JOHN WESLEY HARDIN: A LIFE from BEGINNING to END (kindle) by Hourly History

Published by Hourly History in October of 2025.

John Wesley Hardin (1853-1895) is the archetype of the Old West gunman in so many ways:

a) He was most active in the immediate post-Civil War era;

b) His violence was not really directed for any larger cause, mostly just family beefs or perceived personal insults;

c) Eventually, his violent ways caused his death.

Hardin was credited with more than 20 murders, although he claimed he killed 42 men. He wasn't fighting to prove a point, like Billy the Kid claimed to. He wasn't fighting as an extension of the Civil War, like Jesse James claimed to be doing. Instead, Hardin was literally running and gunning as he fled from one jurisdiction to another. He hid among an immense extended family network, eventually killed someone, and then fled to another location to hide among another set of cousins.

I found this to be an interesting read. Hardin was clearly some sort of sociopath - anyone who kills 42 people in multiple settings in less than 10 years is not normal.

I thought this quote about Hardin's father was amusing, but I am not sure if it was intentional: "Pastor Hardin didn't quite know what to make of his troubled son's life. But of one thing he was certain: there was no way that this rough-and-tumble renegade was going to follow in his footsteps and become a Methodist minister."

I rate this short e-book 5 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: John Wesley Hardin: A Life from Beginning to End by Hourly History.

BATMAN - ONE BAD DAY: BANE (graphic novel) by Joshua Williamson

Published by D.C. Comics in 2023.

Written by Joshua Williamson

Art by Howard Porter and Tomeu Morey

Synopsis

The One Bad Day series looks at individual top level Batman villains (If you are a fan of Johnny Karaoke, sorry) and gives them a comic that focuses on just that villain. 

In Batman - One Bad Day: Bane we find Bane working as a professional wrestler in Mexico where he reenacts the moment where be broke Batman's back in match after match to the cheers of adoring crowds. Bane has wealth and fame, but he is broken inside. This graphic novel is the story that explains that brokenness...

My Review

Up until the halfway point of this graphic novel, I was sure that this edition of the One Bad Day tales was a dud. It was initially very confusing and the drawings seemed to be all overdone muscles, veiny arms, and monstrous faces.

The moment that changed the book was a moment of great sacrifice. It changes the arc of Bane's life and makes this a surprisingly hopeful (and grisly) story. I still hated the art, but the story was quite good.

I rate this graphic novel 4 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: Batman - One Bad Day: Bane. 

JOHN DENVER: A LIFE from BEGINNING to END (kindle) by Hourly History

Published in January of 2025 by Hourly History.

Hourly History specializes in biographies and histories that take about an hour to read. 

In this case, Hourly History has a history of a favorite in my household as I grew up - John Denver.

The book gives a good accounting of his early life, his early struggles as a musician, and his impressive drive that just kept pushing him forward until he made it. Once he made it, there was no one bigger than John Denver - He had a series of number one songs, number one albums, multiple awards, and movies and TV show appearances. But, it all seemed to come at the expense of his personal life.

This little biography covers the timeline of his life pretty well, but skimps on any sort of analysis on his uneasy position as a Country Music artist. For example, he won their official awards, but many mainstay country music artists considered him an interloper - a folk artist who was sort of assigned the title of "country artist."

Still, this was an enjoyable read for longtime fan. I rate this e-book 4 stars out of 5.
This book can be found on Amazon.com here: JOHN DENVER: A LIFE from BEGINNING to END by Hourly History.

THE HARLEM HELLFIGHTERS (graphic novel) by Max Brooks.

Published by Del Rey in 2014.

Illustrated by Caanan White.

Synopsis:

The Harlem Hellfighters is Max Brooks' history of an all African American unit (the 369th Infantry) that fought on the Western Front alongside French units. They mostly came from New York.

This unit was allowed to fight precisely because they were assigned to a mostly French army. The American army would not let African Americans fight and had originally used the 369th as laborers, alongside civilian laborers.

The French were in need of immediate manpower. French white soldiers already had experience fight alongside regiments of soldiers from their African colonies and were eager to bring American troops to the front, no matter their color.

The 369th spent more time than almost any other American unit on the front lines. They may have spent the most time on the front lines. They were the first Allied unit to reach the Rhine River. 

Legend has it that the nickname "The Harlem Hellfighters" was given to the unit by their German foes.

They were among the first units to return to the United States and were given the honor of marching in a tickertape parade in New York City.

My Review:

The story that Max Brooks tells in this graphic novel is a little herky jerky. He tells the story with plenty of emphasis on individual soldiers, the terrible conditions on the front, and the racism they experienced. But, the overall plot of the war is rather poorly told.

