Mike’s Comments (group member since Jan 23, 2019)

Mike’s comments from the Laurel Library Community Book Discussion group.

The Alchemist
Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail
Hell of a Book
Black Cake
Tom Lake
The Midnight Library
The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder
Trust
The Wren, the Wren
The Thursday Murder Club

I listened to this as an audiobook and it was mostly read by the author. As a number of his columns and essays from 30 years grouped into personal and international political themes this book has an episodic feel at first but then settles into a coherent, international, political discussion.
During his life I frequently was irritated by Charles Krauthammer's opinions and essays. His firmly traditional conservative views often clashed with my often knee-jerk liberal views. But I must say that after listening to this book I see the consistent and thoughtful position the author took on many issues. As many conservatives he sees the world as a hostile and dangerous place and the flaccid, shrinking U.S. power projections of the Clinton and Obama years have left us with a more dangerous world than one a stronger, unilaterally powerful U.S. would engender. It's obvious that the peace and moral authority that the Obama administration maintained has given an opening to authoritarian and xenophobic regimes around the world I still love that Obama took the high road but I can see some unfortunate results.
So this assembled group of Krauthammer pieces helps one see the world as it is, and that's always a good thing.