A middling political memoir that may appeal to die-hard anti-Trumpers.
The former director of the FBI seeks a pound of revenge in a combined memoir and defense of the values of an independent Department of Justice.
Before heading the FBI, Comey was a U.S. attorney, a defense attorney in private practice, and a federal prosecutor. Much of this book, a fairly unremarkable follow-up to A Higher Loyalty(2018), centers on the juicier cases he pursued. In pre–9/11 New York, he took a special interest in the Mafia, going after members of the Gambino family. Of Salvatore “Sammy the Bull” Gravano, Comey writes, “The guy may have killed nineteen people and devoted his life to a savage criminal organization, but…Gravano’s guilty plea and cooperation meant the feds were finally going to get [John] Gotti.” The cops-and-robbers stuff is all well and good, but the meat of the book concerns more recent matters. Comey has nothing good to say about Donald Trump, who demanded his fealty and, when not granted it, fired him. Trump, writes the author, “lied more often and about more things than any leader in our history, but he and his followers also did something profoundly dangerous: they attacked the idea that truth exists.” Comey spares no scorn for William Barr (“How could an accomplished lawyer start channeling the president in using words like ‘no collusion’ and FBI ‘spying’?”), assails Robert Mueller for a too-long, too-vague report on Trump’s Russian collusion that “left his work susceptible to cynical distortion,” and defends his choice to reveal the investigation of Hillary Clinton’s emails that helped land Trump the White House: “Even in hindsight,” he writes wanly, “I believe it was the best thing for the FBI and for the Department of Justice”—institutions that, he concludes, must be rebuilt and kept free of political interference.
A middling political memoir that may appeal to die-hard anti-Trumpers.Pub Date: Jan. 12, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-250-79912-8
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Flatiron Books
Review Posted Online: Dec. 24, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A determined if self-regarding portrait of a candidate striving to define herself and her campaign on her own terms.
An insider’s chronicle of a pivotal presidential campaign.
Several months into the mounting political upheaval of Donald Trump’s second term and following a wave of bestselling political exposés, most notably Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson’s Original Sin on Joe Biden’s health and late decision to step down, former Vice President Harris offers her own account of the consequential months surrounding Biden’s withdrawal and her swift campaign for the presidency. Structured as brief chapters with countdown headers from 107 days to Election Day, the book recounts the campaign’s daily rigors: vetting a running mate, navigating back-to-back rallies, preparing for the convention and the debate with Trump, and deflecting obstacles in the form of both Trump’s camp and Biden’s faltering team. Harris aims to set the record straight on issues that have remained hotly debated. While acknowledging Biden’s advancing decline, she also highlights his foreign-policy steadiness: “His years of experience in foreign policy clearly showed….He was always focused, always commander in chief in that room.” More blame is placed on his inner circle, especially Jill Biden, whom Harris faults for pushing him beyond his limits—“the people who knew him best, should have realized that any campaign was a bridge too far.” Throughout, she highlights her own qualifications and dismisses suggestions that an open contest might have better served the party: “If they thought I was down with a mini primary or some other half-baked procedure, I was quick to disabuse them.” Facing Trump’s increasingly unhinged behavior, Harris never openly doubts her ability to confront him. Yet she doesn’t fully persuade the reader that she had the capacity to counter his dominance, suggesting instead that her defeat stemmed from a lack of time—a theme underscored by the urgency of the book’s title. If not entirely sanguine about the future, she maintains a clear-eyed view of the damage already done: “Perhaps so much damage that we will have to re-create our government…something leaner, swifter, and much more efficient.”
A determined if self-regarding portrait of a candidate striving to define herself and her campaign on her own terms.Pub Date: Sept. 23, 2025
ISBN: 9781668211656
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Sept. 23, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular...
A neurosurgeon with a passion for literature tragically finds his perfect subject after his diagnosis of terminal lung cancer.
Writing isn’t brain surgery, but it’s rare when someone adept at the latter is also so accomplished at the former. Searching for meaning and purpose in his life, Kalanithi pursued a doctorate in literature and had felt certain that he wouldn’t enter the field of medicine, in which his father and other members of his family excelled. “But I couldn’t let go of the question,” he writes, after realizing that his goals “didn’t quite fit in an English department.” “Where did biology, morality, literature and philosophy intersect?” So he decided to set aside his doctoral dissertation and belatedly prepare for medical school, which “would allow me a chance to find answers that are not in books, to find a different sort of sublime, to forge relationships with the suffering, and to keep following the question of what makes human life meaningful, even in the face of death and decay.” The author’s empathy undoubtedly made him an exceptional doctor, and the precision of his prose—as well as the moral purpose underscoring it—suggests that he could have written a good book on any subject he chose. Part of what makes this book so essential is the fact that it was written under a death sentence following the diagnosis that upended his life, just as he was preparing to end his residency and attract offers at the top of his profession. Kalanithi learned he might have 10 years to live or perhaps five. Should he return to neurosurgery (he could and did), or should he write (he also did)? Should he and his wife have a baby? They did, eight months before he died, which was less than two years after the original diagnosis. “The fact of death is unsettling,” he understates. “Yet there is no other way to live.”
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular clarity.Pub Date: Jan. 19, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-8129-8840-6
Page Count: 248
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Sept. 29, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2015
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