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Showing posts from July, 2010

Train of Life

Entertaining, Thought-Provoking, Funny and Sad This is a World War II Jewish Holocaust comedy, if you can believe it. It is in French w/subtitles and it concerns a little Jewish village that knows the Nazis are coming to deport their village. Everyone is panic-stricken until the village idiot has a brilliant idea - the village should get a train and "deport" themselves all of the way to Palestine. The movie is all about their purchase of a dilapidated old train, its refurbishment into a Nazi-style train and their escape across Europe and the chase by the Nazis. Along the way, there are all kinds of humorous encounters with Nazis, the French Resistance, Gypsies and Communists. Parts of it are "Keystone cops" and parts of it are "Monty Python-esque". I will not tell you how it ends, because the ending packs a powerful emotional punch. However, I do wholeheartedly recommend the movie. I rate this movie 5 stars out of 5. Reviewed August 7, 2004.

Slow Burn (Leo Waterman Mysteries) by G.M. Ford

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Good but had such potential to be better G.M. Ford I was told that this book was a disappointment. I have to agree and disagree. It is a good book - it really does approach the level of being a great farce of a detective novel. The client is outrageous and the people he investigates are larger than life throughout the story. At times, Waterman is the only sane man in the room. It makes it a fun ride - but I finished the book pleased but quite sure that it could have been even more if Ford had pushed a bit more. I would have liked for him to have met other bizarre personages that were attending the food show, but the climactic scene at the steakhouse with the helicopter and the barbecue was certainly odd and funny enough in its own right. Like all of the Waterman novels, it may behoove the reader to jot down some notes as you go along because the author does little to remind the reader who the characters are as the story progresses. The murder victim is introduced and not men

U is for Undertow by Sue Grafton

By my count, this is the 21st book in the Kinsey Millhone series. I have read most of them over the years - some are good, some are great and one or two have been duds. U is for Undertow is a strong one. A very solid story, although not a very difficult mystery. Sue Grafton has kept Kinsey Millhone in the year about twenty years ago in the past. An author has to make several choices as he continues to write about a character over the years. James Bond never ages> Robert B. Parker's Spenser moved forward in time but never seemed to age. He was a Korean War vet (making him at least around 75 years old in his last book) and he still got into fistfights and chased bad guys all over the place. Tony Hillerman aged Joe Leaphorn and just moved on to the younger generation when it was time for action. The storyline of U is for Undertow most resembled an extended episode of the CBS police drama Cold Case and is different than the rest of her books. Kinsey is asked to investigate

Muslims in America: A Short History by Edward E. Curtis IV

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    A Short, Solid History Muslims in America is the "first single-author history of Muslims in America from colonial times to the present", which is what the back cover proclaims. I have no reason to doubt that this sad statement is true and for that reason this book is a welcome addition to the shelf of any serious student of American history. That being said, this book is not perfect. Since it tries to cover the entire spread of American history the first pages are about isolated Muslim individuals that were brought over as slaves, continued to follow their faith and were noted for doing so. It turns out that only a few people fit all those criteria so we end up with extended biographies of these people. This is not bad, per se, but it does make the last half of the book seemed rushed in comparison. The slow, extended style is put aside for a quicker, less detailed style. That less detailed style in the latter half of the book was frustrating for me. I am not

Daytona: From the Birth of Speed to the Death of the Man In Black by Ed Hinton

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Great book but there are a few errors... The title basically says it all. This fascinating book uses Daytona International Speedway and the old racing surface of Daytona Beach itself as its lens to focus on the world of NASCAR. Hinton has been a beat reporter covering NASCAR since the mid-1970s and knows all of the old stories and Hinton is able to package them so that the reader is reading one little vignette after another until the history of Daytona is told. I was reading another book when I picked up this one (a Christmas gift that I hadn't really paid a lot of attention to) and began thumbing through it. I couldn't put it down! It is well-written and at times it is laugh out loud funny, especially if you are a NASCAR fan and are familiar with the older, retired drivers. However, a couple of disturbing, trivial factual errors throw a negative light on the book as a whole. Two that I noted were Hinton's assertion that no rookie has won the Indy 500 since the 192

Understanding the Koran: A Quick Christian Guide to the Muslim Holy Book by Mateen Elass

Informative, fair and well-written Short summary: Mateen Elass is uniquely qualified to write such a book. His father was a Muslim. He was raised in Saudi Arabia. He is now a Presbyterian minister in the United States. His short, 10 chapter book introduces the reader to the Koran by telling its history and the common touchpoints that it shares with the Bible, Christian tradition and Jewish tradition. Elass also introduces the reader to the proper handling of the Koran and has a balanced discussion on the role of Jihad in Islam, as defined in the Koran. An optional Bible study is located at the back of the book with lots of questions designed for group discussion. My review: An absolutely excellent book! The reader is not required to be a Christian to understand the book - but a working knowledge of Christian tradition and the Bible would help. Mateen Elass has produced a wonderful introduction to Islam and the Koran. He is respectful of Islam throughout the book, but it is cl

