THE EARLY MIDDLE AGES (The Great Courses) (audiobook) by Philip Daileader

Published in 2013 by The Great Courses.
Lectures delivered by the author, Philip Daileader.

Duration: 12 hours, 32 minutes.

Unabridged.

The idea behind The Great Courses is that anybody can have access to high quality college instructors who are truly experts in their fields. In this course the focus is the Early Middle Ages (roughly 300 CE to 1000 CE). 

Daileader starts with the start of the decline of the Roman Empire, somewhere around the year 300 CE. He looks at the trends of the late Roman Empire and how they led to the fall of the Roman Empire in the West (Rome, not Constantinople) and how those trends led to the political and economic systems that typify the time period we know as the Middle Ages.

There is a heavy focus on what is now France, which is well-deserved since Charlemagne is one of the biggest historical figures of this era. But, other areas get a fair amount of attention, like Ireland, Spain, and the Islamic world. The sudden appearance of the Vikings contributed a lot as well. The Byzantine Empire

Church doctrine and politics play a prominent role throughout.

I found this series of half hour lectures to be interesting, but not riveting. The section on the political machinations that eventually led to the rise of Charlemagne's empire was slow - necessary but tedious until it finally pays off and you just sit and wonder how it all worked out the way it did. 

I rate this audiobook 4 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: The Early Middle Ages (The Great Courses) by Philip Daileader.  

SAINT PETER: A LIFE from BEGINNING to END (kindle) by Hourly History

Published in 2021 by Hourly History.

Hourly History has a series of short histories and biographies. As the name implies, they are designed to be read in about an hour.

Some of the best offerings in this series are the biographies and this biography of Saint Peter was no exception.

Saint Peter, of course, is one of the main figures in the New Testament, probably tied with Saint Paul for the second most important after Jesus himself. But, he's kind of a mystery in many ways because the references to Peter are scattered.

This biography gathers together all of those scattered references and puts them in a narrative format so that it reads like a traditional biography. It takes care to note when stories are from the Bible and when they come from tradition (the description of how Peter was executed comes to mind.)

The general outlines of Peter's life are laid out with only a token discussion of the implications of his theology, such as the decision to not require converts to Christianity to undertake the requirements that a convert to Judaism would have to make, such as circumcision.) 

I rate this biography 4 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: Saint Peter: A Life from Beginning to End.

PATHOGENESIS: A HISTORY of the WORLD in EIGHT PLAGUES (audiobook) by Jonathan Kennedy

 

Published by Random House Audio in April of 2023.
Read by the author, Jonathan Kennedy.

Duration: 9 hours, 23 minutes.
Unabridged.

Kennedy presents a compelling argument that disease has had a profound impact on world history by just telling a history of Europe from the days of cavemen up until now.

The first 45 minutes or so of this audiobook seemed to be wandering around and not going anywhere, but Kennedy was laying a strong foundation for the rest of the book.

The book makes it painfully obvious that humanity has bounced from one biological disaster to another. Humanity has adapted (either by behavior - like building sanitation systems to deal with body waste to control cholera) or biologically by simply having a large body count until those with immunity can rebuild (the Black Plague is a prime example.)

Kennedy persuasively argues that infection and disease helped the rise of Christianity, the rise of Islam, the end of feudalism, the rise of capitalism, and the European conquest of the Americas. Infection and disease helped create the system of African slavery in the New World and also prevented the European colonization of African until the late 1800s.

This is a very good book. I rate it 5 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: PATHOGENESIS: A HISTORY of the WORLD in EIGHT PLAGUES by Jonathan Kennedy.

TEN CAESARS: ROMAN EMPERORS from AUGUSTUS to CONSTANTINE (audiobook) by Barry Strauss

 

Published by Simon and Schuster Audio in 2019.
Read by Arthur Morey.
Duration: 12 hours, 52 minutes.
Unabridged.

Barry Strauss is a professor of the history of Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome. As the title clearly says, Strauss tells his reader/listeners about what he judges to be the ten most important Roman emperors and ends up telling a decent political history of the Roman Empire along the way.

Bronze statue erected c.175 AD of 
Marcus Aurelius (121-180 AD), one of
the Roman Emperors featured in 
this book.

When I say he chose the ten most important emperors, that doesn't mean he chose the ten best emperors. He has more than one emperor that demonstrates how a bad leader can abuse the political consensus, damage the political system, and leave a lot of confusion in his/her wake. But, change is not necessarily a bad thing - especially when handled by talented leaders like Augustus and Constantine. 

