Category Archives: Weekend Books

Tommyknockers, Book Review, by Case Wright

Posted on by casewright

Stephen King has had addiction issues his entire adult life. He’s very open about it. In fact, there are at least three books he’s said that he doesn’t remember writing because he was using more blow than Julie on The Love Boat- the books are The Shining, Misery, and The Tommyknockers.

The plot is that a spaceship crashed long ago in Maine and it takes over the brains of the lifeforms who interact with it. The main characters are Roberta AKA Bobbi who literally stumbles on part of the ship, starting the plot because it starts infecting the town. Gard, a four alarm alcoholic/poet and Bobbi’s former lover, comes to help her and is immune to the ship’s affect because of a steel plate in his head.

As the story progresses, the ship changes the town folk both mentally and physically. The townies make all kinds of wacky and interesting inventions without knowing how they work, lose most of their teeth, and they develop pig-like faces. I told you that he did a lot of cocaine when he wrote this book.

The townies use Gard to help them dig out the ship and there are MANY chapters on the digging logistics. It’s fair to say that Gard spent most of his time in this book as an alcoholic day laborer (maybe he even did some work on my upstairs bathroom because that was done really shitty). I think that you could actually say they were entire chapters just devoted to his digging and things like that; man, Stephen really needs an editor with a spine.

A classic Stephen King plot device is that there are people who power up a haunted house and Tommyknockers uses that to an extreme! Even before I became an engineer, I wonder if Stephen understood how batteries worked? Can you imagine what he did to his kid’s Christmas toys?!

While his stories have recurring plot devices, the heroic journey for his characters changed with his personal change in fortune. The stories in Night Shift and the others from the early part of his career were all about failure: failing your loved ones and failing to maintain control over your life. In those years, the heroes could only succeed by sacrificing their life. The way to stop from harming everyone around them was through suicide because “blood calls to blood” i.e. the family curse. I think that it is clear that the Blood is alcoholism and drug abuse- it’s inherited. When he was failing in life, suicide was described as the only option because the hero was the doorway to misery and I can tell you from my childhood an alcoholic father is definitely the doorway to misery.

After 1979, his career took off and his bank account to pay for copious amounts of cocaine. However, the happy endings became the standard. Money can cure a lot problems, but blood calls to blood and the demons will always remain, but that is what made this book stand out because like his novels in the early part of his career- the hero dies. He can’t save Bobbi and this book was at a high point of addiction. It seems clear to me that it crossed his mind that he couldn’t live with his addiction and that death was the only exit.

Tommyknockers is a messy beach read that is mostly entertaining. If you’re like on a vacation with some real downtime and the Wi-Fi is broken or you’re really into aliens, give it a read.





4 Books For The Weekend (10/3/25)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

I want to start by recommending The Friday Afternoon Club, Griffin Dunne’s memoir of growing up amongst the rich and famous in Hollywood and Manhattan.  The son of Dominick Dunne and the nephew of John Gregory Dunne, Griffin Dunne came of age in the 60s and the 70s.  Reading his memoir, it’s easy to wonder if there’s anyone who he didn’t rub shoulders with at one time or another.  Sean Connery saves him from drowning when he’s just eight.  He attends one of Ken Kesey’s acid tests with John Gregory Dunne and Joan Didion.  A pre-stardom Harrison Ford does carpentry work at the Dunne family home and shares his weed with the young Griffin.  In New York, Griffin’s roommate and (for the most part) platonic best friend is a hyperactive young actress named Carrie Fisher.  While Griffin tries to find himself in Hollywood and New York, his father Dominick drops in and out of the film business.