Red, White & Liberal: How Left Is Right & Right Is Wrong by Alan Colmes

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Uneven and the use of e-mails gets annoying The first 60 pages or so of the book were so unfocused that I could not grasp where Colmes was heading or what he was trying to do. The only real thing he seemed to be doing was showing how unhinged some of the people who e-mailed him really are (lots of people have wished him ill for his points of view) and he uses these nutjobs as a brush to paint conservatives as a group as downright mean - in fact that is the title of one of his chapters. (despite his own admission that people fire off e-mails without thinking and say things that they would most likely never say to someone's face) Finally, Colmes gets focused and the last 2/3 of his book is a decent read - even though he keeps the e-mail theme going and it really loses its effectiveness. His political commentary is full of the same type of political cheap shots that he accuses the Right of using, such as: -Colmes has a little chart showing the political spectrum from left to

Never Again?:The Threat of the New Anti-Semitism by Abraham H. Foxman

Powerful, important but not perfect. Also - test yourself! Summary of the book: Foxman uses the common comment that the world has learned its lesson during World War II and will "never again" let hate do what it did to the Jews in World War II. He uses a question mark because he points to some rather depressing trends in this well-researched book that mark a rise of anti-semitism throughout the world, even in Japan. (reviewers note: How many Jews actually live in Japan? How many Japanese actually know what the Jewish religion is? I'm assuming this is just a nutball group that hates just about everybody and just threw the Jews in too). Foxman is the head of the Anti-Defamation League, a group based in New York City that monitors Anti-Semitic activity throughout the world. My review: Foxman is a bit too sensitive (something that he admits he is trying to avoid), but he's right,there are terribly disturbing anti-Semitic trends, especially in his chapter 7 con

Joan of Arc DVD

Historical problems - but great acting. The movie makes some cheap, ineffective attempts to give the Joan of Arc story a bit more punch - including a "prophecy" from Merlin and the mischaracterization of the 100 Years' War as a War for France's freedom from Britain. However, there is some good acting in this movie, especially from Peter O'Toole - he brings humanity to a character that could have easily been a one-dimensional, generic bad guy. Is it a great movie? no Is it entertaining? Yes - and you get the bonus of watching a real pro like O'Toole show you how its done. I rate this movie 4 stars out of 5. This movie can be found on Amazon.com here: Joan of Arc . Reviewed on July 15, 2004.

Stalking the Angel (Elvis Cole) (audiobook) by Robert Crais

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Elvis Cole #2 Published by Brilliance Audio Read by Patrick G. Lawlor Duration: 6 hours, 52 minutes Unabridged Synopsis: Elvis Cole and his partner Joe Pike are hired by a Los Angeles businessman to find a missing ancient copy of the Hagakure , a book that details Bushido, or the way of the Samurai. Along the way, they discover hidden family secrets, connection to the Yakuza (Japan's ultra-violent mafia) and deal with a kidnapping and modern followers of the Bushido. Robert Crais Written in 1989, Stalking the Angel is an early Elvis Cole book. Crais is still doing a bit of casting about to find his rhythm with the characters of Joe Pike, Elvis and even his irascible cat. The plot doesn't flow as well as later books but it still a very nice listen. It is narrated by Patrick G. Lawlor who does a solid job of catching Cole's wisecracking side but overall does not catch on to Elvis as well as the narrators of his later books do. I rate this book 4 stars out

The War Lovers: Roosevelt, Lodge, Hearst, and the Rush to Empire, 1898 by Evan Thomas

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Well done Before this book, I had not had the pleasure of reading one of Evan Thomas' books. I picked this one up despite the fawning comments by Thomas in June 2009 ("I mean in a way Obama's standing above the country, above - above the world, he's sort of God.") My original thoughts were if this guy can't be any more unbiased in his observations than that, do I really want to read his stab at history? Well, I am happy to say that I was pleasantly surprised. This is a solid history that is told well. The book flows along nicely and the reader is both entertained and informed. Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919)  with his men in Cuba The book's focus is the build-up of public support for the Spanish-American War (1898). As the title notes, Theodore Roosevelt, Henry Cabot Lodge and William Randolph Hearst are the main subjects in the book but other people round out the story, including Harvard professor and philosopher William James ( Pragmatism and

Ten Stupid Things That Keep Churches from Growing: How Leaders Can Overcome Costly Mistakes by Geoff Surratt