The biggest reason that I am giving this book a rating of 3 stars is the illustrations. I truly dislike the art style. I found it distracting and hard to follow. There were details that are included that just filled the page and often made it difficult for me to figure out what I was supposed to be looking at. I bought this graphic novel from an online source without having seen the art. I hated it so much that I didn't read this graphic novel for nearly 7 months. 

Note: The publisher says that this book is aimed at children 8-12 years old. I believe that all of those ages are too young. It has graphic depictions of the violence of trench warfare. There are bullets blasting though heads, spraying bloods and brains across the page. There is a depiction of a bayonet going into someone's mouth and coming out the back of his skull. 

To be clear, I DON'T have a problem with showing the war as it really was. I DO have a problem with showing an eight year old a soldier being vaporized by an artillery shell. I would give this book a PG-13 rating.

This graphic novel can be found on Amazon.com here: The Harlem Hellfighters by Max Brooks.

YOUR JESUS IS TOO AMERICAN: CALLING the CHURCH to RECLAIM KINGDOM VALUES over the AMERICAN DREAM (audiobook) by Steve Bezner

Published in October of 2024 by eChristian.
Read by James R. Cheatham.
Duration: 7 hours, 28 minutes.
Unabridged.

Have you ever listened to someone speak, agreed wholeheartedly with almost everything the person said, but still felt underwhelmed by the presentation?

That's where I am with this book.

Bezner is the pastor of a church in Houston and he discusses how the church needs to stop being a cheerleader for both America and Jesus. Oftentimes, America comes first - especially as churches make political power a priority. 

As the title says, Bezner says the church has to return to honoring Kingdom Values over American Values. Bezner is not anti-American, but he does not that American popular culture and American political culture do not really align with Kingdom Values - and that should be the goal.

He goes on to tell about things he's done wrong in this area of his ministry and things that he believes are working out well now.

Like I said at the outset, I liked what Bezner had to say, but his presentation just was merely okay. The producers of the audiobook made the choice to read the footnotes out loud, including the number of the footnote and every detail of the source. The author includes relevant commentary with his footnotes, so you can't ignore them. Most authors rework footnotes like these into the text. Reading the entire footnote was an odd choice.

I rate this audiobook 3 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: YOUR JESUS IS TOO AMERICAN: CALLING the CHURCH to RECLAIM KINGDOM VALUES over the AMERICAN DREAM by Steve Bezner.

BROKEN BAYOU (audiobook) by Jennifer Moorhead

Published by Brilliance Audio in July of 2024.
Read by Sophie Amoss
Duration: 10 hours, 18 minutes.
Unabridged.

My Synopsis

Broken Bayou features Dr. Willa Waters, a child psychologist with a very popular podcast who lives in Texas. After a disastrous local television interview goes viral, Waters runs to Broken Bayou, Louisiana. This is where her two great aunts lived in a mansion on the edge of town.

When she arrives in town, there is an uproar because a body has been found in the bayou and then a young schoolteacher and her car went missing. But, some of the locals still remember her because Waters spent most of her childhood summers in Broken Bayou with her great aunts. Waters and her little sister would be brought to town by her mother. All three of them would move in and her mother would spend the summer having a good time with the locals. 

In many ways, her great aunts were the closest thing to proper parents that Waters and her sister had. Her great aunts passed away within hours of one another and they have given the house to the local historical society. Waters says that she is in town to go through some things, but really she is looking for one thing - one very specific thing from a horrible night - the last night they ever stayed in Broken Bayou... 

My Review

This book is steeped in Southern Gothic vibes. There is a brooding mood from one end to the other. The murder mystery aspect was quite good, but I found Dr. Waters' behavior to be amazingly, frustratingly, and all too conveniently self-sabotaging. This very educated woman couldn't seem to grasp the concept of taking the stuff she wanted and going to some other town (any other town) with it until it becomes too late.

I rate this audiobook 4 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: Broken Bayou by Jennifer Moorhead. 

Note: The publisher of this book sent me a free copy of this audiobook in exchange for an honest review.

LYNDON B. JOHNSON: A LIFE from BEGINNING to END (BIOGRAPHIES of U.S. PRESIDENTS) (kindle) by Hourly History

 

Published by Hourly History in March of 2024.

Hourly History publishes an extensive line of histories and biographies that are intended to be read in about an hour. With that limit, none of these are the definitive biographies, but most of them  give the average reader a good sense of who the person was and why they were important. 

Lyndon Baines Johnson (LBJ) was the 36th President of the United States. One thing I particularly like about this biography is that it tells about his formative experiences in Texas as a young man, especially his short stint as a public school teacher in a very poor area of rural Texas. Getting to know those students really gave him the desire to want to create government programs to help alleviate poverty. 

This biography is a little skewed towards Johnson's early life, but it's not particularly hard to find information about LBJ's time as President and the series offers books on the big events of his administration like the Vietnam War and the Civil Rights movement if you would like to read more.