This was an interesting listen and well-read by Arthur Morey. I did enjoy how the book was not merely about the interactions of a few well-connected families at the top (although there are a few emperors that were hyper-connected to past and future emperors) but it was also about how emperors reacted to outside movements like rebellions in Judea, the rise of Christianity and foreign wars.

I rate this audiobook 5 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: TEN CAESARS: ROMAN EMPERORS from AUGUSTUS to CONSTANTINE by Barry Strauss.

ARCHAEOLOGY: AN INTRODUCTION to the WORLD'S GREATEST SITES (audiobook) by Eric H. Cline

 

Published in 2016 by The Great Courses.

Read by the author, Eric H. Cline.

Duration: 12 hours, 37 minutes.
Unabridged.

Eric H. Cline is a well-respected and highly experienced archaeologist who is a professor at George Washington University. He has excavated at several sites for a total of 30 seasons, doing everything from being an inexperienced newbie to being Co-Director of well-established sites.

Turns out that Cline is also a very likable guy who does a good job of explaining archaeological techniques. He tells about a number of sites that he worked on and some of the most famous digs in history (King Tut's tomb, Troy) in the first half of the book. It was a bit frustrating for me because they were all within 100 miles of the Mediterranean Sea. 

In the second half of the book, Cline tells about other digs around the world - Machu Pichu, the Terracotta soldiers, Teotihuacan and more. 

On the whole, this was a pleasant if not particularly riveting listen as an audiobook. I rate it 4 stars out of 5.

It can be found on Amazon.com here: ARCHAEOLOGY:  AN INTRODUCTION to the WORLD'S GREATEST SITES (audiobook) by Eric H. Cline.

THE DESIRE of the EVERLASTING HILLS: THE WORLD BEFORE and AFTER JESUS (Hinges of History #3) by Thomas Cahill

Published in 1999 by Nan A. Talese, an imprint of Doubleday.

The Desire of the Everlasting Hills is the third book in The Hinges of History Series by Thomas Cahill. It is a series of histories that look at important long term movements in history that helped create Western Civilization. 

Nearly 20 years ago I read this book and the second book in this series, 

The Gifts of the Jews and then parked them on a bookshelf. I never read more books in the series and simply forgot all about them. With the pandemic quarantine came a purging of the bookshelves and these books returned to the to-be-read pile. 

Overall, I enjoyed The Gifts of the Jews, despite some slow spots. I had high hopes for this book because I thought it would fit in well with the strongest parts of its predecessor. But, I found this book to be a mostly plodding history with an absolutely excellent and inspiring last chapter attached to it. 

And, I have solved the mystery of why I never pursued the rest of the books in this series 20 years ago.

I rate this history 3 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: THE DESIRE of the EVERLASTING HILLS: THE WORLD BEFORE and AFTER JESUS (Hinges of History #3) by Thomas Cahill.

THE DECISIVE BATTLES of WORLD HISTORY (The Great Courses) (Audiobook) by Gregory S. Adlrete

 

Published by The Great Courses in 2014.
Lectures delivered by the author, Gregory S. Aldrete.
Duration: 18 hours, 29 minutes.

Unabridged.

As long as there has been war, there has been discussions about which battles were the most important, the most pivotal. This takes some analysis, since the temptation might be to simply discuss the battle that finally ended a long conflict, like Appomattox was the functional end to the American Civil War. 

The temptation might also be to collect a list of the biggest battles of history, but that would exclude Aldrete's tiniest choice - the Battle of San Jacinto. While that battle had less than 2,500 soldiers, he persuasively argues that the battle not only made Texas independent from Mexico, it also set off a chain of events that led directly the the American Civil War, Reconstruction and more.

In The Decisive Battles of World History, Adlrete presents the battles in chronological order and spends at least as much time on the background information of each battle as he does on the battles themselves. A few of the entries are not battles, but are entire campaigns.

The Battle of San Jacinto

Almost all of these lectures are informative and entertaining, but I did find the one set in Medieval Japan to be very hard to follow. I found that to be surprising since I took two classes on this topic back in college. 

I rate this audiobook 4 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: THE DECISIVE BATTLES of WORLD HISTORY (The Great Courses) (Audiobook) by Gregory S. Adlrete.

