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The World As It Is
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After standing at Donald Trump’s side on Election Night, Cliff Sims joined him in the West Wing as special assistant to the president and director of White House message strategy. He soon found himself pulled into the president’s inner circle as a confidante, an errand boy, an advisor, a punching bag, and a friend. This is the story of what it was really like in the West Wing as a member of the president’s team. It's a story of power and palace intrigue, backstabbing and bold victories, as well as painful moral compromises, occasionally with yourself.
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A harrowing exploration of the collapse of American diplomacy and the abdication of global leadership. US foreign policy is undergoing a dire transformation, forever changing America’s place in the world. Institutions of diplomacy and development are bleeding out after deep budget cuts; the diplomats who make America’s deals and protect democratic interests around the world are walking out in droves. Offices across the State Department sit empty, while abroad the military-industrial complex has assumed the work once undertaken by peacemakers. Increasingly, America is a nation that shoots first and asks questions later.
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Farrow is wonderful but he needed a better (or any?) director and producer.
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Fear
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The inside story on President Trump, as only Bob Woodward can tell it. With authoritative reporting honed through eight presidencies from Nixon to Obama, author Bob Woodward reveals in unprecedented detail the harrowing life inside President Donald Trump’s White House and precisely how he makes decisions on major foreign and domestic policies. Woodward draws from hundreds of hours of interviews with firsthand sources, meeting notes, personal diaries, files and documents. The focus is on the explosive debates and the decision-making in the Oval Office, the Situation Room, Air Force One and the White House residence.
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Well researched, but Trump is a boring topic.
- By Maria S. on 26-10-2018
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Thanks, Obama
- My Hopey, Changey White House Years
- By: David Litt
- Narrated by: David Litt
- Length: 9 hrs and 28 mins
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More than any other presidency, Barack Obama's eight years in the White House were defined by young people - 20-somethings who didn't have much experience in politics (or anything else, for that matter) yet suddenly found themselves in the most high-stakes office building on earth. David Litt was one of those 20-somethings. After graduating from college in 2008, he went straight to the Obama campaign. In 2011 he became one of the youngest White House speechwriters in history.
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Quarterly Essay 31
- Now or Never: A Sustainable Future for Australia?
- By: Tim Flannery
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Sometime this century, after 4 billion years, some of Earth's regulatory systems will pass from control through evolution by natural selection, to control by human intelligence. Will humanity rise to the challenge? This landmark essay by Tim Flannery is about sustainability, our search for it in the 21st century, and the impact it might have on the environmental threats that confront us today. Flannery discusses in detail three potential solutions to the most pressing of the sustainability challenges: climate change.
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World change a necessity!
- By Anonymous User on 06-02-2018
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Unhinged
- By: Omarosa Manigault Newman
- Narrated by: Omarosa Manigault Newman
- Length: 11 hrs and 6 mins
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Few have been a member of Donald Trump’s inner orbit longer than Omarosa Manigault Newman. Their relationship has spanned 15 years - through four television shows, a presidential campaign, and a year by his side in the most chaotic, outrageous White House in history. But that relationship has come to a decisive and definitive end, and Omarosa is finally ready to share her side of the story in this explosive, jaw-dropping account.
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One of the poorer stories I've heard.
- By Miss Amy V on 05-09-2018
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Team of Vipers
- My 500 Extraordinary Days in the Trump White House
- By: Cliff Sims
- Narrated by: Daniel Thomas May, Cliff Sims - introduction
- Length: 14 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
After standing at Donald Trump’s side on Election Night, Cliff Sims joined him in the West Wing as special assistant to the president and director of White House message strategy. He soon found himself pulled into the president’s inner circle as a confidante, an errand boy, an advisor, a punching bag, and a friend. This is the story of what it was really like in the West Wing as a member of the president’s team. It's a story of power and palace intrigue, backstabbing and bold victories, as well as painful moral compromises, occasionally with yourself.
-
-
Donald Trump discovered!
- By steve craddock on 01-02-2019
-
War on Peace
- The End of Diplomacy and the Decline of American Influence
- By: Ronan Farrow
- Narrated by: Ronan Farrow
- Length: 10 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A harrowing exploration of the collapse of American diplomacy and the abdication of global leadership. US foreign policy is undergoing a dire transformation, forever changing America’s place in the world. Institutions of diplomacy and development are bleeding out after deep budget cuts; the diplomats who make America’s deals and protect democratic interests around the world are walking out in droves. Offices across the State Department sit empty, while abroad the military-industrial complex has assumed the work once undertaken by peacemakers. Increasingly, America is a nation that shoots first and asks questions later.
