LANDS of LOST BORDERS: A JOURNEY on the SILK ROAD by Kate Harris

Published in 2018 in the United States by Dey Street Books.

Kate Harris and her childhood friend Mel decided to go on a bicycle adventure that approximates Marco Polo's trip along the Silk Road from Turkey to China. This is not a trip taken on a whim. Harris has read about explorers and dreamed about being an explorer all of her life. She's a scientist by training but she can't stand to be in a lab - she has to get out and see the world.

Actually, she started out wanting to go to Mars and actually went so far as to participate in a Mars simulation complete with spacesuits out in the Utah desert.  The simulation told her one important thing - being in a space suit denied her the tactile experience of exploration such as the wind in your hair and the smells.

So, rather than Mars, she decides to go to one of the most remote areas of the world, for a couple of Canadians - Central Asia. It has vast deserts, literally the tallest mountains in the world and arcane bureaucracies that sometimes make it about as challenging as a trip to Mars.

Kate Harris is a talented writer and her descriptions of her trip in Lands of Lost Borders are a joy to read. The people, the weather, the animals, the troubles getting permission to cross one border after another - especially the troubles with the border into China-controlled Tibet.  The real fun, though, is with little details that she pops into the story that made me want to go tell my family all about them such as the fact that there is a word in Georgia that says, "I accidentally ate the whole thing." 

My favorite, though, took place in Tajikistan. A family let them stay the night in their home rather than camp out. The mother fed them dinner and insisted that she share cell phone numbers with Kate and Mel even though the woman lived in a cell phone dead zone and they didn't understand a word the other said. But, she just couldn't let those two women head off down the road without a friend to call on. It was sweet and a very human moment.

This was a fantastic read and I rate it an enthusiastic 5 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: LANDS of LOST BORDERS: A JOURNEY on the SILK ROAD by Kate Harris.

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.

THE WORLD ACCORDING to STAR WARS (audiobook) by Cass R. Sunstein

Published in May of 2016 by HarperAudio.
Read by Kaleo Griffith
Duration: 5 hours, 44 minutes
Unabridged

Besides being a Law Professor at Harvard and a former member of the Obama Administration, Cass R. Sunstein is a massive fan of all things Star Wars. 

The World According to Star Wars is a wide-ranging and mostly interesting discussion using Star Wars as a way to explain aspects of the American and world political scene, economics and family dynamics. 

He starts with a little history of how Star Wars came to be, including George Lucas's struggles in writing the screenplay, the way the actors all thought they were acting in an interesting movie that was certain to be a big flop and the reluctance by the studios to really push the movie.

But, despite the odds, Star Wars became a massive phenomenon - the series is the all-time leader in multiple categories and the hits just keep on coming. Sunstein explores why it became a big hit, looking at the timing of its release, what was going on in American culture and the like. This part was a little too long, in my opinion.

But, the rest of it was great. He discusses what the Galactic Empire symbolized, what the Rebellion symbolized and even how Richard Nixon, the USSR and mechanization are possible inspirations. He also talks about Star Wars vs. Star Trek, Fathers and sons and how Star Wars incorporates Christian themes like redemption and how the Jedi incorporate Buddhist themes.

The reader, Kaleo Griffith, keeps the book moving at an enjoyable pace. If you are a super-hardcore fanboy you probably heard a lot of this already, but if you're merely a fan you will find this book to be an interesting take on Star Wars.

I rate this audiobook 4 stars out of 5.

This audiobook can be found on Amazon.com here: The World According to Star Wars.

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.

THE THIRD RULE of TEN (Tenzing Norbu #3) by Gay Hendricks and Tinker Lindsay

This series returns to its winning ways.

Published in 2014 by Hay House Visions

Former Buddhist monk and ex-LAPD officer Tenzing "Ten" Norbu returns in The Third Rule of Ten.