CITIES of the ANCIENT WORLD (The Great Courses) by Steven L. Tuck

 

Published in 2014 by The Great Courses.

Read by the author, Steven L. Tuck

Duration: 11 hours, 48 minutes.

Unabridged.

The publishers of The Great Courses offer college level lecture classes (100 or 200 level) as audiobooks and/or videos. 

Cities of the Ancient Word begins with a discussion of the earliest cities and then moves on to significant cities that came along later. To be a significant city it had to start a new pattern - cities built on rivers, cities built on defensive hills, cities built to take advantage of sea trade, cities with a clear plan, cities built with a plan to mix to allow people of different ethnicities to live together (separately) and so on.

The Roman Colosseum

I very much enjoyed the first part of these lectures. But, once we got to Tuck's specific areas of expertise (Greek, Hellenistic, Roman) the audiobook got bogged down. His last lecture about some of the lessons of ancient cities that have been adopted by modern cities or are becoming popular again was interesting.

My primary problem of the book was that its title says it is about "cities of the ancient world" but it only includes cities in the Mediterranean basin and the Near East - the farthest away is on the border of India and Pakistan.  T

The youngest city he discusses is Constantinople and he discusses it through the 500's A.D. That is late enough that he could have easily have included cities from Asia, the Americas or Africa and I find it odd that he did not considering that he was discussing universal concepts that transcend all cities. Rather than dealing with cities that were influencing each other (a point that he makes over and over again), he could have skipped to an entirely new region of the world and shown that these principles truly are universal.

I rate this audiobook 3 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: CITIES of the ANCIENT WORLD (The Great Courses) by Steven L. Tuck.

THE OTHER SIDE of HISTORY: DAILY LIFE in the ANCIENT WORLD (The Great Courses) by Robert Garland

 

Published by The Great Courses in 2013.

Read by the author, Robert Garland.
Duration: 24 hours, 28 minutes.
Unabridged.

Robert Garland

Robert Garland gives his listeners a look at the "other side of history" - meaning from the point of view of the lower and middle classes, slaves, regular soldiers, women and children from the Stone Age through Medieval Europe. Occasionally, he looks at the rich, but not quite famous as well. He also explores how religion worked in every day life, family life, marriage ceremonies, how many jobs were performed and funeral rites in Mesopotamia, Ancient Egypt, Ancient Greece, the Persian Empire, the Roman Empire and Medieval Europe, particularly England.

Garland is a lecturer at Colgate University in New York State so he delivers this information through a series of 48 half-hour lectures. Asking for all 48 lectures to be 5 star quality is asking too much, but I found this to be an enjoyable and educational listen.

Highly recommended.

I rate this audiobook 5 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: THE OTHER SIDE of HISTORY: DAILY LIFE in the ANCIENT WORLD (The Great Courses) by Robert Garland.

AFTER JESUS: THE TRIUMPH of CHRISTIANITY by Reader's Digest

Published in 1992 by Reader's Digest.

Back in the day, Reader's Digest was famous for taking a popular novel and editing it down without losing the essence of the story. They were so good at it that the phrase "the Reader's Digest version" was a common way of saying getting the short version of a story.

In this case, Reader's Digest has provided a short, easy-to-read and easy-to-follow history of Christianity from the death of Christ to the rise of Islam in 321 pages. It is also a passable history of the Roman Empire for the same time period.

Technically, this is a re-read for me. I enjoyed it thoroughly more than 20 years ago and to my surprise, i enjoyed it just as much the second time around. Look through 3 or 4 pages and you will see several full color photos of ancient art, artifacts or locations and, most importantly, get a solid rundown of the people, ideas and controversies of the era.

The only weakness is the periodic inclusion of illustrations from one of their staff artists. Those illustrations are very generic - like the stuff you would find in old textbooks. The cover is a great example of this. Don't let the cover dissuade you from taking a look at this book.

I rate this book 5 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: AFTER JESUS: THE TRIUMPH of CHRISTIANITY by Reader's Digest.

IN the FOOTSTEPS of ST. PAUL (audiobook) by Richard Rohr

Published in 2015 by Franciscan Media.

Read by the author, Richard Rohr.

Duration: 7 hours, 34 minutes.

Unabridged.