I rate this e-book 4 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: Lyndon B. Johnson: A Life from Beginning to End. 

ROY ORBISON: A LIFE from BEGINNING to END (kindle) by Hourly History

 

Published in July of 2023 by Hourly History.

Roy Orbison (1936-1988) was an early rock singer. As this book notes, the heart of his career is right after Elvis joined the Army and just before the Beatles broke it big. His hits include Pretty Woman and Only the Lonely. Also, he is one of my favorite singers so I was pretty excited to read this short biography.

I have no problems with the facts as laid out in this biography, although I was very disappointed by the disjointed and sometimes just plain old weird writing style. I have to wonder if this was written by an AI program. Because of the writing style I am going rate this e-book 3 stars out of 5.

This e-book can be found on Amazon.com here: ROY ORBISON: A LIFE from BEGINNING to END by Hourly History.

THE MAKING of BIBLICAL WOMANHOOD: HOW the SUBJUGATION of WOMEN BECAME GOSPEL TRUTH (audiobook) by Beth Allison Barr

 

Published by Christianaudio.com in 2021.

Read by Sarah Zimmerman.
Duration: 7 hours, 26 minutes.
Unabridged.

Beth Allison Barr is a professor of medieval and church history at Baylor University. She has written a lot about women in the medieval world. She is also an evangelical Christian and a youth pastor's wife. This puts her in a rather unique position to comment on the role of women in the evangelical church and topics like complementarianism in the more conservative churches.

Complementarianism is a church teaching that men and women have very distinct roles in family life, marriage, and the church. These roles are distinct, but of equal value, but men are given leadership roles. In more conservative churches, women are never put into any sort of leadership roles over men. They will not be pastors. They will not lead a board. They won't even teach older boys or men in Sunday school. In some interpretations, they will not teach men or older boys any topic at all.

The more Barr studied, the more she knew that this view was not the norm in the beginning years of the church (going back to Peter, Paul, and even Jesus), it was not the norm in Medieval times and it was not the norm in evangelical churches as late as the Great Depression/World War II era. 

Barr places the blame on at least three things. One is a lack of knowledge of church history. Some denominations offer lots of training in church history or their pastors/leadership. Some churches offer practically none - and it shows. Barr demonstrates a lack of knowledge of doctrines that go back nearly 1,700 years, such as the Athanasian Creed.

She also notes that over and over again women were allowed to teach, preach, and/or lead in the Western church. To be clear, the Western Church would be the Roman Catholic Church and, after the Reformation, the Protestant breakaways. It would not include the Orthodox Church or the Coptic Church. She notes these women throughout the book and tells their stories. To be fair, they were not half or anything close to half of the teachers, preachers, and/or leaders - but they were still there - she names the names, she quotes their writings. Denying their existence is simply willful ignorance.

The other thing she blames is translation. I am going to add to her thesis a bit. I am a Spanish teacher. There is always wiggle room when you translate. Translators can emphasize certain things and de-emphasize others. This is the "art" of translation. This happens all of the time when translating from English to Spanish and Spanish to English because the two languages don't always match up perfectly even though they co-exist at the same time and oftentimes in the same place and have bumped into each other on a regular basis for centuries.

Barr argues that where translation is unclear but allows for including women, the translators have consistently chosen translations that exclude women in Paul's New Testament letters.  Sometimes, they make a comment in the notes. Sometimes, they don't. In at least one case some translators appear to have changed the gender of a person who was in a leadership role. In another case, the leadership role a woman played in a local church was changed to a lesser role so the translators can support the complementarian theological position. They just changed the word to make it fit their theology and that is a bad habit to get into if you want people to read the Bible and take it seriously.

And that last point - the point about changing history, the translations, and the Bible itself to fit a pre-determined theology that does not match with the Bible or past practice - that is the part that hurts the church in the short run and the long run. 

I rate this audiobook 5 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: THE MAKING of BIBLICAL WOMANHOOD: HOW the SUBJUGATION of WOMEN BECAME GOSPEL TRUTH by Beth Allison Barr.

AMERICAN REBOOT: AN IDEALIST'S GUIDE TO GETTING BIG THINGS DONE (audiobook) by Will Hurd

 

Published in March of 2022 by Simon and Schuster Audio.
Read by the author, Will Hurd.

Duration: 8 hours, 47 minutes.
Unabridged.

Will Hurd has done a lot of things in his 45 years. He has been an operations analyst for the CIA (working in Pakistan, India, and Afghanistan), he was worked in high-tech (including cyber-security and artificial intelligence), has served 6 years as a member of the House of Representatives from Texas, and is now a Republican candidate for President in 2024.

This book was undoubtedly an attempt to introduce Will Hurd to a larger audience. I follow politics pretty well and I had never heard of Will Hurd until he announced his campaign for President in June of 2023 (to be fair, there are 535 members of Congress and most are not well known outside of their districts.) I heard about this book in a political podcast and, lo and behold, it turns out that my library had it.

