Saturday’s Book: “This Town” by Mark Leibovich

The full title is: This Town; Two Parties and a Funeral (plus plenty of valet parking) in America’s Gilded Capital.

I wonder if the title is meant to remind you a bit of the movie “Four Weddings and a Funeral” so as as to convey humor.

There IS humor in the book but it isn’t what I imagined it would be. I’v made it to page 115 and am thinking of bailing out. I’m bored.

I chose to read it becasue the book (hardcover, BTW!) basically fell into my lap. I thought it would illustrate how lobbyists in Washington operate, in a behind-the-scenes kind of way. I imagined examples of proposed bills and then all the changes they go through as they are subjected to the pull of different pressure groups. I guess I imagined something similar to “The West Wing” TV show I used to watch.

It’s not.

The parts where the author sticks with one person for more than a page and a half are more interesting – how did a person get to be in the position he/she now holds can be intriguing. But so many pages seem to be an endless parade of names (yes, I have heard of some of them even though I don’t live in the States) and ENDLESS OVERKILL  of superlatives. The phrase” no one understood this better than her/him” (or its equivalant) doesn’t fare well when it is repeated.

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