Richard Rohr is a Franciscan Friar from Kansas who comes at Christianity with a little bit of a different take than most. He would argue that it is a truly Franciscan take, and it might very well be. I would not know because I am not a Catholic - but I did find this work to be very intriguing. He does not approach the text from a purely Catholic point of view - he praises and criticizes typical interpretations from Catholic, Protestant and Orthodox perspectives.

The audiobook In the Footsteps of St. Paul is actually a series of lectures given by Rohr as part of a tourist cruise of Greece. In reality, it should have been called "In the Footsteps of St. Paul and St. John" since they do make a stop at Patmos and see where St. John purportedly spent many years in exile. Nevertheless, Paul's writings and Rohr's take on them dominate the lectures.

One of the more interesting observations was his take on the Trinity. He takes seriously the Catholic view that Father, Son and Holy Spirit are three distinct persons and also one. He makes a powerful point that this is in itself one of the most important teachings of Christianity - the importance of relationships rather than just an orthodoxy checklist.

The author, Richard Rohr

I found Rohr's style and take to be welcoming and enjoyable. Sometimes, he is a little repetitive, but that is to be expected when recording a series of lectures given over a week. I heard them all in the course of 3 days, so the repetition was more noticeable to me.

I don't know where I heard about Richard Rohr - I requested the audiobook be purchased from my library almost 3 years ago. I have no idea why I did. Just this month they purchased it and forwarded it to me and I am glad they did. It was a refreshing change of pace from my normal listens and I am very pleased to see that Rohr has lots and lots of other books for me to explore.

Note: This book is only available as an audiobook.

I rate this audiobook 5 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: IN the FOOTSTEPS of ST. PAUL (audiobook) by Richard Rohr.

ST. PAUL: THE APOSTLE WE LOVE to HATE (audiobook) by Karen Armstrong

Published in 2015 by Brilliance Audio.

Read by the author, Karen Armstrong.
Duration: 5 hours, 21 minutes.
Unabridged.

Also published under the title St. Paul: The Misunderstood Apostle.

Karen Armstrong is a multiple award-winning author of more than 25 books, the great majority of them exploring religion. She is particularly interested in Islam, Christianity and Judaism. 

St. Paul: The Apostle We Love to Hate is aimed at the informed layman - not at other historians or religious experts. I read A LOT of history and have gone to church my entire life, but I can get lost in the weeds pretty quickly if too much professional jargon is used. Armstrong assumes  basic knowledge of the Christianity and of the New Testament. Nothing too complicated or deep and most of my Bible knowledge comes from Sunday school and small group Bible studies led by layman with a workbook. Armstrong takes care to explain things along the way because she is not out to impress the intellectuals - she has written a history for regular folks.

Born c. AD 5. Died c. AD 64-67

Paul has always been interesting to me. His writings have always seemed to me to be the first real attempt to move Jesus' teachings into a formal religion. There are times when I find his writings to be quite inspirational. At other times, he strikes me as obtuse and misogynistic. But, I wanted to get into the book to have a better understanding of what he was teaching and when he taught it.

The first thing that surprised me was the concept of Deutero-Pauline letters. Many scholars are now assuming that nearly half of the New Testament letters from Paul were not actually written by Paul, but by writers that came after him and used his name. This was a fairly common practice in Roman times - if you liked an author, you just borrowed his name. The evidence for this comes from analyzing the vocabulary used, the writing styles and changes in theology.

For me, this mostly cleared up one of my major frustrations with Paul - his inconsistencies. I say mostly because he still had some, but not nearly as many.

Her biography of Paul was interesting, but a bit skimpy since the audiobook was only a little over 5 hours long. But, it does hit the main points and I ended up feeling much more informed than I was before I started. I wish she had added more about his impact on the development of the Church over the nearly 2,000 years since his death.

This audiobook was read by the author. Sometimes, that can be a problem because being a great author is not the same thing as being a great audiobook reader. However, Armstrong has considerable experience with public speaking and her performance was quite good.

I rate this audiobook 5 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: ST. PAUL: THE APOSTLE WE LOVE to HATE (audiobook) by Karen Armstrong.

CARTHAGE MUST BE DESTROYED: THE RISE and FALL of an ANCIENT CIVILIZATION (audiobook) by Richard Miles

Published in 2011 by Gildan Media, LLC.
Read by Grover Gardner.
Duration: 14 hours, 9 minutes.
Unabridged.

Carthage has forever been relegated to the second fiddle of the Ancient Mediterranean world - the last power to offer the Roman Republic any sort of serious threat. The also-ran that could have been what Rome became...if only.

