KINDRED by Octavia E. Butler

Originally Published in 1979.

Octavia E. Butler (1947-2006) was a science fiction author who won both the Hugo and the Nebula awards, both for novelettes. Kindred, though, is not a novelette - it is a full length novel and one of the best novels that I have read in a long time. This book could easily end up being the best book I will read this year.

Dana is a 26 year old African American woman. The year is 1976, she and her husband are celebrating her 26th birthday at their home. Suddenly, she feels faint. When her mind clears, she is in the woods by a river. She sees a young boy drowning in the water. She dives in, pulls him out, revives him with mouth-to-mouth resuscitation and is rewarded by having a gun put to her face.
...and she disappears and ends up back in her house and soaking wet. Her husband tells her that she's only been gone a few seconds.

A few hours later, she disappears again. The same boy is in danger and she saves him again - but he is a few years older now. She determines that she is in the early 1800's in Maryland on a slave plantation. She has saved the white son of the plantation owner twice but, unlike the last time she doesn't return to 1976 right away and now has to accommodate her 1976 ways of thinking to the ways of a slave plantation.

1976 wasn't the most inclusive of times, but it certainly was a damn sight better than living on a slave plantation in the early 1800's.

Dana eventually returns to 1976 after she is nearly killed. However, she is only starting a cycle of ever-lengthening stays in the past...

Octavia E. Butler (1947-2006)

It is interesting to me that this piece of science fiction has the most detailed description of the day-to-day dangers and hardships of American slavery - much more than anything that I have read in a history book. Really, the only thing that came close was a personal tour that my family took of a slave plantation that was owned by a university. The university was studying the financial, personal and genealogical records of that plantation and their neighboring plantations in an effort to understand how they worked day to day and how they worked over the generation.  This tour was completely "off of the books" and was not subject to the sanitizing process that most public tours undergo.

I think this novel is so effective because it is a modern woman with a modern way of looking at things that has to figure out the rules of a slave plantation. She can't let on that she can read, she can't speak her mind, she can't look white people in the face (in 1976 she is married to a white man and he ends up accidentally getting brought back in time with her at one point), she has to follow the "rules" that the slaves have among themselves.

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

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: Kindred by Octavia E. Butler.

WALKING on the SEA of CLOUDS: A SAGA of the FIRST COLONY on the MOON (audiobook) by Gray Rinehart

Published in 2019 by WordFire Press LLC.
Read by Stephanie Minervino.
Duration: 13 hours, 33 minutes.
Unabridged.

In the year 2034 a private corporation is making an attempt to build a colony on the surface of the moon to act as a home base for asteroid miners. They make the long run from the moon to the asteroid belt and back so that the lunar base can refine the metals found in the asteroids. It's a solid plan, but it has to start with almost nothing and work it's way to the kind of lunar colony you see in the movies.

The world of 2034 is different in some ways. There are early references to some sort of traumatic biological problem, such as rampant infectious disease. A great deal of the early parts of the book is devoted to Stormie and Frank Pastorelli, two prospective lunar colonists that expose themselves to the risk of contracting a bloodborne pathogens when they help the victims of a car crash. The lengths they go to cleanse themselves of pathogens and the fear exhibited by other potential colonists tell me that this was not HIV or hepatitis. Sadly, it is never explained what the infection could have been even though the infection story line comes up again and again throughout the entire book.

NASA is rarely mentioned in Walking on the Sea of Clouds because this colony is a private venture. Imagine if Elon Musk and Space-X decided to go the moon and you get the idea. But, it's not entirely a company operation - there are independent contractors that manage parts of the small-but-growing lunar colony and there are independent contractors that deliver goods. It all can be very complicated and decidedly not glamorous to hash out who has what responsibilities with the lawyers - just like most corporate gigs.

If you remember the literary devices you learned about in school (man vs. man, man vs. self, man vs. nature) - this book is almost entirely man vs. nature - the nature is the harsh environment of the moon. It is the ultimate unforgiving environment - it is so cold that you will die almost instantly upon exposure, it has no atmosphere so you can't even take a breath and fluids burn away immediately when the sunlight hits them. The temperature extremes (more than a 500+ degree Fahrenheit difference) are tough on the machinery and the dust...well the dust gets everywhere and unlike Earth dust, it can be sharp and jagged (no weathering to take off the harsh edges) and it can tear up all sorts of stuff.

Building a colony in such conditions can be a tedious venture. You cannot just say "good enough for now" and then come back and fix the leaks later on once the colony starts to make some money. It all has to be perfect on the first try or people die.