Ten continues his search for the perfect girl but his professional life has taken off in a big way thanks to the celebrity connections he made in The Second Rule of Ten. Mac Gannon, an aging action hero star who is an ultra-Catholic with a propensity to cheat on his wife and drink too much and the spout racist venom (clearly inspired by Mel Gibson) hires Ten to find a missing illegal alien housekeeper. That's tricky enough with the hazy documentation comes with being an illegal alien, but Ten has to keep it as quiet as possible since Mac is really hiring Ten so that Bets McMurtry, California's answer to Sarah Palin, does not get tied to her (even though she desperately wants her friend found, she is always aware of the political implications).

Photo by Niels Noordhoek

As Ten starts to search he comes across other seemingly unrelated cases as he digs and discovers it's not just people that are coming across the border and discovers that plenty of people are willing to kill to keep that a secret. 

Despite the overt attacks on anyone on the political right throughout the book (and some might say the Catholic faith as well), I find myself reading the book because I just like the character Ten.  The mystery was good, there is plenty of action and humor as well.  I have read 3 of the 4 books in the series and I am pleased to say that this series is back on its winning ways with The Third Rule of Ten.

Note: I was given a copy of this book by the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

See all of my reviews of book in this series by clicking here.

I rate this book 4 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: The Third Rule of Ten.

Reviewed on June 9, 2014.

THE HISTORY of the ANCIENT WORLD: FROM the EARLIEST ACCOUNTS to the FALL of ROME by Susan Wise Bauer

Published by W. W. Norton in 2007

Susan Wise Bauer is well-known in the home school community for her well-written histories. I am not a home school parent but I do recommend her History of the Ancient Word for history buffs who would like a long-term general overview of history.

Bauer mines lots of types of sources to build a view of the earliest cities and their beliefs. Bauer's history focuses on political leaders and religious/philosophical beliefs of different civilizations. One thing that I really like was her ability to take myths and legends (like Gilgamesh) and tie them into actual history and demonstrate why those myths and legends mattered to those ancient peoples and give the modern reader a way to have a better understanding of these ancient peoples. 

The book starts with a focus on four major civilizations: Mesopotamia, Egypt, the Indus River Valley (India) and the Yellow River Valley (China). As these groups grow, other areas are added (such as Ancient Greece and Rome).  

The text of this book is 777 pages long and it has almost 90 pages of works cited, notes and an index. One of the real strengths of this book is the inclusion of nearly 100 relevant maps. I was also pleased with the timeline included at the end of every chapter was helpful as well. Each timeline included the civilization just discussed and another of the groups as well so they can be compared.

For all of the strengths, the book does have weaknesses. It rarely discusses technological changes or different agricultural techniques. The book focuses on leaders, wars and battles, the common man of the past is rarely spoken of. To be fair, this book is a chunk as it is - if more detail were included it would be an unwieldy tome. 

Constantine the Great (272-337).
Photo by Jean-Christophe BENOIST

Bauer does delve into philosophical movements, as I mentioned earlier, but, surprisingly, leaves out the entirety of the philosophical movement of Ancient Greece except to quote them when talking about other cultures. Socrates, Plato, Pythagoras, Aristotle, the Stoics - their ideas are not discussed at all. I found that to be so odd that I literally searched the book's index to see if I had just skipped the chapter they are in. Along with Judeo-Christian beliefs, Greek thought was (and is) one of the pillars of Western thought. 

The book does not actually go to the Fall of Rome, which has been traditionally dated at 476 AD. Instead, it ends at 312 AD when Constantine the Great became the sole Roman Emperor (prior to that he was a co-ruler). That is an interesting date to choose because that is the moment when Christianity stopped being a persecuted religion in the Roman Empire. 

NOTE: This book is the first in a multi-part series that is still being published. 

I rate this book 4 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: The History of the Ancient World: From the Earliest Accounts to the Fall of Rome.

The Second Rule of Ten (Tenzing Norbu #2) by Gay Hendricks and Tinker Lindsay

Too Much Plot for Just One Book

Published in 2013 by Hay House Visions

So, The Second Rule of Ten, the second book in the Tenzing Norbu series, is jam-packed - so jam-packed that it really should have been two books.

