CIVIL WAR in the OZARKS by Phillip W. Steele and Steve Cottrell

Published in 1993 by Pelican Press.
This book was revised and re-released in 2009

I believe I purchased this book nearly 30 years ago at the St. Louis Gateway Arch, before its current setup.

The Arch seems like a cheesy tourist trap, but it is actual a great place for lovers of history. I've been there three times - each about 20 years apart.

The Arch itself is overwhelmingly immense and worth at least one close look. In the current configuration, there is also a first-rate museum under the arch with a gift shop. Sure, the gift shop has glassware and keychains, but it has always had an impressive book store. 

You can also travel to Cahokia Mounds in Illinois and climb on top of the largest Native American pyramid structure in the U.S. and look to the west and clearly see the Arch. Anyone with a sense of history gets a chill down their spine when standing on an ancient monument and looking miles away.

I bring all of this up because this is precisely the kind of connection that this book does not offer.

This is the type of Civil War book that people that say they hate history pick up and try to read and it just reinforces their impression that history is a series of dry facts recited in the order that they happened.

I really couldn't find much to criticize in what is included in this book. It tells the story of armies being assembled, troop movements, battles, and casualty counts and not much jumped out at me as being overtly inaccurate. The authors don't really take one side or the other in their re-telling of the events.

But, they miss the best parts of telling a history. It's not the numbers of the dead and wounded that make the story worth hearing, even though those are essential facts. It's the motivations of the people involved - their relationships to one another, their quirks that make them precisely the person for this moment, or precisely NOT the person for this moment (see below with Frémont.)

The authors make frequent references to how this border area between free and slave states led to a lot of swirling debates about the secession crisis and slavery. Families were split, disputes between families became infused with the external energy of the war and the whole area became a tinderbox of anger and violence. The problem with this book is that they didn't even provide more than what I wrote in the previous sentence - with one exception.

There is an addendum to the book about Jesse James and his gang. There is a lot of heartbreaking detail about the war crimes that were inflicted upon him and his family that turned him into an unflinching partisan, even long after his companions officially surrendered and long after the war was over.

If this sort of detail had been supplied throughout the book - not just about famous people like Jesse James but about regular people and why it made them join the fight, this would have made the book nothing but better.

There is a glaring example of an almost criminal lack of explanation about the most famous person in the theater throughout the entire war - John C. Frémont. Frémont entered the war as literally the second most famous member of the U.S. military, only slightly less famous than its leading general Winfield Scott (maybe even more famous.)

Frémont was famous because had led 5 highly publicized survey expeditions of the West with his wife sending reports back East (in his name) that were re-published in all of the newspapers. He had a nickname - the Pathfinder of the West. He also led an expedition in the Mexican War, was one the first two Senators from California, and the first Republican candidate for President in 1856. He had also married into one of the most powerful political families in St. Louis. He thought he was immune and this controversy and Frémont's independent attitude set the agenda for the Union war effort in the first few months of the war. 

The book notes that Frémont was slow to move, lived an ostentatious lifestyle in a mansion in St. Louis and was removed from command. It fails to note that he was removed from his position because he issued an Emancipation Proclamation for Missouri more than a year before Lincoln issued his Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation for the entire Confederacy. Lincoln told him that he couldn't have a general making such monumental policy choices on this own, but Frémont refused to take it back.

Not even having a light discussion of the issue is ridiculous for a book called Civil War in the Ozarks and a discussion of this matter would have gone well with a discussion of how this issue pushed some men into this fight.

This wasn't the only topic they failed to discuss along these lines. For example, why did they not discuss why the Cherokee Nation in Oklahoma fought alongside the Confederacy. They mention that African American soldiers from Kansas fought in several battles. There was no discussion about these soldiers, except to note that they had heard rumors that they would be murdered if they surrendered in battle. How did pro-Confederate families react to them? How did they end up stationed in Kansas? 

This book could have been so much more. I rate it 2 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: Civil War in the Ozarks by Phillip W. Steele and Steve Cottrell.