But, unlike Rome, no one seems to know much about Carthage except for that they were a sea power, they had battle elephants and Hannibal crossed the Alps leading them in a war against Rome.

Dr. Miles' effort in Carthage Must Be Destroyed is a bit hamstrung from the lack of original sources from Carthage itself - it was looted and destroyed at the end of the Third Punic War. But, he is able to reconstruct a history based on the writings of other countries, including such sources as the Bible, Greek and Roman histories, temples, changes in religious thought architecture and coinage. 

I do appreciate how difficult this must have been, but this book often gets bogged down in multiple long discussions of the coinage (what is on the heads side, what is on the tails side, where the coins were minted, what their exact metallic content was) and other topics that are meant to be supporting of the main story but not the main story itself. I mean, it was like clockwork - 45 minutes has passed, it's time for another extended coinage discussion.

To be frank, the problem with this book is that it simply had no flow. It was often sidetracked into areas that padded its length without adding any additional understanding. It read like an academic text - like one of those textbooks that you HAD to read in school, not like a book that made you want to keep on reading it. I learned a lot, but it was a chore. Too bad, because I picked this one up because I was truly intrigued by the topic.

Award winning audiobook reader Grover Gardner read this audiobook. I generally like Gardner's work, but I was not fond of his folksy style with the academic style of the text. It clearly wasn't a deal breaker since I finished all 14 hours of the book, but I don't think it was a great editorial choice by the producer(s) of the audiobook.

I rate this audiobook 2 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: CARTHAGE MUST BE DESTROYED: THE RISE and FALL of an ANCIENT CIVILIZATION by Richard Miles.

A LIFE of JESUS by Shusaku Endo. Translated by Richard A. Schuchert

First published in 1973.

Shusaku Endo was a rare thing - a Christian from Japan. He also grew up mostly away from Japan (in China) and spent a considerable amount of his young adult life in France. When he was in Japan, he was different because of his religion. When he was in France, he was different because of his ethnicity.

Endo's re-telling of the Jesus' life emphasizes this idea of being an outsider. Jesus is never what people want him to be. John the Baptist's followers want him to continue to teach like John the Baptist. His early followers want him to perform miracles all of the time. His later followers want him to overthrow the king and drive out the Romans. Meanwhile, Jesus is teaching lessons about love and forgiveness that no one seems to want to hear.

Endo's Jesus is a melancholy man - who wouldn't be when your main message is ignored and everyone wants to you be something you can't be?

Endo chooses to pass over most of the miracle stories of Jesus because he wrote this book for a Japanese audience and he is convinced that his native countrymen will not accept those stories and will reject the entire message because of them. This has been a point of contention with some critics.

Endo also makes some assumptions that are interesting, but not necessarily in the Gospels. For example, he writes an interesting take on the story of Peter denying Jesus three times on the night that Jesus was betrayed by Judas. He looks at a few facts and makes a compelling (albeit completely circumstantial) argument that Peter didn't just deny Jesus, he went to the Temple leaders and made a deal with them that saved the lives of the disciples if they promised to only take Jesus. In effect, this makes them every bit as guilty as Judas and also makes Peter and Judas the very first people that were saved due Jesus' death on the cross. It has a compelling sense of completion and does explain why the disciples were not rounded up in the days following the crucifixion.

An interesting take on Jesus. Well worth the time to read it. 

I rate this book 4 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: A LIFE of JESUS by Shusaku Endo.

A SHORT HISTORY of the WORLD (audiobook) by Christopher Lascelles

Published by Tantor Audio in 2016.

Read by Guy Bethell.
Duration: 7 hours, 20 minutes.
Unabridged.

The entire history of the world is less than 7 and 1/2 hours? Yep, that's what Christopher Lascelles purports to offer in his A Short History of the World. He acknowledges that this is not a complete history - he never intended it to be. Instead, his aim is to connect some of the dots that the average reader may have picked up in history class, movies and History Channel documentaries (and hopefully spark a bit more interest).

Lascelles does succeed in hitting many of the high points and certainly does a better job at not being as Eurocentric as other short world histories have been, such as A Little History of the World by E.H. Gombrich. Lascelles spends quite a bit of time discussing China, Japan, India and Mongolia. All that being said, there are entire civilizations that are ignored or get nothing more than a passing nod. That is always the problem when writing a history of the world - what do you leave in? What do you leave out?

