerds or people with even a feint interest in Japan and the Japanese.

This book covers the story of American code breakers during World War II who were, due to the circumstances of the war, predominantly women. The origins of the program through the end of the war are discussed, with the focus being primarily the personal experiences of those involved.

This is one of the best history books I've read in years. You really get a sense of the era, from the sociopolitical realities of the time to what it felt like to be a small part of this big, huge thing, which was World War II.

There is necessarily discussion of cryptography, which is frequently a downside of any book that covers intelligence. While the book doesn't go into great depth on the mechanics of cryptanalysis, what it does cover, it manages to make interesting. Analyzing code is about as dry as a process can get, but the author makes it seem engaging and exciting, which I can safely say I've never seen before.

The cognitive dissonance of the people involved is written about in a very compelling way. There's an enormous burden on the personnel, as they are acutely aware that the work they're doing is both saving lives and taking lives. This is happening while they're trying to navigate interpersonal conflicts and romantic relationships amidst the unprecedented reality of wartime D.C. It feels big, invigorating, and enervating all at once, which is how it must have felt at the time.

There's definitely a strong thread of "girl power" throughout, but there's no trace of misandry anywhere. Praise and criticism are equally leveled on everyone, regardless of gender.

I really can't say enough positive things - it's just an excellent book and one I will be actively recommending to anyone who will listen.

This is a wonderful behind the scenes look at the original series of Star Trek straight from the mouths of the people that put it together. The focus is primarily on the mechanics of trying to put a show (and subsequently films) together in Hollywood, but there's a bit of Trek lore mixed in as well.

As with most oral histories, there's only a loose narrative of mostly-related quotes. The authors did a good job of trying to get multiple views on any event in question, but they are necessarily limited by what their interviewees actually said (or wrote), so there are always gaps that can't be filled.

The live-action show is covered in the most detail and with the most interviewees. How the show evolved and was put together is covered in great detail, and there's plenty of gossip in here for any Trek fan. The animated series, as well as the fan organizations that ultimately kept the show on the air, are also discussed fairly extensively.

Once the text moves onto the movies, the number of people interviewed narrows considerably. Dozens of voices are provided when discussing the show, but it feels like you see the same ten once the movies become the topic. I'm sure each one of the films could have easily filled its own book, so I'm guessing the constricted scope was primarily due to keeping the book at a manageable length.

Oral histories can be hit and miss, but I thought this one was excellent. Deducting one star for the lackluster coverage of the films, but it's still easy to recommend for Trekkies, as well as anyone interested in the mechanics of Hollywood.

This book tracks the evolution of Method acting, from its origins in Russia to its decline in favor in the present day. Theater evolves along with society, so there's a lot of history in here to explain the context of how these ideas evolved over time. Lots of (frequently amusing) interpersonal drama, as well as the real-world realities of running theaters.

The book's intended audience is those in the performing arts, and as someone with little exposure to that area, I occasionally had trouble tracking the conversation. Luminaries in the field are mentioned with no introduction, and I frequently had to stop and do a little research on who was being referred to.

I think the book suffers a little by not discussing some of the competing schools of thought on acting. As someone with no relevant background, I kept asking myself, "This was an alternative to what?" It was difficult to frame the evolution of an idea without yardsticks.

Minor reservations aside, I enjoyed the book and I learned a lot. Easy to recommend for anyone interested in the performing arts.

This book, while being relatively short, gives some very interesting insight into the realities of HUMINT. While the book centers around hypothetical scenarios and thoughts on those scenarios from a cast of observers, the footnotes - which provide history context and real-world examples - routinely steal the show. The notes are extensive, provide lots of details for follow-up research, and really help to reinforce that these scenarios aren’t pulled from thin air.

I didn’t get much from some of the observers. The author asked for thoughts on the scenarios from a wide cast of people - intelligence officers, students, teachers, lawyers, poets, diplomats, and more - and many of them just weren’t that interesting to me. I confess I don’t care what an undergraduate or a third grade teacher thinks about the moral dilemmas of espionage and I found myself just skipping those portions. What folks who worked for the IC or State had to think were what was really of interest to me.