FIGHT OLIGARCHY (audiobook) by Bernie Sanders

Published in 2025 by Random House Audio.
Read by the author, Bernie Sanders.
Duration: 2 hours, 41 minutes.
Unabridged.

When I picked up this book, I had forgotten all about Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders' cross country "Fighting Oligarchy" tour that he initiated in February of 2025 - just one month after Donald Trump started his second term as President. He intentionally visited places you wouldn't expect Bernie Sanders to speak, such as West Virginia, Montana, Iowa, North Carolina and Texas, often with political allies such as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC).

This book was designed to accompany that tour. It is a more detailed version of the speeches he delivered on that tour.

When I picked the book I was in the mood for something different. I had seen Sanders on television and social media and thought he was a pretty solid speaker, but I was curious what he would be like in a much larger dose. 

Turns out that Bernie is a compelling speaker, even though he does nothing particularly special beyond giving an earnest speech with his familiar New York City accent. 

Bernie's message is simple: “Oligarchy is a system in which a small number of extremely wealthy individuals control the economic, political, and media life of a nation. It is a system in which ordinary people have very little power to determine the future of their country. If you’re an American, it is the system in which you’re living. That must change. In the wealthiest nation on earth we must build a political movement that creates a government that represents all Americans, not just a handful of billionaires.”

On tour in West Virginia

He describes the problems we face, then he tells his audience that America has always faced tough problems and has often successfully dealt with them in the past (with examples), and then he tells how he thinks they can be dealt with. 

The problems he identifies include unlimited political spending by billionaires and corporations and severely lagging wages when compared to the growth of worker productivity (translated - you create more at work than ever before but you get paid the same).

I finished the audiobook in almost no time. Bernie was an engrossing speaker.

I rate this audiobook 5 stars our of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: Fight Oligarchy by Bernie Sanders.

HARRIET BEECHER STOWE: A LIFE from BEGINNING to END (Kindle) by Hourly History

Published in August of 2026 by Hourly History.

Hourly History specializes in producing short histories that they typical person can read in about an hour. I like them for two reasons: 1) they offer free e-books EVERY weekend (get on their email list) and 2) there are some people and events I want to know more about, but I am not interested in investing the time required for a full scale biography.

For me, Harriet Beecher Stowe is one of those people. I am a long-time student of the American Civil War, so she is frequently mentioned in these circles. Her anti-slavery novel Uncle Tom's Cabin was an international bestseller and helped fuel a lot of agitated discussion leading up to the Civil War.

I knew four or five important points about her pre-Civil War life, I knew about her family connections to the anti-slavery movement, and I read Uncle Tom's Cabin (see my review here) but I'd never had it all put together in one place. 

This was an interesting biography and paced well. I rate it 4 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: Harriet Beecher Stowe: A Life from Beginning to End. 

Q is for QUARRY (audiobook)(Kinsey MIlhone #18) by Sue Grafton

Published by Random House Audio in 2002.
Read by Judy Kaye.
Duration: 12 hours, 38 minutes.
Unabridged.

I have bounced through the Kinsey Milhone series for my entire adult life. I come and go with no discernible pattern - just popping in and out at random times in this 25 book series. It's pretty easy to do with this series because, while there are larger plots going on concerning Kinsey's family and sometimes here landlord, they don't move very quickly so I can just figure out what's going on with the family drama and then get to the mystery and enjoy how Kinsey solves it.

Synopsis

The mystery in Q is for Quarry was inspired by a real life cold case from the late 1960s. The author and the local police were hoping that the book might inspire someone to come forward with some new information. Sadly, that didn't happen in real life.

In the novel, two retired cops in ill health decide to reopen a cold case that has always haunted them and solve it before they die. They hire Kinsey to help. She will act as a set of fresh eyes and be much more physically mobile than either of them.