The audiobook was read by Stephanie Minervino. She was given a hard task in this book - there are a lot of male voices and there are a variety of accents (the first lunar colonies will have to access talent from around the world). She did a strong job with this book.

This book gives the reader a taste of what our first lunar colonists (I do believe that we will be there eventually - NASA is making rumblings about it again) will be up against. It will be, as noted above, a tedious venture. Tedious things do not make the best topics for a book and there are times when this book drags. It is is not a horrible book by any means - but it suffers from peaks and valleys and some of the valleys are pretty big.

I am giving this book 3 stars out of 5. It is not the most riveting of books, but this is a must listen/must read book if you are interested in getting a glimpse of the difficulties in the eventual colonizing of the moon.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: WALKING on the SEA of CLOUDS: A SAGA of the FIRST COLONY on the MOON.

Note: I received a complimentary copy of this audiobook from the author in exchange for an honest review. 

THE WAR BEFORE the WAR: FUGITIVE SLAVES and the STRUGGLE for AMERICA'S SOUL from the REVOLUTION to the CIVIL WAR (audiobook) by Andrew Delbanco

Published in 2018 by Penguin Audio.
Read by Ari Fliakos.
Duration: 13 hours, 40 minutes.
Unabridged.

Simply described, The War Before the War is an in-depth look at the slavery controversy in the United States from its very beginnings through the Civil War. I am an avid reader of books that explore American slavery and the Civil War. Anyone that denies that slavery wasn't THE issue that pushed America to Civil War is deluding themselves and simply has not read the statements that five of the seceding states (Georgia, Mississippi, South Carolina, Texas and Virginia) issued in 1860 and 1861. Slavery was the most discussed item in four of the five declarations (Virginia's brief declaration does not mention many specifics but does refer to "the oppression of Southern Slaveholding states").

As the reader goes through this book it is easy to see that slavery was always a difficult problem for every generation of Americans to deal with. The Founders wrestled with it and ultimately kicked it down the road for later generations to deal with. By the 1850's the problem had come to a head. Interestingly, the thing that brought it to a head was a problem that rarely happened - what to do with runaway slaves.

When compared to the total slave population, very few slaves actually escaped and almost none made it to a free state. But, when a slave was caught in a free state, the media made a story out of it. Who can blame them? It was a riveting story. What was more important - property rights of the individual slave owner or the rights of a man to have his day in court to prove that he was actually a free man in court before he was taken away into bondage? What was more important - the right of a state to protect the property rights of its slaveholders throughout the country or the rights of a free state to declare slavery null and void within its borders?

When a slave was caught in the north and the process started to take him or her back to slavery the political system would often boil over. Both sides came to out, protested, wrote letters to the editor, gave speeches in Congress and generally used the occasion to rally their bases. The author makes a valuable point when he points out this is the same thing that modern political movements do (Black Lives Matter, Pro- and Anti-Abortion activists, immigration, etc.).

The book also looks at what individuals did when confronted with these problems. I was particularly struck by the judge that returned slaves in his courtroom but allowed his home to be used as an Underground Railroad stop by his grown children. He didn't actively help - he just actively ignored the extra people sleeping in his house from time to time.

This is an amazing book. I didn't think I could really learn a lot more about this topic. This will be my 108th review of a book that will be tagged "civil war" and the 77th book that will be tagged "slavery". But, seeing it all laid out in one big sweep is powerful. A great follow-up would be this book: Freedom National: The Destruction of Slavery in the United States, 1861-1865.

The audiobook was read by Ari Fliakos who did a fantastic job.

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

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: THE WAR BEFORE the WAR: FUGITIVE SLAVES and the STRUGGLE for AMERICA'S SOUL from the REVOLUTION to the CIVIL WAR by Andrew Delbanco.

DECLARATION: THE NINE TUMULTUOUS WEEKS WHEN AMERICA BECAME INDEPENDENT, MAY 1 - JULY 4, 1776 by William Hogeland

Published in 2010 by Simon and Schuster

When you read the history books, it seems obvious that the colonies steadily worked their way up to declaring their independence without much of a hitch.

The beauty of William Hogeland's Declaration is that he shows that it was a lot closer than the history books usually portray. Samuel Adams and his cousin John Adams maneuvered many of the representatives to the Continental Congress into voting for independence and certainly manipulated the government of Pennsylvania. In fact, you could make the case that they toppled the government of Pennsylvania through a powerful media campaign combined with timely advice and political pressure and installed a pro-independence government just in time for the fateful vote.

But, this new (to me) information was marred by a difficult to read text. The book just bounced around - the writing style just never got into a flow. I found it hard to read more than a page or two at a time.