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-
Farrow is wonderful but he needed a better (or any?) director and producer.
- By Darcy Conroy on 27-07-2018
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Fear
- Trump in the White House
- By: Bob Woodward
- Narrated by: Robert Petkoff
- Length: 12 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
-
Story
The inside story on President Trump, as only Bob Woodward can tell it. With authoritative reporting honed through eight presidencies from Nixon to Obama, author Bob Woodward reveals in unprecedented detail the harrowing life inside President Donald Trump’s White House and precisely how he makes decisions on major foreign and domestic policies. Woodward draws from hundreds of hours of interviews with firsthand sources, meeting notes, personal diaries, files and documents. The focus is on the explosive debates and the decision-making in the Oval Office, the Situation Room, Air Force One and the White House residence.
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Well researched, but Trump is a boring topic.
- By Maria S. on 26-10-2018
-
Thanks, Obama
- My Hopey, Changey White House Years
- By: David Litt
- Narrated by: David Litt
- Length: 9 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
More than any other presidency, Barack Obama's eight years in the White House were defined by young people - 20-somethings who didn't have much experience in politics (or anything else, for that matter) yet suddenly found themselves in the most high-stakes office building on earth. David Litt was one of those 20-somethings. After graduating from college in 2008, he went straight to the Obama campaign. In 2011 he became one of the youngest White House speechwriters in history.
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Quarterly Essay 31
- Now or Never: A Sustainable Future for Australia?
- By: Tim Flannery
- Narrated by: Tim Flannery
- Length: 2 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Sometime this century, after 4 billion years, some of Earth's regulatory systems will pass from control through evolution by natural selection, to control by human intelligence. Will humanity rise to the challenge? This landmark essay by Tim Flannery is about sustainability, our search for it in the 21st century, and the impact it might have on the environmental threats that confront us today. Flannery discusses in detail three potential solutions to the most pressing of the sustainability challenges: climate change.
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World change a necessity!
- By Anonymous User on 06-02-2018
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Unhinged
- By: Omarosa Manigault Newman
- Narrated by: Omarosa Manigault Newman
- Length: 11 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Few have been a member of Donald Trump’s inner orbit longer than Omarosa Manigault Newman. Their relationship has spanned 15 years - through four television shows, a presidential campaign, and a year by his side in the most chaotic, outrageous White House in history. But that relationship has come to a decisive and definitive end, and Omarosa is finally ready to share her side of the story in this explosive, jaw-dropping account.
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One of the poorer stories I've heard.
- By Miss Amy V on 05-09-2018
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Fascism: A Warning
- By: Madeleine Albright
- Narrated by: Madeleine Albright
- Length: 9 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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A personal and urgent examination of Fascism in the 20th century and how its legacy shapes today’s world, written by one of America’s most admired public servants, the first woman to serve as US secretary of state. A Fascist, observes Madeleine Albright, 'is someone who claims to speak for a whole nation or group, is utterly unconcerned with the rights of others, and is willing to use violence and whatever other means are necessary to achieve the goals he or she might have.'
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A real eye opener!
- By Janet Catesby on 16-02-2019
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Rise and Kill First
- The Secret History of Israel's Targeted Assassinations
- By: Ronen Bergman
- Narrated by: Rob Shapiro
- Length: 25 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
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In this pause-resisting, eye-opening audiobook, journalist and military analyst Ronen Bergman - praised by David Remnick as 'arguably [Israel's] best investigative reporter' - offers a riveting inside account of the targeted killing programs: their successes, their failures, and the moral and political price exacted on the men and women who approved and carried out the missions.
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An interesting book on Israel's survival
- By Albert J. Malki on 28-01-2019
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The Fifth Risk
- Undoing Democracy
- By: Michael Lewis
- Narrated by: Victor Bevine
- Length: 5 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
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The morning after Trump was elected president, the people who ran the US Department of Energy - an agency that deals with some of the most powerful risks facing humanity - waited to welcome the incoming administration's transition team. Nobody appeared. Across the US government, the same thing happened: nothing. People don't notice when stuff goes right. That is the stuff government does. It manages everything that underpins our lives from funding free school meals, to policing rogue nuclear activity, to predicting extreme weather events.
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Lewis has done it again
- By Anonymous User on 29-10-2018
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Becoming
- By: Michelle Obama
- Narrated by: Michelle Obama
- Length: 19 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
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In her memoir, a work of deep reflection and mesmerizing storytelling, Michelle Obama invites listeners into her world, chronicling the experiences that have shaped her - from her childhood on the South Side of Chicago to her years as an executive balancing the demands of motherhood and work to her time spent at the world's most famous address. With unerring honesty and lively wit, she describes her triumphs and her disappointments, both public and private, telling her full story as she has lived it - in her own words and on her own terms.