The case is about the body of a young woman that was found murdered and tossed into an old quarry. No one was able to identify her and there were precious few leads so the case just dried up. One of the retired cops wants to prove a felon with a long violent rap sheet did it (it fits in this m.o. pretty well) while the other retired cop is basically hoping that working the case will reinvigorate his sickly old friend. 

Kinsey is into it basically because she's got nothing else going on and she really wants to see what these two old dogs can do once they get back into the hunt.

What they find is nothing like what they expected...

My Review

They mystery is excellent. I would rate it 5 stars. The teamwork between the three of them is fun and watching these two old guys snipe and gripe is half of the fun. Of course the sniping and griping comes from mutual concern and the love that comes from a decades-old friendship. 

I quickly grew weary of the ongoing story line about Kinsey's past and a possible rapprochement with her extended family that she didn't know anything about when she was growing up. Those people are super-annoying and I'd just as soon not waste my time hearing about them. In a 12+ hour audiobook, they probably took up no more than 2 hours - but it felt like it was almost half of the book! This part of the story took a 5 star score down to a 4 star score.

Judy Kaye is excellent as the reader for this series.

I rate this audiobook 4 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: Q is for Quarry by Sue Grafton.

VENUS on the HALF-SHELL by Philip José Farmer

Originally published in 1975 under the psuedonym Kilgore Trout. 

I read the 2013 edition published by Titan Books.

While suffering a bit of writer's block, Philip José Farmer (1918-2009) was inspired to write a book as Kilgore Trout. If you are not familiar with Trout, he is a fictional science fiction author in several of Kurt Vonnegut's (1922-2007) books.

Vonnegut often changes the details about Trout's life but one constant is that Trout is a prolific, but not well-known author because his books are often published by publishers of pornographic novels because he can't ever seem to make a breakthrough with mainstream publishing houses. The porn publisher put racy covers on Trout's books and then sell them with the rest of their books in porn shops.

A popular assumption is that Vonnegut meant Kilgore Trout to be a stand-in for himself and his early struggles to get published and make a breakthrough as a mainstream author. By using Trout in his books, Vonnegut was putting a rather pathetic version of himself in his own books.

Farmer took that little bit of information and wrote Venus on the Half-Shell. At the beginning of the edition that I read, Farmer explains that he sought permission from Vonnegut to write a novel in the voice of Kilgore Trout and received a rather vague permission to do so. Farmer proceeded on a "better to ask forgiveness than really clarify that you had permission" basis and Vonnegut got pretty irritated about the whole thing when the novel first appeared.

I really like Vonnegut, but he really only had himself to blame for this. This is why you hire lawyers and work out the details in a contract, even among sci-fi colleagues.

*******

The original cover 

Way back when when I was in high school, my friends and cousins had a copy of this book. I am not sure who owned it, but I eagerly read it because 1) I read everything sci-fi that I could get my hands on and 2) it sounded and looked racy. I mean - look at the cover - it looks racy!!! 

The cover is perfect, by the way, for a Kilgore Trout novel. Doesn't it look like a sci-fi book that a porn publisher would publish?

I remember my friends and cousins and I passing this book around, eagerly reading it (and in my case, re-reading it two or three times.) I might have all of those details wrong, though. It was more than 40 years ago.

I have been systematically reading my way through every Kurt Vonnegut book and I decided that a re-read of Venus on the Half-Shell was in order since it is a) sort of a Vonnegut book and b) the first Vonnegut-related book of any sort that I actually read. 

So, how was it? I remember loving it when I was a kid. Was it everything that I remembered? 

It was decent, but not great. I remembered that it was very racy. It was racy at times, but not in any great detail. I think my teenaged mind filled in a lot of blanks with imgained details that were definitely not based on any experiences I had had. I am glad I re-read it, but I'm not planning on doing it again. 

The book does have a Vonnegut feel to it. It is not a hard sci-fi book. It has a simple writing style, has sex in it, and there is a definite cost to the use of the science and technolgy. In typical Vonnegut style, the price might not be paid by the people who benefit.

I rate this novel 3 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: Venus on the Half-Shell by Philip José Farmer.