Tenzing "Ten" Norbu is a welcome addition to the L.A. mystery genre. He is an ex-Tibetan monk and an ex-LAPD officer turned private investigator who is struggling to figure out his place in the world, looking for the right woman and dealing with a poor relationship with his father.

In this mystery, Ten is trying to solve the murder of an ex-client, a Hollywood producer with a reputation for making enemies. Along the way, he discovers a much larger plot involving a Latin gang, illegal drugs and a survivor of the Holocaust.

I really like the character Ten - he is an active practitioner of meditation but in no way does he have all of his problems solved by meditation - he still gets irritated in traffic jams, can't figure out how to deal with the new lady in his life and he carries a gun (once he gets his permit, that is) and is a genuinely nice guy.

But, no matter how much I like Ten, this book slowly morphs into an overly-complicated mess with an extraneous investigation into the missing sister of a Holocaust survivor and a trip to India for Ten to deal with family issues back at his father's monastery (this was interesting but very forced attached to the end of the book, including a side trip into Chinese-occupied Tibet. This would have been a fantastic stand-alone plot in another book - a book that really looked at what's going on in Tibet under Chinese rule).

One other issue, more of a pet peeve than anything else: shotguns and rifles are not the same thing. In a struggle on page 306 I was confused about how many weapons were in the room when the authors used the terms interchangeably.

See my review for The First Rule of Ten by clicking here.

I was offered this book from the publisher through the Amazon Vine program in exchange for an honest review.

I rate this book 3 stars out of 5.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: The Second Rule of Ten.

Reviewed on March 30, 2013.

The First Rule of Ten: A Tenzing Norbu Mystery (Dharma Detective #1) by Gay Hendricks and Tinker Lindsay

A twist on the L.A. detective novel

Published in 2012 by  Hay House Visions.

For years, Los Angeles has been the home of the detective story. For Raymond Chandler, Dragnet, Robert Crais, Michael Connelly and even videogames like L.A. Noire, Los Angeles has been the seedy, diverse world that has all of the secrets that our intrepid detective heroes must dig up and expose.

The First Rule of Ten brings us a different take on the L.A. Detective STory. Tenzing Norbu (he goes by Ten) is a different kind of detective in that he grew up in a monastery and used to be a Buddhist monk but moved to America at the age of 18. His literary hero is Sherlock Holmes and he has just retired from LAPD as a detective because the job was simply getting too bureaucratic - too much paperwork, not enough mystery-solving.

Ten may not be a monk any longer but he is still a practicing Buddhist. That's a different twist, and in some ways a refreshing twist on the stereotype of the alcohol-abusing chain smoking detective. Not that Ten is a prude, but he is mindful of what he does to his body,

But, this fresh character would be pointless if the story were poor. I am glad to say that this mystery is interesting and the story comes to a satisfying conclusion. This was an enjoyable read and I will keep my eyes open for more stories of Tenzing Norbu.

I was offered this book from the publisher through the Amazon Vine program in exchange for an honest review.

Edit: March 30, 2013: See my review of The Second Rule of Ten by clicking here.

I rate this book 5 stars out of 5.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: 
The First Rule of Ten: A Tenzing Norbu Mystery (Tenzing Norbu Mysteries)

Reviewed on February 11, 2012.

Siddhartha by Herman Hesse

Oh! The dangers of reviewing a classic.

Originally published in 1922.

Siddhartha has been on my "should read" list for a long time, nearly 20 years.

With all of that build up and anticipation you'd think I'd have more thoughts about it than I do. My one word review of the book is 'lukewarm.'

It is neither a strong book nor a weak book. Siddhartha's spiritual quest is told in such a detached manner that, in the end, I feel detached from the whole exercise. I am uncommitted to the character and I really didn't particularly care where his quest ended up.

Perhaps that was the point of it all - it's his quest, you can do nothing but care about your own.

Hermann Hesse
(1877-1962)

I rate this book 3 stars out of 5.

This book can be found on Amazon here: Siddhartha

Reviewed  on December 6, 2005.