For it’s first half, The Friday Afternoon Club is, at times, a laugh-out-loud memoir.  Griffin Dunne is a very funny storyteller and his command of language reveals a bright and insightful mind.  However, the second half of the book takes a dark turn with the murder of his sister, Dominique.  Dominique, who had just appeared in Poltergeist, was strangled by her abusive boyfriend, a chef named John Thomas Sweeney.  Griffin Dunne writes unsparingly of the horror of watching as Sweeney’s lawyers tried to present Dominique as somehow being to blame for her own death.  After the judge refused to allow the prosecution to introduce evidence showing that Sweeney had a history of abusing and choking women, the jury found Sweeney guilty of manslaughter.  (The jury foreman later said that, if the jury had been allowed to hear the evidence of Sweeney’s past abusive behavior, they would have found Sweeney guilty of murder.)  Sweeney was sentenced to six years in prison and was paroled after only 30 months.  Griffin Dunne writes of the years that both he and his father spent obsessing on Sweeney’s whereabouts.  (Sweeney, for those curious, continued to find work as a chef even after his prison sentence.  He currently goes by the name of John Maura.)

It’s a powerful memoir.  Griffin writes honestly about his dysfunctional family, describing even their conflicts with a good deal of love.  Probably the most touching passages in the book are about his relationship with his brother Alex, the one member of the family to see through Sweeney from the start.  Those looking for Hollywood gossip will find plenty, though Griffin is never malicious.  Those looking for details about the filming of An American Werewolf in London and After Hours will find those as well.

Published earlier this year, Susan Morrison’s Lorne is a biography of Lorne Michaels, the man behind Saturday Night Live.  Lorne has actually produced quite a few other shows and movies but, as this book makes clear, his legacy will always be Saturday Night Live.  The book follows Lorne from his beginnings in Canada to his time as a counter-culture tastemaker to his current position as a senior member of America’s cultural establishment.  Lorne went from being a rebel to being a member of the club and, reading about the process, one comes to suspect that he was always more comfortable in the club than outside of it.  It’s an interesting journey and the Lorne Michaels who emerges is occasionally idealistic, occasionally pragmatic, and — even after 595 pages — rather enigmatic.  It’s a fascinating story, one that provides insight into American culture has changed and developed over the past 50 years.  There’s certainly more insight to be found in this book than in Jason Reitman’s Saturday Night.

On a similar note, Todd S. Purdum’s Desi Arnaz: The Man Who Invented Television argues that Arnaz deserves far more credit for …. well, inventing television than he’s usually given.  Often dismissively described as being Lucille Ball’s less talented husband, Purdom persuasively argues that Arnaz deserves far more credit for the success of I Love Lucy than he is commonly given.  The book details how Arnaz’s family lost their fortune in one of Cuba’s many revolutions, how Arnaz came to America and built a career for himself, and how Arnaz revolutionized television as the producer of I Love Lucy.  The book deals with both the good and the bad of Lucy and Desi’s marriage.  Desi emerges as a complex and flawed character, one whose career never really recovered after his divorce from Lucille Ball.

Finally, an old friend recommended that I read Bryan Burrough’s 2015 book, Days of Rage.  Days of Rage takes a look at the the domestic terrorism of the 70s, the bombings, kidnappings, and even murders that were committed by members of such groups as the Weatherman, the BLA, the SLA (they kidnapped Patty Hearst), and the FALN.  Along with taking a look at the motivations of the terrorists themselves, Burrough also writes about how the FBI reacted.  In the end, it’s a book without any heroes.  The FBI frequently violated the law in their pursuit of domestic enemies.  Meanwhile, the radicals often come across as being a collection of hypocrites who were essentially more interested in playing revolution than actually accomplishing anything.  The Weathermen, in particular, come across as being a bunch of smug and overly privileged LARPers.  It’s an interesting book and one that feels very relevant in our current cultural moment.

Check out my previous book recommendations here!

A Book For The Weekend (6/28/25)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

A man who has no memory arrives in the town of Lyncastle and immediately discovers that, whoever he may be, no one wants him around.  One person tells him that his name is Johnny McBride and that the police are looking for him.  Our stranger may not know who he is but he’s fairly sure that he’s not Johnny McBride.  But yet everyone in town insists that he is.  When the police try to check his fingerprints, they discover that he has no fingerprints!  Apparently, he lost them at the same time that he lost his memory….