Note: Douglas Adams' much better known novel Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy shares several plot points with this novel. I have no idea if that was intentional or an accident. 

HOW to EAT an ELEPHANT: ONE VOTER at a TIME (audiobook) by Sarah Longwell.

Published in September of 2026 by Macmillan Audio.
Read by the author, Sarah Longwell.
Duration: 8 hours, 29 minutes.
Unabridged.

Sarah Longwell is the publisher of The Bulwark media group. It started as a group of Never Trump Republican insiders who were looking to successfully primary Donald Trump in the 2020 Presidential election. Most of them had worked campagns or been in Conservative print or broadcast media.

They looked at the resources they had on hand and noted that one of them was a website that collected and reposted Never Trump-related articles and editorials. Someone got the bright idea to create their own content and that blossomed into a media empire with nine different podcasts/YouTube shows, eleven regular newsletters, an overloaded Substack page and more. 

But, that wasn't the original purpose of The Bulwark. They originally wanted to primary Donald Trump in the 2020 Presidential election. However, no one would step up to be an alternative to Trump in the 2020 primary unless they could see proof that Republicans were actually interested in an alternative. 

Sarah Longwell decided to do a series of focus groups, complete with the one way mirrors, to figure out if an alternative candidate to Trump was plausible.

Quickly, she found out that her visions of taking down Donald Trump from within the Republican Party were complete fantasy. But, now she had a new mission - use the focus groups to get a handle on how the GOP went from being the party of Reagan and Bush to being the party of MAGA.

During Covid, she turned these focus groups into Zoom meetings and she was able to crank them out in quantity in service of the theory that a single focus group might not be so accurate when it comes to getting a handle on the mood of the MAGA voter, but 50 of them should be enlightening. She has the results of hundreds and hundreds of focus groups, almost all of them discussing an aspect of the MAGA-verse.

The book is many other things besides the story of the focus groups. It's a history of The Bulwark, it's a mini-biography of the author. It's the story of her political journey from a tiny politically conservative think tank in Delaware to heading up one of the leading anti-MAGA media outlets.

Sometimes it's very personal, such as how her decision to come out of the closet. At the time she was working with the previously mentioned think tank to promote a book by Rick Santorum. The book tour included a lot of anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric in his "defense of marriage" arguments and she really began to feel that she had to decide if she was for this type of specious argument designed to spook the voters or for people that just wanted to live their lives without government harassment.

It turns out that moment of crisis was great preparation for the arrival of Donald Trump.

Longwell goes on to detail what she has learned and how anti-MAGA politicians can use this information to make the 2026 and 2028 campaigns successful.

I enjoyed the book, but I should - I am a fairly regular listener to Sarah Longwell's two podcasts (one is about the focus groups, one is with a rotating crew of attorneys that discuss the legality (or illegality) of various Trump Adminstration actions. If you are a Never Trumper and into political discussions, this will be of interest to you and comes highly recommended.

I rate this audiobook 5 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: How to Eat an Elephant: One Voter at a Time by Sarah Longwell.

UNDER the BLACK ENSIGN (Kindle) by L. Ron Hubbard

Originally Published in 1935.
Re-published by Galaxy Press in e-book format in 2008.

Originally published in the pulp magazine Five Novels Monthly in 1935, Under the Black Ensign is a Caribbean pirate story set in the late 1600s. It is the story of Tom Bristol, a crewman on a British naval vessel who moves from one ship to another and another and another as he has a series of improbably adventures.

While the story is laughably improbable, it is entertaining, and moves very quickly.

Hubbard uses authentic terms for parts and stations of the ship. The e-book is equipped with hyperlinks in the text that go to a rather large glossary. Some of the language involving black characters in the back sound archaic and grating to modern sensibilities, but Hubbard demonstrated very egalitarian racial attitudes in this e-book.

I rate this e-book 3 stars out of 5. It's a good bit of mindless adventure. It can be found of Amazon.com here: Under the Black Ensign.