Samuel Adams (1722-1803)

On top of that, there are 56 pages of end notes with commentary. If this book were published back in the "bad old days" when typesetting was labor intensive, I would understand why it was done as end notes - it was a pain to work out all of the foot notes. But, in today's world, almost all of the complicated work of footnotes is done by a computer. If it is worth the author's time to make 56 pages of commentary in your end notes, it is worth turning them in to foot notes so that people will actually read them.

I rate this book 3 stars out of 5 - interesting information, poorly presented.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: Declaration: The Nine Tumultuous Weeks When America Became Independent, May 1 - July 4, 1776.

AN AMERICAN SUMMER: LOVE and DEATH in CHICAGO (audiobook) by Alex Kotlowitz

Published in March of 2019 by Random House Audio.
Read by by the author, Alex Kotlowitz.
Duration: 9 hours, 53 minutes.
Unabridged.

Journalist Alex Kotlowitz has written several books about race, crime and life in the Midwest rust belt. An American Summer focuses on Chicago's most violent neighborhoods. How violent are they? In the past 20 years, 14,033 people have been killed and another 60,000 have been injured by other people shooting guns. Just to compare, it is as if the entire population of Scranton, PA or Ogden, UT or Napa, CA were all killed or wounded by gunfire.

But, it's not like all of Chicago experiences this violence. It is really just a few neighborhoods - so the impact is a lot like a civil war is going on in a medium-sized city. Everyone knows someone who has been shot and most people know someone that has been killed. That takes a toll on the survivors and that is what this book is about. 

Kotlowitz follows nine stories from these neighborhoods. Some were victims, some hurt others and some did both. Most of these stories are unrelentingly sad. Some were a little hopeful and one was downright inspiring.

The reader learns about the cycle of violence, how city officials have tried to help and fail and how the police can become just another violent part of a violent neighborhood. Chicago Police Department has paid out $662 million in damages for police misconduct since 2004.

This is a sobering, well-written book. Not an easy listen, but an important one.

This book was read by the author, Alex Kotlowitz. He did an excellent job.

I rate this audiobook 5 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here:  AN AMERICAN SUMMER: LOVE and DEATH in CHICAGO by Alex Kotlowitz.

Please check out this book as well: ALL the DREAMS WE'VE DREAMED: A STORY of HOOPS and HANDGUNS on CHICAGO'S WEST SIDE by Rus Bradburd.

THE LITTLE PRINCE by Antoine de Saint-Exupery.

Illustrations by the author.
Translated from French to English by Richard Howard.

The Little Prince is a classic novel, voted the best French book of the 20th Century. It is written in deceptively simple language - so simple that a French teacher colleague of mine has her advanced French students read it in the original French every year.

But, don't let the simple style fool you - this book packs a lot of big ideas about the foibles of modern living and adulthood into this small book about a space traveler who lands in the Sahara desert. The space traveler (the Little Prince) meets a crash-landed pilot and shares the story of his travels.

I read the book easily over a weekend while on a camping trip. I read it on my Kindle phone app. Because the author's illustrations are just as iconic as the book itself, the folks at Kindle decided to scan the pages in the way they are published. I have no problem with that, but my phone app did not let me enlarge the pages in any way with a zoom feature. At times, the text was pretty tough to read. Because of that, I am going to deduct a star from my overall score - I am reviewing the Kindle version and the Kindle version has a weakness.

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

THE SECRET LIFE of BEES by Sue Monk Kidd

Originally published in 2002.

The Secret Life of Bees is set in the summer of 1964. Lily Owens is a young teenager living in small town South Carolina on a peach farm. Her mother died when she was very young, her father is abusive. Her best moments at home come when she is with the housekeeper, Rosaleen. 

The story starts immediately after the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Rosaleen, who is African American, decides that she is going to go into town and register to vote. Rosaleen meets some resistance, reacts and gets arrested. Then, she gets a beating and ends up hospitalized. Lily breaks her out and they flee to another small town - Tiburon.

Why Tiburon?

Lily only has a few trinkets from her mother and one of them is a piece of paper with an African American Virgin Mary with Tiburon, SC written on the back. She is determined to find out more about her mother and save her stand-in mother.

When they get to Tiburon, they are directed to "the pink house" and discover a thriving honey business ran by three African American sisters. Lily and Rosalee learn about bees and family as Lily tries to figure out her mother's connection to this place...

There are obvious connections to other Southern "coming of age" stories like A Member of the Wedding or Huckleberry Finn, but this book is unique. The religious angle alone sets it apart (for both good and bad). It is certainly worth your time to read.