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 Geoff Surratt's Ten Stupid Things That Keep Churches From Growing is an entertaining and informative read. Like I noted in the title, I am not a pastor (but I have been an active church member nearly all of my life), but I still found the book quite enjoyable. Surratt's 10 things are: * Trying to do it all * Establishing the Wrong Role for the Pastor's Family * Providing a Second-Rate Worship Experience * Settling for Low Quality Children's Ministry * Promoting Talent over Integrity * Clinging to a Bad Location * Copying Another Successful Church * Favoring Discipline over Reconciliation * Mixing Ministry and Business * Letting Committees Steer the Ship Surratt does come at things from a non-denominational perspective so some of these items were not particularly applicable to my Missouri Synod Lutheran church, but most were. I was able to note that our church does most of these things well, including just moving out of a bad location (too small) an

Outliers: The Story of Success by Malcolm Gladwell

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One of the most interesting and profound books I've read this year. Published in 2008. Please pardon a little bit of blogging tossed in with a little bit of book reviewing - it's not my normal style. I am a high school teacher and we are, as a school, busily studying the racial achievement gap that exists on all (if not all, it is almost, almost, almost all) standardized tests across the country. Currently, I am bucking my school system by insisting it is not a racial gap but rather a failure of the culture of the school to attune itself to the culture of our African-American and Hispanic students. A cultural gap, as it were. To me this is no simple issue of semantics - if the gaps are cultural they can be overcome by re-tooling and learning new strategies. If the gaps in achievement truly are racial - based on inherited characteristics from our genetic code, well, what's the point of trying, really? (To be honest, I think they are using race as a simplistic code

More Blood, More Sweat and Another Cup of Tea by Tom Reynolds

An interesting look at the experiences of a London paramedic Tom Reynolds (a pseudonym) is the writer of a blog about his experiences as a paramedic in London. There are 212 entries that read like they were lifted from his blog, perhaps given a little editing and some re-arranging and then printed. If you like the television show Cops than this format may be of particular interest to you. There are things to be gleaned from the book: You learn that a blanket is the most important tool in an ambulance. You learn that, like on the show COPS, alcohol creates a lot of trouble. You learn that Britain's NHS is seriously overburdened. Reynolds discusses hospitals filled to capacity, ambulance services that make people wait for over an hour (not always but it does happen), hospitals without basic supplies like pillows and blankets, a boy with a history of collapsing waiting for weeks for an MRI scan (I have had two on an emergency basis in the last 3 years for one I had to wai

Citizen Soldiers: The U.S. Army from the Normandy Beaches to the Bulge to the Surrender of Germany: June 7, 1944-May 7, 1945 (audiobook) by Stephen Ambrose

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Beautifully told - in all of its splendor and horror 5 CDs 5 Hours Also includes a tiny 6 panel map of the war zones . Stephen Ambrose Cotter Smith masterfully narrates a wonderful re-telling of Ambrose's favorite topic - the Western European theater of World War II. Citizen Soldiers would serve as a fantastic introduction to this topic, but also is told well enough that someone who has read it all before, like me, found it interesting, informative and entertaining. Ambrose spices up the story with a lot of stories about regular soldiers at the front. We learn about the challenges, the humor, and the horrors of the fight. Some are soldiers you've never heard of, others are more famous such as Kurt Vonnegut ( Slaughterhouse-five ) and Jimmy Stewart ( Mr. Smith Goes to Washington ). Some stories make you laugh out loud, the Vonnegut Christmas story was so sad that I turned off the CD player and drove the rest of the way home in silence because it just didn't

Mary S. Peake, The Colored Teacher at Fortress Monroe (a Kindle book) by Rev. Lewis C. Lockwood

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More interesting as a piece of history than as a piece of literature This kindle "book" was most likely published as a missionary pamphlet during the American Civil War (1862). The author describes himself as the "first missionary to the freedmen at Fortress Monroe" in Virginia and was published by the American Tract Society. It originally had 64 pages (the Kindle edition that I read has accidentally transcribed the page numbers into the text). Mary S. Peake This tract is akin to those late night TV commercials that Sally Struthers used to do (and now done by a gentleman with a beard) but with a much more low key appeal - in fact there is no direct appeal for money. It is an update on the success that these missionaries have had in reaching out with the gospel and education to the newly freed slaves. It is also includes a story that is intended to pull at the heartstrings - the story of Mary S. Peake, a moderately well educated lady of mixed racial herita

