I have been alternating between Gar Alperovitz’s The Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb and David Halberstam’s The Best and the Brightest, both excellent books, well-written and even-handed. But after several days, days that have also included the midterms, I find the world of politics so awful that I just can’t continue for the multiple weeks it will take to read them both. I don’t know how people spend their lives within that environment, but I can’t imagine that its effects on their soul are positive.