I rate this book 4 stars out of 4 and it can be found on Amazon.com here: The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd.

THE FUTURE of CAPITALISM: FACING the NEW ANXIETIES (audiobook) by Paul Collier

Published in December of 2018 by HarperAudio.
Read by Peter Noble.
Duration: 9 hours, 26 minutes.
Unabridged.

Paul Collier is an award-winning economics professor at Oxford University. His name is symbolic of how he approaches this book, The Future of Capitalism: Facing the New Anxieties. Collier has been knighted for his work as an economist. This means that he could have listed his name as Sir Paul Collier, but he does not. Collier may be a big shot professor who holds three positions at Oxford University (possibly the best university on the planet), but he is also the guy from Sheffield, England. Collier repeatedly compares it to Detroit because they are of a similar size and both lost a great deal of their industrial base over the last 50 years.

This book is intended to be read by the layman. Collier could certainly bury the reader with obscure terms, but he does not. Instead, he uses plenty of real world examples of well-known companies (Toyota vs. GM, for example) and well-known situations (how Johnson and Johnson reacted to the Tylenol poisoning scare in 1982, how Bear Stearns investment company put themselves into a completely ridiculous financial situation that helped kick off the worldwide Great Recession in 2008) to make his points. I am a licensed high school economics teacher, which means that I know enough economics to sound smart to people who don't know anything about economics and enough to sound dumb to actual economists. I followed about 97% of what Collier was saying. I will blame the parts that I didn't follow on the audiobook format - sometimes you get distracted when you listen and I did not rewind and re-listen. 

The author, Sir Paul Collier

Collier points that the industrial Western world is splitting itself into two economic regions. In the United States we have mega-cities (NYC and Silicon Valley, for example) that are prosperous and the rest is "flyover country". Even local "big cities" like Detroit are struggling. In the UK, it is London and, well, everything else. These two regions are experiencing the modern economy quite differently. For example, President Trump points out (correctly) that the American economy is growing at a good rate. And Bernie Sanders points out (also correctly) that the benefits of this growth is largely going to certain groups and certain regions. The rise of these two men in the top ranks of the American political system are discussed in this book as a reaction to this type of economic growth. He points out that similar moves to more extremism in politics have happened across multiple modern economies.

Collier has considered various ways to re-structure tax policy to help even out this growth. He also advocates a move away from the business theory espoused by Nobel-winning economist Milton Friedman which can be written in shorthand this way: the sole purpose of a business is to generate profit for its shareholders (within the rules). Collier does not discount profit, but argues that making it the sole goal is shortsighted because it can make management shortsighted (especially since a lot of CEOs move after just a few years) and will choose to make quick cash rather than long term growth. He provides several examples and cites data that says that corporations that are privately held tend to do better than publicly held corporations precisely because the leadership of the privately held corporations are in it for the long haul.

But, this is not just a book about corporations, it is also a book about immigration, public policy, how the government can change the way it educates its young people, the way it retrains displaced workers and the way it approaches the chronically unemployed. He is a very big fan of the German approach to post-high school education, and if he describes it accurately, I cannot disagree.

This book was well read by Peter Noble, a gifted audiobook reader. It was a joy to listen to him read, but I suggest that the traditional book (or even e-reader) would be a better way to go through the material in case you want to take notes or re-read passages.

I rate this audiobook 5 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: THE FUTURE of CAPITALISM: FACING the NEW ANXIETIES by Paul Collier.

Collier mentioned this book in his book. I read it last year: JANESVILLE: AN AMERICAN STORY by Amy Goldstein.

I thought this book went very well with another book that I was reading at the same time: THE CORROSION of CONSERVATISM: WHY I LEFT the RIGHTby Max Boot. 

THE CORROSION of CONSERVATISM: WHY I LEFT the RIGHT (kindle) by Max Boot

Published in October of 2018 by Liveright.

2016 was a moment of reckoning for political writer Max Boot. Boot wrote for all of the well-known Conservative publications - The Weekly Standard, The Wall Street Journal, etc. He appeared on TV shows and radio shows and describes himself as a "movement conservative". But, the rise of Donald Trump and his subsequent election made him change his registration from Republican to Independent in protest.

Why? In his own words: "In March 2016, I had written that Trump was a 'character test' for the GOP: 'Do you believe in the open and inclusive party of Ronald Reagan? Or do you want a bigoted and extremist party in the image of Donald Trump?' To my growing horror, most Republicans were failing the test."

