The Forgotten: How the People of One Pennsylvania County Elected Donald Trump and Changed America

The Forgotten: How the People of One Pennsylvania County Elected Donald Trump and Changed America

The Forgotten: How the People of One Pennsylvania County Elected Donald Trump and Changed America by Ben Bradlee Jr.
on October 2, 2018
Pages: 304
Format: ebook
Genres: Nonfiction, Political Ideologies, Politics & Social Sciences
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Synopsis

The people of Luzerne County, Pennsylvania voted Democratic for decades, until Donald Trump flipped it in 2016. What happened?
Named one of the "juiciest political books to come in 2018" by Entertainment Weekly.


In The Forgotten, Ben Bradlee Jr. reports on how voters in Luzerne County, a pivotal county in a crucial swing state, came to feel like strangers in their own land - marginalized by flat or falling wages, rapid demographic change, and a liberal culture that mocks their faith and patriotism. Fundamentally rural and struggling with changing demographics and limited opportunity, Luzerne County can be seen as a microcosm of the nation. In The Forgotten, Trump voters speak for themselves, explaining how they felt others were 'cutting in line' and that the federal government was taking too much money from the employed and giving it to the idle. The loss of breadwinner status, and more importantly, the loss of dignity, primed them for a candidate like Donald Trump. The political facts of a divided America are stark, but the stories of the men, women and families in The Forgotten offer a kaleidoscopic and fascinating portrait of the complex on-the-ground political reality of America today.

Two Kinds of Truth

Two Kinds of Truth

Two Kinds of Truth by Michael Connelly
Published by Little Brown and Company on October 31st 2017
Series: Harry Bosch #22, Harry Bosch Universe #29
Format: audiobook
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Synopsis

Harry Bosch searches for the truth in the new thriller from #1 New York Times bestselling author Michael Connelly.Harry Bosch is back as a volunteer working cold cases for the San Fernando Police Department and is called out to a local drug store where a young pharmacist has been murdered. Bosch and the town's 3-person detective squad sift through the clues, which lead into the dangerous, big business world of pill mills and prescription drug abuse.Meanwhile, an old case from Bosch's LAPD days comes back to haunt him when a long-imprisoned killer claims Harry framed him, and seems to have new evidence to prove it. Bosch left the LAPD on bad terms, so his former colleagues aren't keen to protect his reputation. He must fend for himself in clearing his name and keeping a clever killer in prison.The two unrelated cases wind around each other like strands of barbed wire. Along the way Bosch discovers that there are two kinds of truth: the kind that sets you free and the kind that leaves you buried in darkness.

It occurred to me as I was listening to Michael Connelly’s latest Harry Bosch book, Two Kinds of Truth how similar Bosch is to Anthony Horowitz character Christopher Foyle of Foyle’s War. In a world that seems in constant disarray it is comforting to find a protagonist that always opts for doing the “right thing”.

The Harry Bosch series has over the years provided a high level of performance that other writers have not been able to keep up. There hasn’t been one book that has disappointed but the have been some that where outstanding. This was an enjoyable read but not exceptional.

About Michael Connelly

Authors - Michael-Connelly.jpg

ichael Connelly was born in Philadelphia, PA on July 21, 1956. He moved to Florida with his family when he was 12 years old. Michael decided to become a writer after discovering the books of Raymond Chandler while attending the University of Florida. Once he decided on this direction he chose a major in journalism and a minor in creative writing — a curriculum in which one of his teachers was novelist Harry Crews.

After graduating in 1980, Connelly worked at newspapers in Daytona Beach and Fort Lauderdale, Florida, primarily specializing in the crime beat. In Fort Lauderdale he wrote about police and crime during the height of the murder and violence wave that rolled over South Florida during the so-called cocaine wars. In 1986, he and two other reporters spent several months interviewing survivors of a major airline crash. They wrote a magazine story on the crash and the survivors which was later short-listed for the Pulitzer Prize for feature writing. The magazine story also moved Connelly into the upper levels of journalism, landing him a job as a crime reporter for the Los Angeles Times, one of the largest papers in the country, and bringing him to the city of which his literary hero, Chandler, had written.