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How to Break a Terrorist: The U.S. Interrogators Who Used Brains, Not Brutality, to Take Down the Deadliest Man in Iraq by Matthew Alexander

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A fascinating read How to Break a Terrorist: The U.S. Interrogators Who Used Brains, Not Brutality, to Take Down the Deadliest Man in Iraq is a fascinating must-read for anyone who is interested in the war on terror. I was handed this book by a friend and I assumed it was going to be a typical anti-war screed that demands that terrorists be "understood" and coddled. There is also little fear of coddling with Alexander. He is repulsed and haunted by the senseless butchery that went on in Iraq and was sickened by those that were willing to kill innocents with suicide bombings. Alexander's techniques only prove that his eyes were strictly on the goal - stop Zarqawi. Alexander's techniques are hardly "touchy-feely" - in a way they are a form of psychological trickery. He fools his interview targets into giving him the information he wants and then exploits their trust. It is also the type of technique that any regular viewer of TV detective shows see ev...

The Increment: A Novel by David Ignatius

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It started out so strong but... Published in 2009. The Increment started out so strong, the characters were so strong, the plot was crisp and the whole thing just felt right. The plot centers around two characters. One is an Iranian nuclear scientist that is disillusioned with the Iranian regime. The other character is a veteran CIA chief - the head of the Iranian desk. Like I said, the book starts out very strong. I was intrigued by the characters, the situation and the back story of the two main characters. By the end of the first page I was convinced I was reading a 5 star book. But, the characters started to change. They started acting differently. For example, the head of the CIA is a retired Admiral. He comes off as a principled, with-it kind of leader who is just out of his element when he's not commanding a ship. Fine. Later on, he has multiple scenes in which he just plays with toy ships rather than making decisions. He goes from being a leader to bei...

1601 Conversation as it was by the Social Fireside in the Time of the Tudors (kindle) by Mark Twain

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The commentary is actually more interesting than the story Mark Twain (1835-1910) Literary critic Edward Wagenknecht called 1601 "the most famous piece of pornography in American literature." Just to be clear, it's not really pornography, at least not by modern standards. Rather, it's a short story featuring Queen Elizabeth I, Ben Jonson, Beaumont, Shakespeare, the Duchess of Bilgewater, Sir Walter Raleigh and a few other people all in a closet talking about passing gas and sex. Sound strange? Well, it is and only so-so funny. 3/4 of this download is a fairly interesting commentary on the history of the story and about the characters. We learn that Twain wrote this as a diversion after the publication of Tom Sawyer (while he was working on Huckleberry Finn) during a time of writer's block. Twain showed it to some friends who published a few copies and then it snowballed. Twain's 1601 went "viral" before there was an intern...

The House of the Scorpion (audiobook) by Nancy Farmer

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Recommended for middle schoolers through adults    National Book Award, Young People's Literature, 2002. Published in 2002. Limiting The House of the Scorpion to a young adult audience is a disservice to the book and to the themes it brings up. This would be a fantastic book for an adult discussion group - there are so many themes and controversial topics that a group could discuss for hours and hours. That being said, I nearly quit listening to this audiobook after the first hour. It was sooooo slow to get started. On top of that, it was often dark and opressive. However, after the character Tam Lin comes in to the story the whole book changes and you would have had to fight me to get me to give the book up. By the time the end came around I felt like I had lived a life with Mateo and was thoroughly satisfied. So, what kind of themes are there? Well, this book, in my opinion, points out the dangers that many of the more Conservative thinkers warn us about ...

Beyond Suspicion (Jack Swyteck #2) by James Grippando

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Published in 2002. Beyond Suspicion is a quick-moving book and is a sequel to Grippando's first published novel 'The Pardon'. I read 'The Pardon' many years ago, but reading the first book is not a necessary requirement - Grippando sets the stage very well in this book so it can be a 'stand alone' novel. I shot through this book very quickly - the plot drags you in pretty well and Grippando's writing style keeps the book moving along at a quick pace. The main character is fairly average and his world is suddenly turned upside down by one case and its connections to the underworld. Murder, mayhem and one family crisis after another keep it interesting. Grippando fills this novel with a multitude on interesting characters, any one of which would be strong enough to be the main character in a book. A good solid read - a great summertime novel. This book can be found on Amazon.com here: Beyond Suspicion . I rate this book 4 stars out of...