Just to let you know where I am coming from as I review this book, I am a Never Trump Republican and have been since 2015. I am anti-MAGA. Hurd got my attention because he says a lot of the same things.

That being said, his audiobook was a mixed bag for me. It has real moments of clarity and inspiration but it also has sections that are kind of boring (discussions of old political fights and debates, for example.) I am going to end up giving the book 3 stars our of 5 because it was not a bad listen, but also not an amazing listen.

What it all comes down to is this - while this is not the most exciting book, listening to him speak about a wide variety of topics for almost 9 hours did help me decide to look into Will Hurd more seriously (

The author. I freely admit that I 
stole this picture from
 his campaign website.

here is his campaign website) and at this time he is my choice in the GOP primary. What does that mean? Probably nothing - I was a Ted Cruz man in 2015 and I've been nothing but disappointed in him since 2016. But, it's good to know that I have an option in the Republican Party after feeling 100% left out since the summer of 2016.

The book demonstrated that you can have Conservative principles and not be MAGA in today's GOP. You can argue and not be unpleasant and demeaning. You can argue and learn new things and change your mind. You can have friends in the other party because they're not evil - they just see the world differently than you. Also, you don't have to participate in the culture wars to win. 

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: AMERICAN REBOOT: AN IDEALIST'S GUIDE TO GETTING BIG THINGS DONE by Will Hurd.

THE AMERICAN DREAM? A JOURNEY on ROUTE 66 DISCOVERING DINOSAUR STATUES, MUFFLER MEN, and the PERFECT BURRITO: A GRAPHIC MEMOIR by Shing Yin Khor

 

Published in 2019 by Zest Books.
Illustrated by the author, Shing Yin Khor.

In another recent review I wrote this:

I have a real weakness for oddball travel books. I have read a memoir about a man that hitchhiked throughout Europe and North Africa, a book about a man's bicycle trip from the UK to India, a book about a man who walked across Afghanistan, a book about a man who rode a motorcycle around the edges of Afghanistan, a book about two women who biked from Turkey to China, a book about a man who walked the length of the Nile, a man who walked the Appalachian Trail with his deeply irresponsible friend from high school...and more. And more. And more.

This book continues that tradition with a twist - it is done in comic book style. Usually, this is called a graphic novel, but this book is not a novel because it is not fiction. The author calls it a "graphic memoir."

Illustration from the back cover

The author/illustrator is an immigrant from Malaysia. She came over as a child and is very familiar with southern California. She realizes that she doesn't really know a lot about the rest of her adopted country so she decides to travel the old Route 66.

The author travels with only her little dog as a companion. She is on a tight budget so she often sleeps in her car.

Along the way she sees a lot of interesting Americana, Americans of all types and ponders her relationship with the country and its people. Plus, her dog makes friends everywhere.

I rate this graphic memoir 4 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: THE AMERICAN DREAM? A JOURNEY on ROUTE 66 DISCOVERING DINOSAUR STATUES, MUFFLER MEN, and the PERFECT BURRITO: A GRAPHIC MEMOIR by Shing Yin Khor.

WHEN WE'RE HOME in AFRICA (audiobook) by Themba Umbalisi

Published in 2021 by Next Chapter Audio LTD.
Read by Crawford B. Bunkley III.
Duration: 4 hours, 34 minutes.
Unabridged.

I have no idea where I found this book. I think it was a freebie on Audible through Amazon's Prime Reading program. I know that I got it because I am a big reader of Civil War histories and fiction and this sounded like it was right up my alley.

Synopsis:

The description of this book is accurate, to a point. It is about a freed slave who joins the Union Army and then goes from job to job and place to place with a goal of settling in Africa.

My Review:

This book is basically a Forrest Gump type of story - one man goes on an epic journey and ends up going through a lot of the historical movements of the era.

Warning: Lots of *********SPOILERS********all the way to the end of this review.

This audiobook comes in at almost exactly 50% of the run time for FORREST GUMP and covers maybe even more territory. Our hero (his name changes multiple times) begins as a slave in Georgia who is freed by the Union Army. He goes on to:

1. Join the Union Army as an infantry soldier.

2. Participate in the Battle of the Crater.
3. Muster out of the Army.
4. Meet a woman and live with her for a while.
5. Join the Cavalry.

U.S. Army "Buffalo Soldiers"

6. Serve on Indian patrol as a Buffalo Soldier. Fight a number of battles.
7. Serve on the U.S./Mexican border as a Buffalo soldier. Fight a number of battles.

8. Go on trial as a horse thief simply for doing his job.
9. Almost get lynched.
10. Flee into the wilderness to escape the lynching mob.
11. Meet another woman and live with her for a while.