The scenarios are very grounded and I was frequently surprised at how my own view point diverged from some of the people quoted in the text, sometimes viscerally so. It really serves to underscore that spying is hard and not for the feint of heart.

Easy to recommend for anyone interested in intelligence.

This book took quite a while to work through, for both good and bad reasons.

The good reasons: there are some amazing ideas in here, some of which I will go so far as to call "profound". Numerous sections of the book caused me to pause, think, re-read / pause, think, re-read again and again. It's easy to get lost in the implications of a single paragraph and this is a long book.

The bad reasons: there's some seriously highfalutin writing that's just difficult to work through. One of the authors has a background in philosophy, and a lot of the text has that sort of nebulous, "I think I know what you're saying...(?)" quality to it that's so often found in philosophy. Subsequent examples make the concepts clear, and preserving the original terminology is an aspect of giving credit to the originator, but portions of the book are so Ivory Tower that I'd be reluctant to recommend it to someone who doesn't actively think of themselves as an intellectual.

That’s a shame because - again - there are really, really big ideas in here that a person could apply to themselves as readily as whatever relationship they happen to be in. My spouse and I both took a lot from the text and we plan to revisit it periodically as we continue the (mis)adventure that is our marriage.

It’s worth the slog, I just wish more emphasis could have been put on the readability.

I read this book in the first few months of 2025 when it became glaringly apparent that many - if not most - Americans had no idea what the federal government was or did. I wish this book had been more widely read at the time.

Most people’s conception of “the government” is formed by a handful of relatively superficial interactions, must of them generally not positive (think giving your money to the IRS or renewing your license at the DMV). From those interactions, it’s easy to view “the government” as this faceless monolith that exists to tell you that you can’t do things, or that what you’ve already done was incorrect.

This book counters that notion by introducing the reader to some of the people behind the scenes and exposing the reader to a variety of federal government agencies. You get the sense that folks in public service believe in “service” and are working to solve problems that most Americans don’t really care about (or are frequently even aware of).

Any book of essays written by different authors is going to be uneven, and that’s definitely the case here. I have enjoyed the Michael Lewis books I’ve read, so I was secretly hoping for “Michael Lewis as written by other people” and was slightly disappointed (this is objectively dumb, but I’m just being honest).

Some of the essays are relatively light-hearted, some are a little somber, and one isn’t even about humans necessarily, but a complex system that humans have to manage. Plenty of swipes are taken at the presidential administration, which I definitely didn’t mind, but not why I was reading.

I think the book is worth the time if you only have a foggy conception of why the federal government is a thing, or know someone who might could use some context before cheering on destruction.

The topic of this book is rarely discussed at any length, but it's an important topic for any student of government, defense, or intelligence. Unfortunately, the latter chapters of the book feel more like an opportunity for the author to air criticisms rather than review history and more than one event in the past decade is recounted with an exceptionally skewed view point.

Most of the research in the text is excellent. The evolution of the Five Eyes is covered well and some of the more notable wins and losses that shaped the alliance in its early days are included with great detail. This part of the book would serve as an excellent starting point for future research.

Once the book hits the GWOT era, the author starts to stick in a lot of commentary: you get the impression that the Five Eyes primary job was abusing human rights and that they also weren't very good at their job. The coverage of the Snowden leaks is basically Snowden's version of events, and the discussion of the controversy over UK using Huawei equipment is incredibly one-sided.

There's a lot in the book to recommend, just brace yourself for the loss of objectivity in the second half.

I found the essential premise of the book - which is that people give and receive "love" in different ways - to be very informative. I learned a little about myself and it gave me useful topics to discuss with my spouse that resulted in us learning more about one another. I can easily recommend folks in long term relationships giving it a read.

The text itself is not especially well written, nor are any of the themes backed by research: it is purely one counselor's experience helping heterosexual couples over his career. I was slightly put off by the repeated mentions of Christianity (there's no preaching, but church is mentioned a lot), and the author doesn't even give a nod to anything that isn't cis-gendered and heteronormative.