That’s the set up for Mickey Spillane’s 1951 novel, The Long Wait.  I won’t spoil the rest of it because 1) this book is full of shocking twists, 2) none of them make much sense, but 3) they’re all so over-the-top and ludicrous that you can’t help but love them.  Reading The Long Wait, one gets the feeling that Spillane made up the plot as he went along and it’s hard not to admire his dedication to sticking with the story, no matter how weird and, to be quite frank, ridiculous things got.

This is not one of Spillane’s Mike Hammer novels.  Hammer is not in this book.  If anything, our amnesiac hero is even more violent and brutal than Hammer because the hero of The Long Wait literally has nothing to live for.  Hammer at least had an office and a life that he could return to after killing all the bad guys.  The hero of The Long Wait may not know who he is but he still knows that’s he’s pretty angry with a lot of people.

Violent, melodramatic, and at times thoroughly gratuitous, The Long Wait is an entertainingly absurd book.  I read it in a hotel room and I recommend you do the same.

(Check out last week’s book here!)

 

 

“If Chins Could Kill” and “Hail to the Chin” Quasi-book reviews by Case Wright

Posted on by casewright

Bruce Campbell is the of Elvis of horror and independent film; in fact, he did play Elvis in “Bubba Ho-Tep”. If you’re into independent filmmaking, genre films, and artistic struggles both of these books “If chins could kill” and “Hail to the chin” are must reads and they are also fantastic audiobooks read by the man himself. Sidenote: I never thought his chin was weird- just manly. I enjoyed these books so much that I read them and then I listened to the audiobooks as well, which allowed me to re-experience the books like a favorite Uncle sharing his adventures with me. His entire life is laid bare in his own words: his successes, struggles, and failures. The second book picks up right after the end of the first one. NB: neither book is ghostwritten- a rarity. Sidenote 2: the audiobook really reveals Bruce’s skill at impersonations- he could do a career just doing that.

Bruce sat down and wrote both of these memoirs and if you’re an “Evil Dead” fan he discusses every single aspect of how the “Evil Dead” films were made. He goes into the same detail with every single show and film he has ever done. It’s not just how the sausage was made, it is the equivalent of discussing the history of the pig breed, how the pigs were raised, the tools they used for slaughtering, when they were made into sausage, the spices used, and the marketing to sell the sausage (Both books are available on Audible). The purpose of this article isn’t to grade these books because it’s just weird to grade a Man’s memories as long as the writing is half-way decent; instead of that very weird thing, I will discuss chronologically the moments that I’ve thought about for years in this uniquely American story.

His early years would be the central casting description of a midwestern “Theater Geek”. I never particularly liked that term, but it’s fairly apt because he lived for the dramatic arts, but NEVER complained or thought any job was beneath him- Refreshing. His entire focus in high school was theater and if he had graduated from college, he would’ve been a drama teacher. Luckily for us, Bruce became a college dropout after 6 months and began working on Evil Dead.

Evil Dead

Evil Dead was created by everyone that any connection to Bruce and his comrades, but there were also guilt feelings. Family members helped, parents helped, law firms helped, and probably even the Easter Bunny contributed to making “Evil Dead”. In the filming, everyone on the film was everywhere all the time and lived like they were quasi-homeless in the abandoned house that any horror fan would recognize. It was amazing to me how they had power to run their equipment. The way he describes it has all the intensity of a man remembering in perfect detail that he knew in his soul that this moment would be life-defining. He was right.