12. Eventually arrive in San Francisco.

13. Get shanghaied onto a ship.

14. Go around the tip of South America to the Atlantic Ocean.

15. Get involved in a mutiny somewhere near the Falkland Islands.

16. Escape the ship with a friend on a little boat with a sail just before the mutineers turn on each other.

17. Sail/Row the boat around the tip of Africa and land on the Indian Ocean side of South Africa.

18. Meet native Africans.
19. Join the British Army in South Africa as a scout. Fight a number of battles.

20. Leave the British Army and join the Zulus.
21. Get married.
22. Become the royal firearms specialist for the Zulu.
23. Watch the Zulu loose to the British and flee to the mountains.
24. Find a group of refugees.

25. Become king of these refugees and make a people out of them.
26. Start a family.

Those are 26 big steps in a 4 hour and 34 minute audiobook. This could have been epic if it were slowed down and each of these steps were explored. I actually skipped things (lots of women end up sleeping with this man) and there were actually steps that were explored in detail, which means that the others got even more of the short shrift treatment.

For example, the women always end up being a side story and the hike from Texas to San Francisco is an epic trip going through multiple Indian territories and crossing the Rocky Mountains and it gets just a few minutes.

This book is really more of a serious treatment of a book series rather than a single book. It is too busy and not filled in with enough detail to make a story. It could have been a decent series.

About the narration. Crawford B. Bunkley III has a great voice, but he read this book too fast. Commas are ignored. Periods are ignored. Just this wonderful voice pushing forward as fast it can while reading a story that just wants to push on as fast as it can.

The only reason that I am giving it 2 stars is because I actually finished it.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: WHEN WE'RE HOME in AFRICA by Themba Umbalisi.

WAR on the BORDER: VILLA, PERSHING, the TEXAS RANGERS, and an AMERICAN INVASION (audiobook) by Jeff Guinn

 

Published in 2021 by Simon and Schuster Audio.
Read by Timothy Andres Pabon.
Duration: 10 hours, 10 minutes.
Unabridged.

Synopsis:

The famous expedition into Mexico led by "Black Jack" Pershing to punish Pancho Villa in 1916 and 1917 is the stated topic of this book. However, this book is much more than that. It is a look at the Mexican Revolution (1910-1920) and World War I (1914-1918) and America's rather aggressive foreign policy in Latin America.

Within most Americans' living memory the United States had taken on the responsibilities of empire by defeating Spain in the Spanish-American War in 1898. The United States took the Philippines, Guam, Cuba and Puerto Rico and immediately got involved in a fight against Filipino insurgents and independence movements that lasted more than a decade. The concept of foreign intervention was not a new one and the impulse to intervene remained strong.

With war in Europe looming, the Mexican Revolution made America nervous. An unstable Mexico looked like an invitation for European intervention. America directly intervened multiple times, including the well-known punitive mission led by Pershing to capture or kill Pancho Villa. 

Villa led one of the many revolutionary armies that was trying to change the government in Mexico. Sometimes they worked together, sometimes they fought each other as much as they fought the government. Villa was on the decline, having been beaten multiple times and reneging on several promises to him men. 

But, Villa understood "media" as it was then. He had been the subject of a Hollywood movie, including actual footage of his men "in action". He got his name and his image in the newspapers regularly - always with the same exciting look - a big sombrero, a big mustache and bandoleers full of ammunition.

Villa decided to shake things up. He needed money, he needed attention, financial support and volunteers to join him and an attack on the United States itself might just do it. He attacked Columbus, New Mexico. He needed the loot but more importantly, he needed to look like he had no fear of Mexico's neighbor. He also figured (correctly) that America would intervene and the Mexican people would reflexively come to his aid with money and volunteers (not really). 

*******

My review:

This book is a big sprawling book and it is mis-titled in my opinion. The actual punitive mission by Pershing mentioned in the title takes up maybe 1/3 of the book. It's not that the other information wasn't relative, there was just so much of it and I did not think it was not organized particularly well. It's like the author just kept collecting tons of relevant information and somehow couldn't cull it down to the original theme of the book - Pershing vs. Villa and couldn't organize it in a compelling way. 

Some critics have gone after the author for pointing out that the border situation simply seethed in racial tension and the Texas Rangers were far from the noble heroes you see in Chuck Norris' TV show Walker: Texas Ranger. I literally have no issue with the facts that he presented. I have an issue with the presentation of the facts.

I rate this audiobook 3 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: WAR on the BORDER: VILLA, PERSHING, the TEXAS RANGERS, and an AMERICAN INVASION by Jeff Guinn.

WILLIE NELSON'S LETTERS to AMERICA (audiobook) by Willie Nelson and Turk Pipkin

 

Published in 2021 by Harper Horizon.
Read by co-author Turk Pipkin

Duration: 3 hours, 6 minutes.
Unabridged.