Julius Caesar (100 B.C. to 44 B.C.)

England gets a bit more of the limelight than it deserves, in my opinion. Not way out of proportion, but a bit. That is to be expected, thought, since the author is from London.

Really, the only complaint I have about the book is its size limits it - but that is the entire point of the book - it is a SHORT history after all.

Guy Bethell read the audiobook and he did a good job. I blew right through the audiobook in 2 days. It was put together in an interesting and logical way.

I rate this audiobook 5 stars out of 5 and it can be found in multiple formats on Amazon.com here: A SHORT HISTORY of the WORLD by Christopher Lascelles.

SOLDIER! DISCOVER 15 WARRIORS THROUGHOUT HISTORY by Paul Beck

Published in 2015 by Scholastic 

Paul Beck's SOLDIER! looks at 15 examples of soldiers throughout history, starting with Imperial Roman infantry and ending with a U.S. Navy Seal. It is composed of 48 8.5 x 11 inch pages and includes a full-color tear-out poster of every soldier. 

Most descriptions are 4 pages, including a map where the soldiers would have operated. It also includes a full page drawing of the soldier with notes about the weight and length of their weapon(s). The third and fourth pages include more information about optional weapons, training or tools. 

The only complaint I have about the book is that it could have included a little more diversity. 12 of the 15 soldiers came from Europe or America. For example, the Aztec warriors that confronted Cortes had unique weapons and armor and would have been a great addition. 

That being said, the book was well-done. The pictures were interesting as were the factoids. This would be a good book for students from 4th to 8th grade.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: SOLDIER! DISCOVER 15 WARRIORS THROUGHOUT HISTORY by Paul Beck.

FINDING JESUS: FAITH. FACT. FORGERY: SIX HOLY OBJECTS that TELL the REMARKABLE STORY of the GOSPELS by David Gibson and Michael McKinley

Published in 2015 by MacMillan Audio.
Read by Peter Larkin.
Duration: 7 hours, 55 minutes.
Unabridged.

Finding Jesus is not a deep book theologically, but it does take a balanced look at 6 things that are associated with Jesus and a few related topics and is respectful of the faithful while doing its exploration. If you are expecting a book that is out to burst religious bubbles, this is not your book.

The topics are:

1) John the Baptist. Who was he? Is he in the historical record? Are the relics of John the Baptist in scattered across Europe actually him?

The James Ossuary.

2) James, the brother of Jesus. Who was he? Was he Jesus' half brother through Mary or a step-brother from a previous marriage of Joseph? Is the James Ossuary (a casket to hold bones) that was discovered a few years ago real?

3) Mary Magdalene. Who was she? Was she a disciple or simply a follower of Jesus? Why is she not mentioned after the four gospels? Was she the wife of Jesus? Was she really a reformed prostitute? Was she written out of the New Testament?

4) Judas Iscariot. Who was he? Why would an all-knowing Jesus pick a man to be one his disciples when he knew he would betray him? Was Judas actually a hero because he led Jesus to his death so that he would sacrifice himself for everyone? What about the gnostic Book of Judas? This section includes an excellent discussion of gnosticism.

5) The True Cross. There are dozens of dozens of artifacts that purport to be the true cross, but are any of them really that one cross? For me, this was the most boring of all of the topics.

6) The Shroud of Turin. This one was surprisingly interesting to me. Even if you doubt if the shroud is the actual shroud that Jesus was buried in (I know that I doubt that it is real) the discussion of crucifixion and the history of relics like the shroud were very strong.

This is a great audiobook. The reader, Peter Larkin, does a great job of keeping the text lively. A very enjoyable and informative listen.

I rate this audiobook 5 stars out of 5.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: FINDING JESUS: FAITH. FACT. FORGERY: SIX HOLY OBJECTS that TELL the REMARKABLE STORY of the GOSPELS.

UNHOLY NIGHT by Seth Grahame-Smith

Brilliant!

Published in 2012 by Hachette Book Group

Seth Grahame-Smith is, perhaps, most famous for his books Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter and Pride, Prejudice and Zombies, two books that I have never read and probably never will because I care not one wit for vampire or zombie tales. But, this book intrigued me and I am very glad that I read it.