One thing that stood out to me was the guilt that Bruce had for asking his father, who was going through a divorce, for funds for the film. As a dad, I can tell that we want our children to be happy and that doesn’t end because you’re getting divorced, sickness, or even death- we always want our children to succeed. Can parental support get out of hand and make us annoyed? Yes, but this was well within the normal limits for a dad. If Bruce reads this article, I hope that he knows that his dad cherishes every dollar he contributed to his son’s dream. Unless of course, you had a dad like mine- in which case, how is it in the fire/police department, EMT, or Armed Forces these days?

Evil Dead 2 and 3

When he described Evil Dead 2 and 3, it was different because he had become a man. He was married and soon to be divorced. He described the work and the filmmaking the way a master carpenter describes his experience and steps making a $10,000 walnut table from a single piece of wood. Neither Bruce’s nor Sam Raimi’s careers had taken off yet and like many of us facing defeat – they went home. Home was of course with the old crew to make Evil Dead 2. Evil Dead over the years on a budget of $375,000 made $30 million….WHOA, but it was clear that Hollywood didn’t understand what they had- this was decades before Blair Witch and Paranormal Activity. It seems that Army of Darkness solidified Bruce as a name. One moment I remember about his memories of Army of Darkness was how he tried to mentor the extras about the importance of never complaining and hustling on the set. They didn’t listen. In fact, two of the extras defiled the set by having coitus in their costumes between takes…..ew. Maybe they were the first furries…. double ew. Or maybe the extras misunderstood the term “Hustling”?

The 90s

The 90s was Bruce Campbell’s decade. Hollywood finally realized with the success of the X-Files and Pulp Fiction that the audience for off kilter actors and stories was not just large- it had money to spend. Bruce found three things: steady work with Hercules and Xena, his soulmate- his second wife Ida Gearon, and his best friend – Lucy Lawless (Xena). He describes his friendship with Lucy like a brother describes the love and pride he has in a sister who made valedictorian. The Bruce/Lucy friendship spans decades and I hope they become neighbors one day. He describes it with such fondness and admiration; it proves that men and women can have platonic and beautiful friendships that last a lifetime. I’m not crying, you’re crying….leave me alone.

2000s through Burn Notice
Bruce had come into his own and was getting cast in A LOT of genre films. He had become a bona fide working actor. I will note that he gets into thorough detail about every single film that he made during this time period. However, I think that many Gen-Z and Millennials discovered him through Burn Notice and if you’re thinking he spills the tea about any on set drama- HE DOES NOT. He talks about how he enjoys dive bars and the different bartender pours. He describes in detail his experience with the show. I enjoyed the second book a lot, but it got personal for me because he convinced his Co-Star Jeffrey Donavan to visit the troops in Iraq. I give them both a lot of credit for that out of all of the great moments in the second book that’s what I think about the most often.

I am a fan of Bruce Campbell’s obviously, but what stood out to me in this uniquely American story is that you really can be anything here if you work at it.

Happy Birthday, Bruce!

A Book For The Weekend (6/20/25)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Wow, I thought as I read Howard Hughes: The Secret Life, was there anyone Howard Hughes didn’t have sex with?

Actually, I  imagine there was.  Charles Higham’s 1993 biography, which I found in a used bookstore in Pensacola, is full of all sorts of “scandalous” details about Howard Hughes’s life and the decadent Golden Age of Hollywood but it’s not always convincing.  Hughes, who was the subject of Martin Scorsese’s The Aviator, was undoubtedly an eccentric and I have no doubt that he treated a lot people badly but the book itself tends put a lot of faith in gossip and rumors.  As such, we get the established stories of Hughes bringing his control freak tendencies to Hollywood and having affairs with Katharine Hepburn and Ava Gardner mixed with stories about Hughes’s being involved with the Watergate break-in and also carrying on clandestine affairs with everyone from Errol Flynn to Tyrone Power, Jr.  The book goes as far as to suggest Hughes died of AIDs, using an evidence the word of a doctor who didn’t examine Hughes but who did apparently read a list of symptoms that Hughes was rumored to have during his final days.  That’s really the way that Higham approaches the majority of Hughes’s life.  The established facts are mixed with rumor and speculation on the part of the author.  It’s not always convincing but then again, since when does gossip have to be believable?