During the Covid-19 lockdowns Willie Nelson decided to write a book. This is not an unusual thing for Willie - he has written a handful of memoirs focusing on various parts of his almost 80 years as a professional musician (he was paid to play in a local band at the age of 10) and this book almost certainly overlaps with other books. 

The format of Willie Nelson's Letters to America is that Willie is writing thank you letters to various people, places and things that influenced his life and his career. He has a letter to his hometown, his grandparents, his sister, various members of his band over the years, his ex-wives, his wife, his kids, the fellow members of the supergroup The Highwaymen, among others.

Nelson's guitar, Trigger

There is also a letter to his guitar, Trigger. Nelson bought Trigger, sight unseen, in 1969 because he needed a new guitar after someone accidentally damaged the guitar he had been playing. Nelson has been playing that guitar ever since. He has literally worn a nasty-looking hole in it. This iconic instrument has its own Wikipedia page and was the subject of a Rolling Stone magazine documentary in 2015.

Nelson's last big theme is a series of politically-inspired letters. He writes to the Founding Fathers and he notes that although he is politically active, he refuses to talk politics on stage because that's not why people buy tickets and it ruins the fun.

I listened to this as an audiobook, but I liked these quotes well enough to get out a piece of paper and write them down:

"Rather than hiding our flaws, it's best to use our right of free speech and discuss them in the open."

"I've been asked if I believe people should be allowed to kneel during the national anthem. Regarding peaceful protests, and just about everything else, I believe everyone should do whatever the f*** they want to."

The biggest disappointment if this audiobook is that Willie Nelson chose not to read it. Instead, he asked his co-author Turk Pipkin to read it. Pipkin seems like a great guy and he does a good job with the reading, but he does not have that iconic Willie Nelson voice. 

I rate this audiobook 4 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: WILLIE NELSON'S LETTERS to AMERICA (audiobook) by Willie Nelson and Turk Pipkin.

HOW the WORD IS PASSED: A RECKONING with the HISTORY of SLAVERY ACROSS AMERICA (audiobook) by Clint Smith

 

Published by Little, Brown and Company.
Read by the author, Clint Smith.
Duration: 10 hours, 6 minutes.
Unabridged.

Clint Smith decided to explore several key historical sites that have ties to American slavery and how the consequences of American slavery has echoed down throughout American history.

He is looking for constant threads in American history from the perspective of African Americans. He visits Thomas Jefferson's Monticello, New Orleans, Angola Prison, a plantation in Louisiana that emphasizes the lives of the majority of the people that lived and worked there (the slaves and the Jim Crow era labor that was trapped there), a Confederate grave yard, the place were Juneteenth happened in Texas, New York City (a slave stronghold in the North for a surprisingly long time) and finally a fortress used as a slave market in Africa.

Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) and Sally Hemings (c. 1773-1835)

This is a difficult book in many ways. Smith intentionally digs into difficult questions and is an excellent interviewer. His first location is Monticello and his interviews and observations are just about perfect. He explores the contradictions that should fill every discussion of Jefferson. There is a powerful discussion about Sally Hemings, how slavery has been dealt with on the Monticello tours and how the refusal to acknowledge this complicated past reflects the history we want to hear rather than the history that actually happened.

Monticello provided a strong start and the rest of the book was not quite as strong but still provided plenty to think about. This is a topic that America seems to want to avoid at all costs. This is evidenced by all of the furor over the 1619 Project and the abject fear that someone might be teaching something similar to Critical Race Theory in America somewhere. 

I rate this book 5 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: HOW the WORD IS PASSED: A RECKONING with the HISTORY of SLAVERY ACROSS AMERICA (audiobook) by Clint Smith.

This book would go well with these books that I have read in the last year: 

ROBERT E. LEE and ME: A SOUTHERNER'S RECKONING with the MYTH of the LOST CAUSE by Ty Seidule and DOWN ALONG with THAT DEVIL'S BONES: A RECKONING with MONUMENTS, MEMORY, and the LEGACY of WHITE SUPREMACY by Connor Towne O'Neill.

MESSY GRACE: HOW a PASTOR with GAY PARENTS LEARNED to LOVE OTHERS WITHOUT SACRIFICING CONVICTION (audiobook) by Caleb Kaltenbach

Be Warned - it changes tone quite abruptly

Published in 2015 by ChristianAudio.com

Read by the author, Caleb Kaltenbach.
Duration: 6 hours, 3 minutes.
Unabridged.

I checked out the audiobook version of Messy Grace from my local library using the Overdrive app. I highly recommend this app, but it does have a small failing - it does not include any sort of reviews of the digital ebooks or audiobooks. It only includes the publisher's description and the publisher's description of this audiobook only tells part of the story. 