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As you’d expect
- By Amazon Customer on 19-11-2018
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The Return
- Fathers, Sons and the Land in Between
- By: Hisham Matar
- Narrated by: Hisham Matar
- Length: 8 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
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Hisham Matar was 19 when his father was kidnapped and taken to prison in Libya. He would never see him again. Twenty-two years later, after the fall of Gaddafi, Hisham was finally able to return to his homeland for the first time. In this heartbreaking, illuminating memoir, he describes his return to a country and a family he thought he would never see again. The Return is at once a universal and an intensely personal tale of loss. It is an exquisite meditation on history, politics and art.
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Loved it
- By Judy on 29-04-2017
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Proof of Collusion
- How Trump Betrayed America
- By: Seth Abramson
- Narrated by: Robert Petkoff
- Length: 12 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
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Looking back at this moment in history, historians will ask if Americans knew they were living through the first case of criminal conspiracy between an American presidential candidate turned commander in chief and a geopolitical enemy. The answer might be: it was hard to see the whole picture. The stories coming in from around the globe have often seemed fantastical: clandestine meetings in foreign capitals, secret recordings in a Moscow hotel, Kremlin agents infiltrating the Trump inner circle....
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horribly repetitive
- By Tony on 03-12-2018
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To Obama
- With Love, Joy, Hate and Despair
- By: Jeanne Marie Laskas
- Narrated by: Jeanne Marie Laskas, Sullivan Jones, full cast
- Length: 12 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
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Every day, President Obama received 10,000 letters from ordinary American citizens. Every night, he read 10 of them before going to bed. This is the story of how they shaped his presidency. Together they reveal the diary of a nation. They wrote to Obama out of gratitude and desperation, in their darkest times of need, with anger, fear and respect. To Obama is an intimate look at one man's relationship with the American people, and at a time when empathy intersected with politics in the White House.
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An inspiring book
- By Dennis Atkins on 01-01-2019
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Unbelievable
- My Front-Row Seat to the Craziest Campaign in American History
- By: Katy Tur
- Narrated by: Katy Tur
- Length: 7 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
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The NBC journalist who covered - and took fire from - Donald Trump on the campaign trail offers an inside look at the most shocking presidential election in American history. Intriguing, disturbing, and powerful, Unbelievable is an unprecedented eyewitness account of the 2016 election from an intelligent, dedicated journalist at the center of it - a thoughtful historical record that offers eye-opening insights and details on our political process, the media, and the mercurial 45th president of the United States.
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Unbelievable
- By Andree on 15-09-2017
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All the President's Men
- By: Bob Woodward, Carl Bernstein
- Narrated by: Richard Poe
- Length: 12 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
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Beginning with the story of a simple burglary at Democratic headquarters and then continuing with headline after headline, Bernstein and Woodward kept the tale of conspiracy and the trail of dirty tricks coming - delivering the stunning revelations and pieces in the Watergate puzzle that brought about Nixon's scandalous downfall. Their explosive reports won a Pulitzer Prize for The Washington Post and toppled the president. This is the book that changed America.
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Very relevant to current political events
- By The Quiet Reader on 04-06-2018
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A Higher Loyalty
- By: James Comey
- Narrated by: James Comey
- Length: 9 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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In his forthcoming book, former FBI director James Comey shares his never-before-told experiences from some of the highest stakes situations of his career in the past two decades of American government, exploring what good, ethical leadership looks like and how it drives sound decisions. His journey provides an unprecedented entry into the corridors of power and a remarkable lesson in what makes an effective leader.
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Excellent Insights into Ethical Leadership
- By PAUL W. KELLY on 11-05-2018
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Bad Blood
- By: John Carreyrou
- Narrated by: Will Damron
- Length: 11 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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The full inside story of the breathtaking rise and shocking collapse of a multibillion-dollar start-up, by the prize-winning journalist who first broke the story and pursued it to the end. In 2014, Theranos founder and CEO Elizabeth Holmes was widely seen as the female Steve Jobs: a brilliant Stanford dropout whose start-up ‘unicorn’ promised to revolutionize the medical industry with a machine that would make blood tests significantly faster and easier.
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Captivating - unbelievable that this is a true story
- By Glenn Gillan on 29-06-2018
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Who Thought This Was a Good Idea?