In short, the book is trashy but readable.  It’s one of those books that one should probably read with a healthy sense of skepticism but, at the same time, one can appreciate the sheer number of personalities that Higham manages to weave into his narrative.  Hughes goes from aviation to Hollywood to politics and he meets everyone who was anyone.  It’s a history nerd’s dream.

Four Books To Read This Weekend (6/13/25)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Happy Friday the 13th!  I am currently packing for a two-week vacation that will start on Sunday.  I’ll be bringing along several books with me.  I am very much a believer in “the beach read.”  If you’re going to be relaxing on the beach, it’s important to not only have the perfect bikini but also to have a good book to read.  A book can be used to shield your eyes from the sun.  A book can give you an excuse not to talk to someone.  A book can make you look smart and that’s always a good thing.   Never underestimate the importance of the beach read!

First published in 2024, Ask Not: The Kennedys and Thee Women They Destroyed is beach read for gossip-lovers who are also into politics and history.  Written by Maureen Callahan, Ask Not looks at the lives of the women who had the misfortune to know the members of the Kennedy family.  Using the death of Carolyn Bessette as a framing device, Callahan examines the lives of Jackie Onassis, Mary Jo Kopechne, Joan Kennedy, Marilyn Monroe, Martha Moxley, and several others.  Callahan doesn’t just look at the famous victims of the Kennedy men. One of the best chapters deals with a young woman who was left paralyzed by Joseph P. Kennedy III’s reckless driving, someone whose name may not be nationally-known but who will never forgotten by those who loved her.  The tragic death of the ex-wife of RFK Jr., who committed suicide after he left her and then tried to annul their marriage, is also examined.  Callahan writes that she has no personal animus against the Kennedys.  I’m not sure that I buy that but still, her book is a fascinating look at both the arrogance of power and the way that the Kennedys were protected, for decades, by a sympathetic and compliant media.  The book reminds us that Chappaquiddick was not a Kennedy tragedy.  Instead, it was a Kopechne tragedy.  Of the many who have written about Chappaquiddick, Callahan is one of the few to actually show any interest in who Mary Jo Kopechne was and who she could have gone on to been if she hadn’t been abandoned to drown that night.  If just for that, this book deserves to be read.

If you’re a Degrassi fan, you simply have to read 2022’s The Mother Of All Degrassi.  Linda Schuyler’s memoir charts her life and shows how she went from being an 8th grade teacher to co-creating the most important thing to ever come out of Canada.  Schuyler includes all the behind-the-scenes details that you could possibly want but, even more importantly, her personal story is an inspiring and a heartfelt one.

Speaking of memoirs by television producers, 2016’s Truth Is A Total Defense: My Fifty Years In Television is Steven Bochco’s somewhat self-aggrandizing memoir.  It’s nowhere near as well-written as Linda Schuyler’s memoir but if you’re looking for gossip, this is a good book to go with.  Bochco, who passed away in 2018, was known for creating hit shows and pissing off the networks.  This memoir spends a lot of time on the people who Bochco did not like.  It makes for a fun read, if not a particularly enlightening one.

Finally, no vacation is complete with a true crime book to read.  If you want to read one that will truly leave you angry, I recommend Philip Weiss’s American Taboo, which examines the 1975 murder of Peace Corp volunteer Deborah Gardner and how the crime was covered up by both the Peace Corp and the government.  Not only was Gardner’s name smeared but the killer was never punished for his deeds.  True crime is a genre that has produced a lot of bad books but it’s produced some good and important ones as well.  American Taboo is one of the best.

Of course, the whole fun of traveling is seeing what you discover.  I’ll be bringing books with me but I’ll also be leaving plenty of room for any trashy paperbacks I come across on the way!  I’ll let you know what I find.