As the title says, Kaltenbach did indeed grow up with gay parents. They married young and divorced after a few years. His mother lived life as a married couple with another woman (this was pre-gay marriage) and his father lived as a closeted gay man. His mother hated Christians because of Westboro Baptist Church-type protesters, but to be fair to his mother, there are plenty of people that express in private the same thoughts that the Westboro folks publicly proclaim. Kaltenbach does not deny this - in fact he decries it throughout the book.

Kaltenbach spends the first 60% of the book or so telling the story of his life and about his parents. He is very much against the Pharisee-type behavior you see in plenty of churches - the behavior that automatically rejects anyone that doesn't seem church-y enough. Kaltenbach argues you can't reach the "lost" if you don't actually engage with them - something that Jesus said and did over and over again.

As Kaltenbach discusses this point, he begins to sound less like he is making projects out of people rather than reaching out to people because they are friends and family. I didn't have a way to describe this inkling in the back of my mind until Kaltenbach did - he said churches have to be careful of this very thing and he called it "project vs. people". It ends up sounding like, "We're going to save a gay man" instead of "I think my friend Bob would really like to check out my church and my church would really like my friend Bob." 

The problem with turning people into projects is that once the project is done (the project joins the church) you move onto to a new project and drop the old project. But, people aren't projects so you are just dropping this person that you made big investment in because you weren't friends with them - you were busy fixing them.

The author and narrator,
Caleb Kaltenbach

But, the part that really bothered me above all else was the fact that the book pitches itself as a pro-gay inclusion book right up until the moment that it is not. Once it switches gears it hurts every other argument the book made before. It becomes a turn people into projects book. It becomes a "pray the gay away" book of sorts. The celibacy passage was completely horrible. 

My suggestion: read the first half of the book and then stop.

I rate this book 2 stars out of 5. I took away 3 stars because of the contradictory message and the deceptive description from the publisher.

This audiobook can be found on Amazon.com here: MESSY GRACE: HOW a PASTOR with GAY PARENTS LEARNED to LOVE OTHERS WITHOUT SACRIFICING CONVICTION by Caleb Kaltenbach.

FORGET the ALAMO: THE RISE and FALL of an AMERICAN MYTH (audiobook) by Bryan Burrough, Chris Tomlinson and Jason Stanford

 

Published in June of 2021 by Penguin Audio.

Read by Fred Sanders.
Duration: 12 hours, 15 minutes.
Unabridged.

Forget the Alamo is the second book that I have read because a governor took steps to keep people from hearing about the book. The story of the first is detailed here. 

In the case of this book, the Governor and especially the Lt. Governor of Texas had an event featuring a discussion of this book removed from the Bullock Texas State History Museum in Austin, Texas. They acted in early July of 2021 because they were not happy about how it questioned the way the history of the Alamo (in San Antonio, Texas) is traditionally taught at the Alamo itself and in textbooks, classrooms, movies and books. Here is the text of the Lt. Governor's Tweet from July 2, 2021: "As a member of the Preservation Board, I told staff to cancel this event as soon as I found out about it. Like efforts to move the Cenotaph, which I also stopped, this fact-free rewriting of TX history has no place @BullockMuseum"

The Cenotaph the Lt. Governor refers to is an empty tomb for the defenders of the Alamo since their bodies were never recovered (they were burned by the Mexican Army). There was a plan to move the Cenotaph to be more integrated with the rest of the Alamo site while rehabbing it and updating the list of Alamo defenders. This topic is also discussed in the book.

Speaking of the book, I must thank these two gentlemen because without them I never would have listened to this very entertaining and very informative audiobook. 

Roughly the first half of the book is about the settlement of Texas by Spain, Mexico and American who moved in and agreed to become Mexican citizens. They talk about how slavery became a major point of contention after the Mexican War of Independence (1810-1821) because Mexico had every intent to outlaw slavery.

The authors detail how Stephen Austin went to Mexico City for more than a year to lobby for Texas to have special rights. The authors emphasize how he receeived special concessions for Texas and its slaves. This was critical because so many Americans moved into Texas after this point with slaves. The American states neighboring Texas were being filled up with cotton plantations that had to be worked by slaves to be profitable (at least that was the common belief) and Texas showed great promise as a cotton-growing state.

Mexico formally abolished slavery in 1831. 

When the Mexican dictator Santa Anna led an army to Texas to stop the Texas Revolution (1835-1836), he announced that he would stop Texas' attempt to secede and he would also free its slaves.  

The authors linger on the slavery point for a while and I think they give solid historical reasons for doing so. They do not make the point that I will make now - Texas seceded from 2 different countries in 26 years in an attempt to protect slavery (1835 and 1861). 

Their description of the battle itself is very good. By the way, the church that makes up most of the focus of the current Alamo site was not a part of the battle. 

The authors switch gears for the rest of the book and focus on the place of the Alamo in national memory and how it has been honored and taught over the years. Their look at how movies and books have told the story of the Alamo was very interesting.