I picked up The Corrosion of Conservatism because I felt the same way. There is no point in laying out all of arguments against Trump - everyone has heard them. Like Boot, I was dismayed that "...most Republican leaders showed that they were willing to discard their principles as mindlessly as a Styrofoam fast-food container if by doing so they could enhance their own positions and avoid the wrath of a powerful and vindictive leader."

So, like Boot, I find myself a Republican "in exile" - I have left the party. Like the Cuban exiles, I find myself on the outside looking in and wondering what the hell happened.

Over the last two and half years Mr. Boot and I have come to a lot of the same conclusions. One of them is that President Trump has brought to life a strong nativist and racist strand that was always a part of the Conservative movement, but a part that we had always assumed was a tiny and shrinking part. Instead, he has exposed it to have been just hidden away out of politeness. Boot points out: "No, not all Trump supporters are racist. But virtually all racists, it seems, are Trump supporters."

Also: "It is hard to know who is worse: Trump or his enablers. I am inclined to think it is the latter. Trump does not know any better; he has no idea how a president, or even an ordinary, decent human being, is supposed to behave. But many of his supporters do know better, and they are debasing themselves to curry favor with him because he controls the levers of power." Boot does not go into the Evangelical support of Trump. Boot is not a Christian, so it is not his fight. But, I am so you can take that same quote and apply it to the big name Christian leaders that attach themselves to this man and make excuses for him and see how my frustration is doubled.

In the end, this book will not change any minds. But, I found it helpful to find someone as well-written as Max Boot has come to so many of the same conclusions that I have have.

I rate this book 5 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: THE CORROSION of CONSERVATISM: WHY I LEFT the RIGHT by Max Boot.

THE MIDNIGHT PLAN of the REPO MAN (Ruddy McCann #1) (audiobook) by W. Bruce Cameron

Published in 2014 my Macmillan Audio.
Read by George K. Wilson.
Duration: 11 hours, 15 minutes.
Unabridged.

Ruddy McCann is a former college football star (in the running for the Heisman Trophy) who ended up going to prison rather than the NFL. Now, he is in his early thirties, out of prison and back in his hometown in northern Michigan. He helps his sister run the family business (a dingy old bar) and he works as a repo man. A repo man repossesses cars for lenders when their owners are behind on their payments, usually with a tow truck.

Ruddy has a lot going on in his life right now. He met an interesting woman, he has a difficult repo job and the bar is in serious need of a cash infusion because the creditors are threatening to cut them off. But, most distressing is the voice in his head. This is not a pretend voice, like a conscience - this is a real voice from a guy that says he was shot by two men and buried in the woods not far from Ruddy's hometown. Ruddy believes him, too. He keeps having dreams about being chased down and shot by two men he's never seen before.

So, Ruddy and the voice in his head set off to solve the murder, repo a truck, save the bar and get the girl - and if you think that sounds complicated, you're right.

The Midnight Plan of the Repo Man is a fun book. Putting together the pieces to figure out the plan behind the murder was interesting. Ruddy's repo cases were often funny and it was quite powerful when the reader learns the reason behind Ruddy's time in prison. None of this would work except for the fact that both Ruddy and the Alan (the voice in his head) are decent guys.

That being said, the book is just a little too busy, a little too crowded for one book. Cameron has another book and a novella in this series. Here is the link to my review of the novella: The Midnight Dog of the Repo Man.

This audiobook was exceptionally read by George K. Wilson. It was the perfect match between reading style and text.

I rate this audiobook 4 stars out of 5 and it can be found on Amazon.com here: The Midnight Plan of the Repo Man.

ZOO NEBRASKA: THE DISMANTLING of an AMERICAN DREAM (kindle) by Carson Vaughan

Published in April of 2019

Royal, Nebraska is a town of 81 people and an abandoned zoo. In 1987, Dick Haskin brought a chimpanzee named Reuben to his hometown in Nebraska in hopes of starting the Midwest Primate Center to continue the research of his slain hero, Dian Fossey.

But, the funds for the primate center never materialized. He wasn't interested in starting a zoo but, over time, he ended up with an odd collection of animals - tigers, wolves, llamas and more. Eventually, he accepted the fact that he had a zoo and changed the name to Zoo Nebraska. In absolute terms, it wasn't much of a zoo, but it was a heck of a thing for rural Nebraska. Even famed TV talk show host (and Nebraska native) Johnny Carson got in the act and donated a lot of money to upgrade the chimpanzee habitat (he felt that kids in rural Nebraska needed this kind of opportunity, even if it was a limited one).