 

 

A Book To Read This Weekend (6/6/25)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

With the Tony Awards scheduled to be held and televised on Sunday, this weekend might be a good time to read William Goldman’s The Season.

First published in 1969, The Season was William Goldman’s very opinionated and very snarky look at the 1967-1968 Broadway season.  Best known as a screenwriter, Goldman took the money that he made from selling the script for Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and spent a year going to Broadway show after Broadway show.  Many shows, he sat through multiple times.  The book features his thoughts on not just the productions but also the culture around Broadway.  Apparently, when the book was published, it was considered controversial because Goldman suggested that most Broadway critics played favorites and didn’t honestly write about the shows that they reviewed.  Goldman suggested that some performers were viewed as being untouchable while other worthy actors were ignored because they weren’t a part of the clique.  Today, that seems like common sense.  One need only look at a site like Rotten Tomatoes to see how pervasive groupthink is amongst film critics and also how carefully most reviews are written to ensure that no one loses access to the next big studio event.  In 1969, however, people were apparently a bit more naive about that sort of thing.

It’s an interesting book, especially if you’re a theater nerd like me.  That said, it’s also a bit of an annoying book.  There’s a smugness to Goldman’s tone, one that is actually present in all of Goldman’s books and essays and yes, aspiring screenwriters, that includes Adventures In The Screen Trade.  He clearly believed himself to be the smartest guy in the room and he wasn’t going to let you forget it.  It makes for a somewhat odd reading experience.  On the one hand, Goldman’s style is lively.  Goldman holds your interest.  On the other hand, there will be times when you’ll want to throw a book across the room.  When he hears two women talking about their confusion as to why they didn’t enjoy a show as much as they had hoped, Goldman describes walking up to them and offering to tell them.  It comes across as being very condescending.

That said, Goldman makes up for it in the chapters in which he explores some of the more troubled productions of the season.  His barbed dismissals of some of Broadway’s most popular performers still packs a punch and it remains relevant today as there are, to put it mildly, more than a few acclaimed performers who have been coasting on their reputations and their fandoms for more than a decade.  Goldman passed away in 2018.  One can only imagine what he would think of today’s celebrity-worshipping culture.

Finally, The Season does feature one beautiful chapter and it should be read by anyone who appreciates the character actors who carry movies and plays while the stars get all the credit.  Goldman’s look at play called The Trial of Lee Harvey Oswald features a powerful profile of actor Peter Masterson.  Goldman writes about a play that closed after 7 nights and which was not critically acclaimed but he turns the chapter into a celebration of truly good acting.  It’s the chapter that makes the rest of the book worth the trouble.

(Click here for last week’s Weekend Book!)

A Book To Read This Weekend (5/30/25)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

If you’ve got a lot of time to kill this weekend and if you’re interested in how a dictator could come to power in the United States of America, check out Huey Long by T. Harry Williams.

The winner of 1970’s Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award, this 900-page book tells the story of Louisiana’s Huey Long.  Long went from being an outsider to being governor of his state to being a member of the United States Senate and finally, to the verge of running for the presidency.  The only that that stopped Huey from running for President in 1936 were multiple bullets, at least one of which was fired by the son of a political rival.  (The majority of them were probably fired by Long’s own bodyguards, with Huey falling victim to “friendly fire.”)  Huey was a controversial figure, a socialist who talked like a populist, a clever politician who pretended to be a buffoon, and a leader who was hates by many but who was also so beloved by many other that his family held control of Louisiana politics for decades after his death.

I first bought this book in high school.  My history teacher had assigned the class to write book reports about a political figure.  My teacher was impressed when I said that I would be writing about Huey Long.  Of course, I put off writing the report until the day before it was due.  I also put off reading (and, for that matter, even opening) the book.  When I mentioned this to my mom, she took one look at the 900-page biography that I hadn’t even started to read, and said, “Why did you pick such a long book!?”