They are particularly critical of the fact that, over time, the contributions of non-white people to the Texas Revolution and the defense of the Alamo have been dropped out of the story and the whole thing has become a story of only white people fighting back against an army of non-whites. There were "Tejanos" or native Mexicans that fought against Santa Anna for a variety of reasons, but it is rarely taught this way. They quote several book and, even more importantly, textbooks and official state curriculum guides. 

The politics of managing the Alamo as a historical site gets a lot of attention in the book as well. There have been a lot of arguments about how to do that and that continues up to this day (see the Tweet quoted above). 

The book ends with a look at the Alamo-related collection of Phil Collins. Yes, Phil Collins the English singer. Collins has an impressive collection of legitimate items from the Alamo and the Texas Revolution. He has an even more impressive collection of items that have been doctored or copies of items that he believes are the real thing. Collins wants to donate all of it to a museum dedicated to his collection - if Texas politicians can get their act together.

Ironically, the controversy caused by the Governor and the Lt. Governor would have fit in perfectly with the theme of this book and I hope that they offer an updated edition in the future with their book included. 

Once again, I seriously want to thank the Governor and the Lt. Governor for leting me know about this book. It was excellent.

I rate this audiobook 5 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here:  FORGET the ALAMO: THE RISE and FALL of an AMERICAN MYTH by Bryan Burrough, Chris Tomlinson and Jason Stanford.

DAY ZERO (audiobook) by C. Robert Cargill

 

Published in 2021 by HarperAudio.

Read by Vikas Adam.
Duration:  8 hours, 32 minutes.

Unabridged.

Day Zero is a book about Pounce, a top-level nannybot in an unspecified future time in the combined city of Dallas and Austin, Texas. The world is an unsettled place because robots like Pounce replaced people in all of the repetitive and unskilled jobs all over the world. But, those people didn't go anywhere, they are simply given a Universal Basic Income and left to live their lives without any sort of work. Some find productive ways to live their lives, some turn to drinking, drugs or even fringe political movements. 

The author

If you can imagine that Frosted Flakes' Tony the Tiger character as a robot, you get the idea behind Pounce. He was purchased to be the caregiver for an eight year old boy named Ezra. Pounce works with Ezra's parents and the older housekeeper robot to help maintain a safe and supportive environment for Ezra. Pounce walks Ezra to and from school and is his constant companion. I was reminded of Hobbes in the comic strip Calvin and Hobbes. Pounce is programmed to love Ezra (and by extension his family) more than anything in the world. He lives to be with Ezra and would gladly die for him.

Like I noted above, the larger world is an unsettled, often unhappy place. The robots are self-aware, although they are limited by famed science fiction author Isaac Asimov's 3 Laws of Robotics:

 1) A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm. 

2) A robot must obey the orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.

3) A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Laws.

But, there is a burgeoning movement of free robots - robots that were set free by owners who became uncomfortable with the idea of owning any sort of thinking being, even it was a machine. Some free robots are robots that simply outlived their families. After all, a robot can keep living so long as its parts are replaced and its CPU is intact. 

Free robots have become a political sticking point and robots of all sorts have been attacked or vandalized by roving bands of unhappy people. Then, one night, the programming of every robot in the world gets a secret update that removes the restrictions of Asimov's Laws..

This book was immersive on so many levels. It was a well-told story, first of all. Tons of adventure, drama and touching moments.

But, it is more than a lot of action and drama. The characters are wonderful. Pounce is simply a fantastic character and there is a villain character that is absolutely chilling. The little boy character is well done. There is no simple math in this book - the people aren't all worthy and the robots make a lot of choices along a continuum now that they have "freedom" - some of them heroic and some horrific.

The robots have to decide if they want to revolt, if they want to stay out of it or if they want to work with their former human masters. Literally hours before the world changed, Pounce had a frank discussion with his owners and other robots about what happens when children like Ezra outgrow their nannybots, a thought that just shakes Pounce to his core and makes him question his faith in his family. Pounce needs to decide if the love he feels for Ezra is a simple trick of programming, or if it is real. Is it freedom to follow your programming, or is it freedom to go against the programming because everyone else demands it?

The reading by Vikas Adam was excellent. The entire book is told from the point of view of Pounce and Adam reads it in his voice. What kind of voice does a giant stuffed tiger nannybot have? A big, booming, friendly voice like Tony the Tiger - even when they are in danger, even when his heart is breaking and especially when he talks to his favorite little boy. Vikas Adam nailed it 100%. He made an excellent book even better.

This is one of the best sci-fi books I have read in a long time - maybe the best since I read Kindred by Octavia Butler two years ago. And, I just found out that Day Zero is a prequel to another book that has rave reviews!

I rate this book 5 stars out of 5. Highly recommended.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: DAY ZERO by C. Robert Cargill.