PanNPRBaseless: My Search For Secrets in the Ruins of the Freedom of Information Act has a promising concept, which is to use the topic as a way to examine the shortcomings of America\'s public records law. The book does not deliver on that promise ... According to the book\'s index, there are as many references to FOIA — 41 — as there are mentions of feathers and feather bombs. The book offers a handful of worthwhile meditations on secrecy and the need for public records, but they are the exception ... This book features, after hundreds of pages, Baker\'s best guess. But he does not present convincing evidence, and then the book just sort of ends ... Interspersed with studies about biological warfare are scattershot observations about his dogs\' ears, his breakfast of boiled potatoes, the cold weather, and his myriad dreams — none of which are humorous or charming.
Rick Wilson
PanNPR(Wilson\'s) book is the story of a Republican Party whose shift towards Trumpism has left him furious, which he conveys with a biting, over-the-top writing style — a book he hopes is one \'of a number of poison darts in the neck of the monster.\' ... The book has itself the intellectual rigor of a Comedy Central roast for Justin Bieber — and isn\'t conscious of its own central irony: Though it calls for ascending to a higher plane, beyond Trump, it\'s filled with empty insults ... He spends just 11 pages of his book briefly touching on what to do about Trump, and none of it is particularly interesting ... this book would have been better off left in a series of tweets.