- And Other Questions You Should Have Answers to When You Work in the White House
- By: Alyssa Mastromonaco
- Narrated by: Alyssa Mastromonaco, Lauren Oyler
- Length: 5 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
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Alyssa Mastromonaco worked for Barack Obama for almost a decade and long before his run for president. From the then-senator's early days in Congress to his years in the Oval Office, she made Hope and Change happen through blood, sweat, tears and lots of briefing binders. But for every historic occasion - meeting the queen at Buckingham Palace, bursting in on secret climate talks or nailing a campaign speech in a hailstorm - there were dozens of less-than-perfect moments when it was up to Alyssa to save the day.
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Overall amazing!
- By Anonymous User on 15-02-2019
Publisher's Summary
Random House presents the audiobook of The World As It Is by Ben Rhodes, read by Mark Deakins, with an introduction read by the author.
This is a book about two people making the most important decisions in the world. One is Barack Obama. The other is Ben Rhodes.
The World As It Is tells the full story of what it means to work alongside a radical leader, of how idealism can confront reality and survive, of how the White House really functions and of what it is to have a partnership, and ultimately a friendship, with a historic president.
A young writer and Washington outsider, Ben Rhodes was plucked from obscurity aged 29. Chosen for his original perspective and gift with language, his role was to help shape the nation’s hopes and sense of itself. For nearly 10 years, Rhodes was at the centre of the Obama administration - first as a speechwriter, then a policymaker, and finally a multipurpose aide and close collaborator.
Rhodes puts us in the room at the most tense and poignant moments in recent history: starting every morning with Obama in the Daily Briefing; waiting out the bin Laden raid in the Situation Room; reaching a nuclear agreement with Iran; leading secret negotiations with the Cuban government; confronting the resurgence of nationalism that led to the election of Donald Trump.
This is the most vivid portrayal yet of Obama’s presidency. It is an essential record of the last decade. But it also shows us what it means to hold the pen and to write the words that change our world.
What members say
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- Dudley
- Sydney, NSW, AU
- 01-07-2018
This about President Obama’s foreign policy
I learnt a great deal from this book. I recommend it to those interested in US foreign policy.
1 of 2 people found this review helpful
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- Boyd Neil Rash Robins
- 27-01-2019
Ben Rhodes should've narrated the whole book
My only complaint is that I wish that Ben Rhodes had narrated the whole book and not just the Preface. It was easier to hear the emotion behind the narrative when he was narrating his story.
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- Tantardini Marco
- 15-09-2018
As inspiring as sad
Inspiring and very well written as the speeches he wrote for President Obama. Sad, as there is a sense that all that he believed in and has worked on for almost ten years has gone.
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- Colicia
- 20-06-2018
A good read
this book offers an intimate portrait of the Obama Administration Through The Eyes of one of his closest aides. Ben Rhodes did a good job of revisiting the eight years that he would have toiled wholeheartedly believing in everything that President Obama and the administration's worldview stood for. he was candid and intimate about how this experience would have affected him at various stages and shaped the person he is now
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- Rudolph
- 25-07-2018
This is the time to listen to this book
As European, I am very annoyed, how things are developing in the US. The way how our good relationships are destroyed, I had thought impossible.
This book shows us that the opposite is possible, I sincerely look forward to the next elections.
Hopefully we can forget the present nightmare and repare the damage done.
2 of 2 people found this review helpful
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- Anonymous User
- 04-12-2018
A great book about a great world leader
A fascinating insight into the workings of the White House and Obama. What an incredible man and leader.
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- DPW
- 14-10-2018
Insightful
An incredible insight into a Whitehouse where things actually worked.. Rhodes provides a perfect blend of policy details, and the impact that operating at the highest levels of government has on the individual (and those close to them).
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- Amazon Customer
- 12-10-2018
Narrator fairly crap and uninspiring.
Excellent book let down by a poor narrator. The Obama accent was pretty terrible and the overall performance was a let down.
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- KRB
- 15-07-2018
Great book, a must read!
I loved this book. Gives great insight into Obama and his years as president. Awesome book!
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- Kenneth Taylor FCCA
- 12-07-2018
Obamas world <br />
just about this best story of Obama and his 8 years as President of the USA
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- DT
- 28-06-2018
Insightive, interesting and well written.
Really interesting read. Gives you a window into the Obama Whitehouse. Learnt plenty I was previously unaware of. Great narration too
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- Dan Taub
- 27-06-2018
Timely and important
Not only is Ben Rhodes’s narrative timely and important, but the audio performance is spectacular. You feel like a fly on the wall of the world as it was progressing - a different time. But as Rhodes and Obama remind us, progress does not always move in a straight line. Thank you, Ben.