The Complete Idiot's Guide to Ancient Greece by Eric D. Nelson

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The problem is that this book is trying to be two things at once - a resource book to be used as a quick reference (When was Alexander the Great born? What did the Epicureans believe?) or is it a basic history of the Ancient Greeks? Other books in the series that I have reviewed, such as The Complete Idiot's Guide to World Religions were clearly meant to be a quick reference guide. King Pyrrhus ( 319/318 BC–272 BC) So, as a history, this is sort of a frustrating read. The story of the Ancient Greeks is told in fits and starts. As a quick reference, it is good. The facts are solid and told in an understandable, interesting manner. I wasn't using it as a quick reference, rather I was reviewing the topic so as to be better prepared for the next time I teach ancient history. You can never tell what interesting tidbits you can pick up to spice up your presentations - even from the most basic of sources. For example, I learned that King Pyrrhus - the king that inspired the

Patriot Pirates: The Privateer War for Freedom and Fortune in the American Revolution (audiobook) by Robert H. Patton

A tedious listen. Published by Tantor Audio in 2008. Duration: 10 hours, 25 minutes. Read by Alan Sklar. Unabridged. I am an avid reader of history. I also enjoy listening to histories as part of my daily commute. I thought Patriot Pirates would be a fantastic diversion since I knew relatively little about the naval history of the Revolutionary War besides the story of Bonhomme Richard and the fact that the Continental Congress authorized the use of privateers. Unfortunately, Patton's dry, overly wordy text coupled with Alan Sklar's (the narrator) ironic, almost mocking tone made me both both bored and irritated at the same time. If it can be said in 50 words, Patton uses 500. He tells the same stories over and over again. After listening to 5 of 9 discs I refused to force myself to slog through another chapter - partially because it was so poorly narrated, partially because I was becoming a public safety hazard - I was literally nodding off. I listen to CDs to make

The Third Rail by Michael Harvey

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A Solid Crime Story Originally Published in 2010. The Third Rail is the third book in a series about Michael Kelly, a hard-boiled former cop turned private detective. Lots of action and lots of tension build throughout the book as Kelly investigates a series of seemingly random attacks on Chicago's famed Elevated Train system. Photo by Kelly Martin For me, this was a welcome change of pace from the seemingly endless books about crime in NYC and LA, cities that I know only from television. I am a Midwesterner and I am familiar with the Windy City so I had no problems envisioning the neighborhoods and the city skyline. That being said, the plot was not terribly original (the TV show Castle ran a similar premise as an episode while I was reading this book) and the old saw with the Catholic Church being corrupt and more worried about PR than anything else has been played too often as of late. Chapter 26 features an especially clever point of view on victims of a shoot

Neil Young's Greendale by Josh Dysart and Cliff Chiang

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Unfocused, does not really stand alone from the album I'd never heard of Neil Young's Greendale album before I picked up this graphic novel, but I decided the premise was interesting enough that I gave it a chance. "Greendale" might be your cup of tea if you like your reading material to touch upon tons of ideas but develop none of them. This book is a coming-of-age, anti-war, anti-importing-oil, anti-drilling-for-more-American-oil-so-we-don't-have-to-import-it, anti-big-electricity, anti-media, super-hero book in which our heroine uses some of her powers to control people's minds (?) and change their opinions about all of these topics by speaking a bunch of platitudes at the end of the book while the devil character (who wanders in and out of the book and is making deals with the Bush 43 Administration and big energy on his cell phone) is beaten. I'm not really if she uses her super powers to control peoples minds, but they do point out that herd a

Split Image by Robert B. Parker

A good ending to both series. Jesse Stone #9 Sunny Randall #7 Robert B. Parker couldn't have scripted a better ending to the Jesse Stone and Sunny Randall series if he had tried. Sadly, there will be no more of this series due to the death of Robert B. Parker but, happily, both end on a strong note. "Split Image" is really two books wrapped up in one. There is a small Sunny Randall mystery that is semi-independent of the main investigative line of Paradise Police Chief Jesse Stone. Both are good and throw in the interactions between Randall and Stone you have the makings of a strong addition to both series. I won't go into plot details here, but I can say that I do recommend this one for followers of either series. I rate this book 5 stars out of 5. This book can be found on Amazon.com here: Split Image . Reviwed on April 26, 2010.

The Economics of Food: How Feeding and Fueling the Planet Affects Food Prices by Patrick Westhoff

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Published in 2010 by FT Press. I picked this book up because I am a resident of Indiana and biofuels are a controversial topic. Some hail biofuels as a boon for local farmers, a green energy source, a creator of new jobs, and a step towards energy independence. Others  decry the whole project as stupidly burning our food in our gas tanks and a massive waste of money - cutting off our nose to spite our faces. What's the good news? This is truly a comprehensive introduction to topic of biofuels vs. affordable food. It is chock full of graphs, well-documented and is written in clear, easy to understand language. What's the bad news? It reads with all of the excitement of an introductory level college economics text, which is fitting since the publisher of this book is FT Press, an imprint of educational textbook giant Pearson. The other real problem is that if you are looking for an answer to the biofuel dilemma, it is not here. What you learn is that the relationship