But, it was not ever financially viable. Taking care of exotic animals in expensive and labor-intensive. The pool of volunteers was limited and there were never enough tickets sold to hire enough help. And, that's where this story takes a long, sad turn for the worse that ends up with 4 chimpanzees escaping and tearing through the zoo and the town in 2005. Three of them were shot and killed and the zoo closed two years later.

This book looks into the small town politics that dogged the zoo its entire life. For me, that was the worst part of the book. It seemed like an endless parade of people with hidden agendas and it made the last 2/3 of the book a real chore to read. 

Because of that, I rate this book 3 stars out of 5 and it can be found on Amazon.com here: ZOO NEBRASKA: THE DISMANTLING of an AMERICAN DREAM by Carson Vaughan.

GET on BOARD: THE STORY of the UNDERGROUND RAILROAD by Jim Haskins

Published in 1993 by Scholastic.

Get on Board is an introduction to the Underground Railroad aimed at grades 4-7. It is a solid little history of the origins of the abolitionist movement, the Underground Railroad and slavery. It mostly focuses on the heroes of the abolitionist movement, but it does its best to try to work in a lot of individual stories of the Underground Railroad.

For example, I enjoyed the letter that Jermain Wesley Loguen wrote to his former owner (he had run away) when she demanded that he pay for himself. It was the perfect blend of snark and indignant refusal.

The longest biography in the book goes to Harriet Tubman with Frederick Douglass coming in a close second. That is appropriate since their stories are extraordinary. Haskins does a real solid job of introducing the two real-life people that the most famous African American characters in Uncle Tom's Cabin are based on and then reminding the reader of them when he discusses the novel and its impact.

However, it is not a perfect book. The pictures are, on the whole, very poor - much like a poor photocopy of a photo.

The Levi Coffin House in Fountain City, Indiana

There is a problem when Haskins discusses Levi Coffin, who is sometimes called the President of the Underground Railroad as a testament to his commitment to the cause and the number of runaway slaves that he helped. Haskins makes it sound like Coffin's home is near Cincinnati (on the East Fork of the Ohio River - which doesn't exist, according to Google) but he discusses and shows a picture of his home in Fountain City. I have been to the Levi Coffin house many times in the last few years (they have a tour and a visitor's center -it's worth your time to visit) and I know that the Coffin family lived near Cincinnati at one point in time but then moved to Fountain City, Indiana. Google tells me that it is 79 miles from Cincinnati, which means that Haskins has confused the two locations.

But, on the whole, this is a nifty introduction to the Underground Railroad.

I rate this book 4 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: GET on BOARD: THE STORY of the UNDERGROUND RAILROAD by Jim Haskins.

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.

THE BEATITUDES: FROM SLAVERY to CIVIL RIGHTS by Carole Boston Weatherford

Published in 2010 by Eerdmans Books for Young Readers.
Illustrated by Tim Ladwig.

Author Carole Boston Weatherford is a prolific writer for children. Usually, she writes books featuring African Americans on a wide variety of themes, including jazz, African American fathers, the Tuskegee Airmen, baseball, NASCAR and a lot of religious themes.

In Beatitudes: From Slavery to Civil Rights, Weatherford tells the story of the African American struggle for equal rights through the prism of the Beatitudes, a sermon given by Jesus that is in the Book of Matthew:
 

Matthew 5:3-12 (King James Version)

3 Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

4 Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted.

5 Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth.

6 Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled.

7 Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy.

8 Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God.

9 Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God.

10 Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness' sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

11 Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake.

12 Rejoice, and be exceeding glad: for great is your reward in heaven: for so persecuted they the prophets which were before you.

As the reader turns the pages they are treated to a two page spread of art and a few lines describing it. At the bottom of the page, almost like a continuous scroll, are Jesus' words.

Technically, this is a book intended for small children. But, I think it would be an amazing tool to use with older kids in a Bible study and applying it to everyday life. Also, it is a powerful reminder that faith played a big part in African American survival through the worst of times and moving the Civil Rights agenda forward. 

I rate this book 5 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: THE BEATITUDES: FROM SLAVERY to CIVIL RIGHTS by Carole Boston Weatherford.

YOU WOULDN'T WANT to BE AN AMERICAN PIONEER! A WILDERNESS YOU'D RATHER NOT TAME by Jacqueline Morley

Illustrations by David Antram.

Published in 2002.

As a history teacher, I think just about all of history is fascinating - the cultural tidbits, the technology, the religious beliefs, the wars, the governments. It's all fascinating! But...convincing my students is another matter entirely. 