But even with those fairly minor reservations, I think this text is worth reading for anyone who has moved past the torrid romance and is now trying to maintain connection with another human long term.

There’s a lot in this book to like. It’s very well researched and the writing can be engaging. Photos, woodprints (artists depiction of events that appeared in newspapers), and contemporary documents are sprinkled throughout, and this gives a great feel for the era. The reader really gets a sense of the messiness in the closing days of the Civil War and complicated allegiances that existed in D.C., Maryland, and Virginia, where the North met the South.

But there’s a number of major things that kept me from enjoying the book and ultimately not being able to recommend it.

John Wilkes Booth could recite obscure passages from Shakespeare directly from memory and the author tries to match that prose throughout. A few Shakespeare references here and there would have been fine, but they’re frequent and they’re distracting. For example, Booth scrambling for his horse elicits a reference to “Richard III” and when Booth takes a steamer named “John S. Ide” we’re told that’s “an unusual name that combined the assassin’s first name with an insinuation of the ides of March and Julius Caesar’s misfortune.” I audibly groaned when I read that last part.

A lot of the writing can feel disjoint, almost to the point where I wonder if paragraphs were written independently of one another and then just arranged in sequence without readjusting for a narrative thread. I frequently caught myself going back and forth in the text because something wasn’t clear to me.

For instance, a Mr. Such-and-Such suddenly becomes Mrs. Such-and-Such. Either that’s a typo or we’re now talking about the person’s wife. The wife was… present during this conversation? Where was the reader introduced to the wife? Thumbing back a page or two and re-reading, we see that this conversation occurred at Mr. Such-and-Such’s house, so apparently his wife was there with him, I guess. By the end of the book, I stopped attempting to clarify and simply plowed through.

And finally, a major thing that bothered me (and this is, perhaps, unique to me) was the speculation that was supplied as fact. The author did a fantastic job with research, and we’re told at the beginning of the text that quotes are drawn directly from historical sources like testimony and the work of investigators. But there’s a lot that’s filled in based on what the author assumed was happening.

Booth did not live to tell his tale, so we have no way of knowing what he saw, heard, felt or thought. None of the author’s assumptions are ever unreasonable, and they wouldn’t have changed the historical chain of events regardless, but we still don’t know they’re true, and that sort of bugged me for something that is supposed to be nonfiction.

Ultimately, I learned a lot from the book, so much so that I was a little embarrassed I wasn’t already more familiar. But I just felt like it was a chore to read and I’d recommend those interested in the topic to search elsewhere before picking up a copy.

Annie Jacobsen has put together what is basically a well-researched novel to guide the reader through the mechanics of nuclear deterrence. Rather than having a simple recitation of facts of how elements of deterrence (or the failure thereof) would work, she creates a fictitious scenario that weaves those explanations together into a narrative. The result is one of the most compelling things I’ve read in years.

I’ve seen repeated criticisms of the book mention that some elements of the scenario aren’t well developed, but the author’s goal was to illustrate what a nuclear attack would look like, not write a 1200 page Tom Clancy tome. There are elements of the story that can be a little far-fetched, but they’re still reflective of real plans that real people working for our real government have really put in place, and some of those plans are pretty wacky.

The text is dense with technical details - what systems are deployed, how they work, and what they can’t do. The “can’t do” part is especially important as a lot of the strategy of nuclear deterrence originates from blind spots and shortcomings of various sensors, weapons, and safety systems. The author does a really wonderful job depicting the sort of confusion that can come about when you combine technical weaknesses with human indecision.

There’s great insight into how the structures of the military and intelligence community come together in these scenarios. What the organizations are, who the organizations are ran by, what the role of that organization is and isn’t, and where those people and organizations are physically positioned are explained in accessible detail. Historical elements about how those organizations evolved are woven in for context.

I’m deducting one star because the author routinely throws in embellishments that can be a little distracting. The is absolutely no reason to attempt to embellish the effects of a nuclear weapon - it is truly mindbogglingly horrifying. Those embellishments elicited an eye-roll when I would have otherwise just sat and reflected for a moment.

Highly recommended for anyone interested in national security. The abundant references also serve as a great guide to further reading.