One reason to read these books is simply for the quality of the writing. Moore presents so much complicated information and such a huge cast of characters, of whom several are always in conflict, with such relaxed assurance and effortless command of the language, that it's hard to stop reading.

Instead of just quoting the first line of the book, here's the first paragraph of the preface:

Margaret Thatcher's politics were certainly not my own but after reading about who she was and how she approached her job, it's impossible not to see her as one of the last, perhaps the last, of a kind of political leader who worked incredibly hard and genuinely cared. Certainly we can assert that any number of her policies or decisions were "wrong", but they were never done for the wrong reasons.

Nelson Mandela considered her an ally, for example, while P. W. Botha did not. And she realized forty years ago what almost everyone considers to be obvious now, that sanctions profoundly hurt those alread victimized and do little if anything to the oppressors.

Interestingly, Ronald Reagan comes across in this book as obsessed with ridding the world of nuclear weapons, total nuclear disarmament, which is not how I remember him, but this really freaked Thatcher out and she put considerable effort into pressuring him to shut up about it.

(A footnote reveals that when Neil Kinnock, leader of the opposition party during Thatcher's run, met with Reagan, the US president "read from postcards cut into shape in the palm of his hands".)

There is a lot of detail about wrestling with policy, economic, foreign, whatever, and most of it is just way too complicated for me.

Simpler but ghastlier are episodes such as the IRA's attempt to murder Thatcher and many members of her cabinet, by setting off a bomb in the hotel where they were staying. There were five deaths and thirty-one injuries but not to Thatcher.

The IRA made a public statement to her which noted that "Today we were unlucky, but remember, we have only to be lucky once. You will have to be lucky always".

Of course Margaret Thatcher's being a woman in a male-dominated world is foundational to this story. There were many things she had to handle differently just by virtue of her sex. Gorbachev's aide, Anatoly Chernyaev, for example, apparently wanted Gorbachev to pursue negotiations and meetings with Thatcher because Chernyaev thought she was hot and fantasized sexually about her. TMI?

There's an interesting survey of how Thatcher and Thatcherism were treated in popular culture, particularly fiction, and Thatcher's acting with Paul Eddington and Nigel Hawthorne in a Yes, Prime Minister sketch at an awards ceremony is also covered.

Thatcher loved the show, as do I, but Moore says that she "even agreed to take part" in this sketch, which makes it sound like it was the idea of the writers and creators of the program, when my understanding was that they were pressured by "No. 10" to do it.

Who knows? Volume Three is on deck now!

And that's how I found myself curled up with Cop Hater in the mountains of Utah. These are things you can do if you eliminate skiing from your list of activities.

The 813th Soundtrack of the Week is John Barry's score for Hammett.