This series does an excellent job of looking at history from an interesting point of view and showing why it was tough. The art is accessible and just cartoonish enough to not be one of those boring illustrations that fill history books and plenty realistic enough that to clearly see and understand what is going on.

This series has dozens and dozens of books. This book is about the Oregon Trail and tells all about the trials and tribulations that a pioneer might have come across - everything from river crossings, weather, Pawnees, high priced supplies, the death of the oxen and more.

Fantastic for a classroom library. Great for budding history buffs.

I rate this book 4 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: YOU WOULDN'T WANT to BE AN AMERICAN PIONEER! A WILDERNESS YOU'D RATHER NOT TAME.

SUICIDE RUN: THREE HARRY BOSCH STORIES (kindle) by Michael Connelly

Published by Little, Brown and Company in 2011.

LAPD Detective Harry Bosch is back on the case in these three short stories. Fans of the series know that Harry has had a long career in print and he had already had a long career before he started showing up in Michael Connelly's books. These stories are at varied points in his career, he has various partners and co-workers from throughout the series show up and he has various degrees of success in them.

Two of the stories are quite short - short enough that I was just starting to settle in for a good Harry Bosch story and they just...ended. The third is a pretty good story and just long enough that I found myself wishing that Connelly had fleshed it out a bit more into full book length.

I rate this collection 4 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: Suicide Run: Three Harry Bosch Stories.

YOU LEARN BY LIVING: ELEVEN KEYS for a MORE FULFILLING LIFE (audiobook) by Eleanor Roosevelt

Originally published in 1960.

Published in December of 2018 by HarperAudio.
Read by Vivienne Leheny.
Duration: 5 hours, 29 minutes.
Unabridged. 

Eleanor Roosevelt, cousin of one president and wife of another became a celebrity and a political force to be reckoned with in her own right after the death of her husband in 1945.

She worked with the United Nations and wrote a regular newspaper column. Over her lifetime, Eleanor Roosevelt wrote more than 25 books, met thousands of people, visited dozens of countries and raised half a dozen children. All of that in addition to being First Lady for more than 12 years.

Eleanor's column was normally based on letters that were sent to her. A lot of those letters asked for her advice. This book is a distillation of the advice she had given over the years. It is written in a very approachable, simple manner and, as she notes at the end of her book, doesn't really teach anything new. Instead, there is a lot of practical advice and observations with a lot of personal anecdotes thrown in.

I enjoyed the book, but I have to rate it 4 stars out of 5 because there was nothing exceptional about it. Lots of good advice, lots of great stories, though. I recommend it, but I did not find it life-changing.

This audiobook can be found on Amazon.com here: YOU LEARN BY LIVING: ELEVEN KEYS for a MORE FULFILLING LIFE by Eleanor Roosevelt.

BLUEBIRD, BLUEBIRD (Highway 59 Mystery #1) by Attica Locke

Winner of the 2018 Edgar Award for Best Novel.

Published by Hachette Audio in 2017.
Read by JD Jackson.
Duration: 9 hours, 25 minutes.
Unabridged.

Darren Mathews is a rare thing - a black Texas Ranger. He is also suspended for getting involved in a situation with a man with Aryan Brotherhood ties that ended up murdered soon afterwards. 

A friend in the FBI tells him about another situation, way out in a small town on Highway 59 in East Texas at the edge of a bayou. Two bodies have been found in the bayou - one black and one white.

The first body was a black man - beaten nearly to death and then drowned in the bayou. The second was a white woman, found floating in the bayou a few days later.

So, Mathews heads off to this little town and starts nosing around with no authorization. He discovers a little cafe run by an elderly black woman on one end of town and a bar owned by her white neighbor on the other end of town - a bar that regularly plays host to the Aryan Brotherhood. In between them is a lot of history.

Mathews thinks he has the situation figured out before he even arrives - but the more he digs, the more complicated everything gets...

Bluebird, Bluebird won the 2018 Edgar Award for Best Novel. The Edgar Award goes to the best mystery and the mystery in the story was quite good. The story itself was slow to develop, however. The pacing of the novel was sacrificed a bit in order to create more tone and mood in a book that was filled with tone and mood. 

The audiobook was read by JD Jackson. He voiced the characters with a multitude of unique voices and did quite a good job.

I rate this audiobook 4 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: BLUEBIRD, BLUEBIRD (Highway 59 Mystery #1) by Attica Locke.

DRAGONWORLD by Byron Preiss and Michael Reaves

Originally published in 1979.
Illustrations by Joseph Zucker.

Way back in 1985, I bought a paperback copy of Dragonworld at Viewpoint Books - a great store in Columbus, Indiana. I sold it to a used book store a few years later and I forgot all about it.