As in the other books I mentioned, Seth Grahame-Smith has a talent to take an existing story and put a twist to it. Unholy Night takes the traditional Christmas nativity story and makes this little change: What if the Three Wise Men were actually not three learned scholars but three criminals posing as three learned scholars?

That's it - that's the heart of the book. But, what a twist!

Here is all anyone really knows about the the Three Wise Men from the Biblical account, from Matthew 2, verses 1-12:

In the time of King Herod, after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea, wise men from the East came to Jerusalem, asking, "Where is the child who has been born king of the Jews? For we observed his star at its rising, and have come to pay him homage." 

A 6th century mosaic of the Three Wise Men
 in Ravenna, Italy.

When King Herod heard this, he was frightened and all Jerusalem with him; and calling together all the chief priests and scribes of the people, he inquired of them where the Messiah was to be born. They told him, "In Bethlehem of Judea; for so it has been written by the prophet: 'And you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, are by no means least among the rulers of Judah; for from you shall come a ruler who is to shepherd my people Israel.'" 

Then Herod secretly called for the wise men and learned from them the exact time when the star had appeared. Then he sent them to Bethlehem, saying, "Go and search diligently for the child; and when you have found him, bring me word so that I may also go and pay him homage." 

When they had heard the king, they set out; and there, ahead of them, went the star that they had seen at its rising, until it stopped over the place where the child was. When they saw that the star had stopped, they were overwhelmed with joy. On entering the house, they saw the child with Mary his mother; and they knelt down and paid him homage. Then, opening their treasure chests, they offered him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. And having been warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they left for their own country by another path.

They are mentioned in one other verse in which King Herod is angered because the Wise Men do not report back to him and he proceeds with his plan to slaughter all of the male infants in Bethlehem. That's it. The traditional names (Balthazar, Gaspar and Melchyor) are not named. Their actual number of Wise Men is not named. 

This book covers all of these aspects without skipping a beat - so long as you look at things from a certain point of view.

In Unholy Night, Balthazar is a master thief and pickpocket who has no problem killing Herod's soldiers to stay out of jail. But, he is caught and brought to King Herod in Jerusalem for judgment. While awaiting execution he is held with Gaspar and Melchyor, two violent men awaiting execution for a variety of major crimes. Balthazar engineers a chance for a final meeting with three religious scholars in order to set himself right with God, overwhelms them, switches identities with them and escapes into the night towards Bethlehem with some goods that they managed to steal along the way: gold, frankincense and myrrh. 

Of course, they meet up with Mary, Joseph and the baby Jesus (the three criminals are looking in the stable for fresh mounts) and it does not go well. However, once Herod's men arrive to start slaughtering the infants these three criminals are moved to rescue this clueless family and the real adventure starts.

This book could have gone wrong on so many levels but, somehow, Grahame-Smith manages to change the story but yet maintain the commitment to the religious aspects of the story. It does treat faith and religion seriously. The Christmas Star is there. The virgin birth is there.  There are miracles and struggles with the concepts of faith and forgiveness. And, it does not all get wrapped up in a neat little bow in the end and everyone does not live happily ever after. And, I enjoyed it immensely.

Be warned, this book is often violent and gruesome, like the story that it comes from. Let's face it, if you are telling the story of a diseased old tyrant who orders the murder of babies, it's bound to be gruesome. 

I rate this book 5 stars out of 5.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: Unholy Night by Seth Grahame Smith.

A LITTLE HISTORY of the WORLD (audiobook) by E.H. Gombrich

Published by Blackstone Audio in 2006
Translated by Caroline Mustill and E.H. Gombrich
Narrated by Ralph Cosham
Duration: 9 hours, 14 minutes
Unabridged

As the title states A Little History of the World is a small history of, well, everything. Sort of.

This history was originally written in 1935. The author was an unemployed art historian and was asked to write a history of the world for children for an Austrian publisher. The first edition was written in six weeks and it sold well and has sold consistently ever since. Gombrich retained the rights and after World War II set out to keep it updated and translated it into multiple languages. He was working on translating it into English when he died in 2001 at the age of 92. The work was finished by others and no one is quite sure how exactly he was planning on ending it.

The chapter on early man is quite memorable in that it gives early men and women a lot of credit for figuring out a lot of important things like agriculture, cooking with fire, stone tools and so on. Think about it - it really is quite remarkable.