(I always pick the longest books I can find.  I like to read and, when it comes to biographies, I like to get all the details.)

For the next few hours, I skimmed through the book as I wrote my report.  I wrote about his early political campaigns, the role he played in the elections of both Woodrow Wilson and Franklin Roosevelt, and the steady stream of corrupt flunkies that he brought into Louisiana’s government.  I included the details of Huey Long’s Share The Wealth plan and explained why Huey’s scheme was just a bunch of commie propaganda.  My teacher gave my report a 100 (and he added an “A++,” which he circled in red!), said that it was good enough for college, and commended me on my hard work.  My mom read my teacher’s comments and said I had more lives than a cat.

Even just skimming the book, I found Huey’s story to be fascinating.  He stood up to the power brokers.  He fought for the poor.  He took kickbacks from the same corporations that he claimed to despise.  He treated Louisiana like his own fiefdom.  He might have ordered a few murders.  And, years later, when I sat down and actually read the book, I discovered that Huey’s life was even more interesting than I initially realized.  Huey Long may be 900 words long but he lived his life in such an over-the-top fashion and the times in which he lived were so interesting that the book becomes a surprisingly quick read.  It helps that T. Harry Williams was a lively writer.  This isn’t some slow-moving, self-consciously scholarly tome.  This is a book that really captures the unique oddness of Louisiana and its politics.

If you’re looking for a long but rewarding read and if you’re a history nerd like me, check this book out.  And then watch All The King’s Men (the original, not the remake!).  Willie Stark, the governor at the heart of All The King’s Men, was based on Huey Long.  Somehow, Long lived a life that was even more dramatic than his fictional counterpart.

(Check out last week’s Books For The Weekend here!)

 

 

Two Books To Read This Weekend (5/23/25)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

This weekend, I will be reading Jake Tapper and Alex Thomas’s Original Sin, their look at the Biden presidency and how Joe Biden’s (or really, Joe Biden’s aides and family’s) insistence that he run for a second term led to Donald Trump returning to the White House.  Actually, I will be continuing to read it as I started it last night.  So far, it’s an interesting read, even though I think that those who claim that Tapper is a bit too quick to let himself off the hook have got a point.  It’s definitely got me thinking about how many of our elected officials are “all there” and how many of them are just repeating whatever their staff tells them to say and do.

Now, if you feel that you don’t have time to read Tapper and Thompson’s 300-page book, you can always check out the Mockbuster version, Uncharted Fight: The Original Sin Of Biden, The Hubris of Harris, The Trump Comeback, & The Shadow of Project 2025 by — *ahem* — Jonathan Chris Tapper.  This 198 page book, which actually came out a month before Original Sin, basically just takes everything that was leaked about Original Sin and that was included in previous books by Chris Whipple and Jonathan Allen & Amie Parnes and repeats it.  The book was obviously put together quickly to capitalize on the interest around the books that hace been coming out about Biden’s withdrawal and the 2024 election.  There’s no original reporting, beyond the fact that somebody flipped through all of the other books and jotted down their main points.  If I had to guess, I’d say there is no “Jonathan Chris Tapper.”  It’s a grift, one that feels like a uniquely 2025 sort of thing.  The main reason any of these books are being published is to make money so why shouldn’t “Jonathan Chris Tapper” give it a shot?  And, to be honest, Uncharted Fight a quick read that gives you the basics so if you don’t want to spend money on four books about the election, it’s there for you, I guess.  Of course, you could probably just ask one of the many online AI programs to give you a quick summary and get the same information for far less money.  (In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if “Jonathan Chris Tapper” is an AI system.)

(Personally, I went ahead and spent money on Original Sin, Uncharted History, Chris Whipple’s Unchartered, Alex Eistenstadt’s Revenge, and Jonathan Allen’s and Amie Parness’s Fight because I’m a history nerd and I think you can never have enough sources!)