A couple of years ago, I found a copy of Dragonworld at a thrift store. I snatched it up, feeling like I had found a relic from my past. I remembered that I loved the beginning of the book and I loved the pictures (there are more than 80 pencil drawings throughout the book), but I couldn't remember anything else about it.

So, I finally got around to reading this book and I have determined that I did not finish the book 34 years ago. I remembered the first 30 pages or so but everything else was a surprise - and not a particularly good one (with the exception of the aforementioned drawings - they are quite excellent).

The book is set in a world with two continents separated by a narrow strait of very volatile water. The eastern continent, Simbala, is filled with people that are like Tolkien's rangers and people that are sort of like elves (but they are still people). They live in the woods and in the forests. They fly air ships, which are sort of like hot air balloons. They also dig deep mines (which is not like elves, I know, but this is barely touched on in the book). The western continent, Fandora, is full of people that are sort of like Tolkien's hobbits mixed with his dwarves. They are farmers, villagers and fishermen.

Fandora is horrified by the sudden violent death of two of its young people. It looks like both are attacked from above, so it is assumed that Simbalese air ships have crossed the strait and attacked them. The Fandoran villages unite and build a ragtag army to cross the sea.

*******Spoliers ahead**********

Meanwhile, a similar attack has hit the people of Simbala. This is where the story gets bogged down. Simbala has an elderly monarch and an extensive royal family but the king has done an unpopular thing (but, then again, maybe it's popular - it depends on the page). He has appointed a miner to be king. The miner is quick-thinking and acted to save the country from an attack by underground creatures (think hobgoblins from Lord of the Rings) and their wolf-things. There is a dramatic build-up to deal with some sort of problem with the mines, but it is dropped and never brought up again.

art from the book

(still more spoilers)

The new king is named Hawkwind and he is an amazingly talented individual. Not only is he an excellent miner, he also had time to learn how to sword fight, how to hunt, how to track things in the wilderness, how to ride horses better than anyone, train that horse to fight alongside him, learn military tactics, learn military strategy, learn diplomacy, acquire a complete education of the lore of his kingdom, romance a gypsy princess and train a hawk to fly around and fight alongside him. No wonder he was made king! Imagine Aragon from Lord of the Rings but make him take a full job as a miner in his spare time.

(one last paragraph of spoilers)

Enter the dragons. Actually, they are coldrakes, which are like dragons, but dumb. Kind of like chimpanzees when compared to humans. There is a mixed breed dragon/coldrake (don't think too long about my previous comparison of humans and chimps) that is worried about the future of the coldrakes. He is moving them from the frigid north to the human-filled south (and he killed the children of Simbala and Fandora, causing the war). He is the most interesting character because he is doing bad things in a misguided effort to save his own kind. But, in the end, he is quickly dispatched.

*************End spoilers*********

By far, the best part of this book is the pictures.

The real problem of this book is that it should have been a trilogy. The situation in the mines could have been addressed. The war could have been more fleshed out. The dragon/coldrake issue could have been a book by itself. Plus, there's a hint of a sequel that never happened. 

I rate this book 2 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: DRAGONWORLD by Byron Preiss and Michael Reaves.

THE BROTHERHOOD (PRECINCT 11 #1) by Jerry B. Jenkins

Published by christianaudio.com in 2011.
Read by Johnny Heller.
Duration: 9 hours, 8 minutes.
Unabridged.

The Brotherhood is the story of Boone Drake, a young Chicago cop who seemingly has it all. He is married to his beautiful high school sweetheart. They have a healthy toddler son. His career is on the fast track. His family attends a big church and he helps run the athletic program.

But, a horrific home fire destroys this idyllic life. Jack loses his family and his faith as he slowly recovers. As Jack slowly rebuilds his personal life, will he still be able to move forward in his career?

************Caution: spoilers***********

This book is all about world building for the other two books in the series. We meet Drake and set up his tragic backstory. Sadly, the tragedy dominates the book. The descriptions of how his family died are quite graphic and go on for quite a while (there is an extensive hospital scene). It verges on the level of being grief porn. It just goes on and on and on.

The actual police part of the book has some very good moments, especially with the smaller day-to-day police work. But, the big culminating case was delivered a little too easily. This is really an up-and-down book.

Johnny Heller read the book. I generally enjoy Heller's narration and I enjoyed it this time as well. He is quite good at creating individual voices for the characters.

I rate this audiobook 3 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: THE BROTHERHOOD (PRECINCT 11 #1) by Jerry Jenkins.