The history is told in a kid-friendly, patronizing, but not annoying way. It is definitely a Eurocentric history, especially after the Mesopotamian Empires (Sumeria, Babylon, etc.) are discussed.
India is mentioned, but mostly as an introduction to Hinduism and Buddhism. China gets a lot more attention, but not much more. The Americas, including the United States are barely mentioned. The Native American civilizations (Mayas, Aztecs, Incas) are only mentioned in the context of being conquered by the Spanish and being brutalized. Africa may not have been mentioned again after Ancient Egypt.

E.H. Gombrich (1909-2001)

However, keeping in mind this bias, this is a pretty solid history of Europe. The reader, Ralph Cosham, sounds like a welcoming old grandfather who is telling the story of the world as he knows it to the little ones. It is easy to imagine him in a chair on a cold winter's night with the little ones gathered around and the fireplace ablaze. And, in a way, this translation was exactly that - a 92 year old man telling the story of the world the best he could.

I  rate this audiobook 4 stars out of 5. It is a limited history and I would never make this the only history book that I handed to my child (it has some popularity among home-school parents), but it is readable and interesting. A good place to start.

This audiobook can be found on Amazon.com here: A Little History of the World.

HOW SHOULD WE THEN LIVE: THE RISE and DECLINE of WESTERN THOUGHT and CULTURE (audiobook) by Francis A. Schaeffer

Originally published in 1976
Published by Christianaudio.com
Read by Kate Reading
Duration: 7 hours, 51 minutes

Presbyterian minister and philosopher Francis A. Schaeffer's How Should We Then Live? is a history of the West and a fairly sophisticated bit of Christian apologetics wrapped up in a fairly small package. At times this book rolls along at an enjoyable pace and is quite the listen, other times it is much more difficult. 

Here is a listing of the chapters:

• Chapter 1: Ancient Rome - Schaeffer compares Roman pagan beliefs with Christian beliefs and blames the pagan beliefs for the collapse of the Empire - they were not inclusive enough and the Greco-Roman gods were little more than bigger people with the same issues that all people have.
• Chapter 2: The Middle Ages - Despite its reputation, the Middle Ages had positive points. Threads of Classical thought were re-discovered and fused to Christian beliefs.
• Chapter 3: The Renaissance - Schaeffer offers up the Renaissance and the Reformation as competing thought processes about man and his relationship to God. The Renaissance is essentially the re-birth of Greco-Roman humanist thought with a Christian veneer.
• Chapter 4: The Reformation - Explores the art and culture of The Reformation and compares them favorably to that of the Renaissance.
• Chapter 5: The Reformation – Continued - Looks at the philosophy of the Reformation and how even non-Christian thinkers of the time were influenced by Christian thought.
• Chapter 6: The Enlightenment - Human-centered thought leads directly to the excesses of the French Revolution.
• Chapter 7: The Rise of Modern Science - Science's foundation came from confidence that God had created an orderly world that we could understand.
• Chapter 8: The Breakdown in Philosophy and Science - Philosophy and art are symptoms of the thought processes that are now permeating science.
• Chapter 9: Modern Philosophy and Modern Theology - Humanism creeps into theology.
• Chapter 10: Modern Art, Music, Literature, and Films - Schaeffer offers commentary on several "modern" works.
• Chapter 11: Our Society - How the values of personal peace and affluence have worked their way into our society.
• Chapter 12: Manipulation and the New Elite - Is an authoritarian state ruled by elites coming as a natural result of Humanist values.
• Chapter 13: The Alternatives - Schaeffer makes the argument for a return to Christian values.

The audiobook is quite enjoyable until Chapter 8. I was not a fan of the discussion of all of the different philosophers. The commentary on current movies, art, music and literature are stilted seeing as how the book was originally published in 1976. There is no discussion of Heavy Metal, rap, hip-hop, Star Wars, the current trend towards super hero movies or celebrity pop culture authors like Stephen King. His discussion of modern science is similarly stilted. It's not his fault, it's just the reality of listening to a re-released book.

So, do I buy into what Schaeffer is arguing?

Yeah, mostly. Once you get past the fact that he is still talking about hippies it's still pretty solid.

Kate Reading's narration was neither good nor bad. She did not hurt the interesting parts and did not make the slower parts better. 

I rate this audiobook 4 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: HOW SHOULD WE THEN LIVE: THE RISE and DECLINE of WESTERN THOUGHT and CULTURE by Francis A. Schaeffer.

Reviewed on November 17, 2014.