The Man Who Met the Train: A Carl Wilcox Mystery by Harold Adams

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So, what is a 'rawboned' mystery? My copy of  The Man Who Met the Train had a snippet from a review from the Chicago Sun-Times in which they said it was a 'rawboned' mystery. I was intrigued by that characterization and can now report to you what that means. It means that this mystery is sparsely written - no extravagant detail and most conversations aren't even fully fleshed out. It's a quick and dirty read about some quick and dirty crimes set in two small towns in Depression-era South Dakota. In style and setting it reminded me of a western. The hero, Carl Wilcox, comes upon a wrecked car. Inside are four dead adults and one survivor - a little girl. Wilcox is eventually hired on by local bigwigs to investigate the circumstances of the crime, seeing as how he has previous experience as a police officer. Wilcox starts to pull at the loose threads of this crime and starts to discover that some very prominent local names are being implica...

The Jury by Steve Martini

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A great legal thriller The oddly titled The Jury (it's not about the jury at all - they are barely mentioned) is a sharp, tight legal thriller that hums right along until the neat little twist at the end. Steve Martini Paul Madriani and his law partner Harry Hinds have are defending a murder suspect, a genetic researcher named David Crone. The book joins the trial already in progress. Madriani and Hinds have one big problem, though. The unflappable Crone keeps so many secrets - trade secrets, research secrets and vital information that he just didn't think was important enough to mention to his attorneys that they don't really know where they stand in any of this. Throw in a family friend with a genetic disorder that may be cured by Crone's research, you get a solid mixture of urgency, ambiguity and frustration that kept me glued until the end. I rate this book 4 stars out of 5. This book is found on Amazon.com here: The Jury by Steve Martini . Review...

A History of Knowledge: Past, Present, and Future by Charles Van Doren

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The Past and Present parts were very well done but... ...the future part was a different story. More on that later. Van Doren's A History of Knowledge: Past, Present, and Future is a truly remarkable book. He breaks down a number of key philosophies and religions and makes them palatable to the reader and also demonstrates their influence over time. It is a very well written book - very enjoyable to read. He is particularly good at succintly describing why the end of the Roman Empire was such a disaster for knowledge and explaining why the Church was afraid of the astronomy discoveries of the Renaissance. Problem areas: -He almost exclusively focuses on Western Thought. Very little Asian philosophy, except for Confucius. How can it be a History of Knowledge when it leaves out most Asian thought? -Sometimes he blithely labels things as fact. For example, he claims that Jesus was born on December 25th while every Christian church body on the planet merely cla...

A Place Called Freedom by Ken Follett

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An informative historical adventure Follett's A Place Called Freedom was one of the most requested books when I worked at a now-defunct used book store more than 10 years ago. I finally got around to reading it and I can see why it was in such demand. Ken Follett Follett introduces the reader to the turbulent politics on 1760s England, Scotland and America. He throws in a liberal dose of romance and the reader will be reminded of the Tom Cruise / Nicole Kiddman epic movie Far and Away . There are plenty of similarities - both feature poor, rural heroes who fall in love with the landlord's spunky daughter. Nevertheless, it's a great read and unique enough to stand up in its own right. I recommend it to anyone who is interested in a view of England's politics and turmoil on the eve of the American Revolution - it puts America's arguments for revolution in a clearer context - it even strengthens them. On top of that, the book is a great read....

I Heard the Owl Call My Name by Margaret Craven

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A wonderful book - it creates a world for the reader and at the end you are sad to leave it. Originally published in 1967. For me, when I read an absolutely excellent novel, I have a hard time getting into another one - you end up rejecting the new one because it's not as good as the last one. This is one of those novels for me. So, I guess I'll be cleansing the reading palate with a few magazines. I first read I Heard the Owl Call My Name when I was 14 or 15 years old. I haven't thought about it for years until I came across it at a book sale and picked it up on a whim. I approached re-reading it with some trepidation - I was afraid that it would not be as good as I remembered and I would be disappointed. Well, it wasn't as good as I remembered - it's much better! Age and experience make you appreciate some things more, I suppose. I shot through I Heard the Owl Call My Name in less than 24 hours - a new record for this slow and steady reader. Gr...

Killing Time by Caleb Carr

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Considering the reputation of this author, I was quite disappointed Originally published in 2000. In order to start with positive thoughts - What does Carr do right with Killing Time ? 1. His vision of the future, published in the year 2000 about the year 2023, does correctly predict that Afghanistan would be a hotspot for the American military due to a fanatical, independently wealthy, international Muslim terrorist. 2. He predicted that the U.S. would become involved with Saddam Hussein in Iraq over WMDs. (Ironically, in this book, Saddam tries to nuke France in 2006) 3. Carr does an interesting thing by writing a sci-fi book that sounds Victorian. 4. His beginning themes of capitalism gone amuck are interesting, despite their misguided nature. What does he do wrong? 1. There is little or no character development. Even our main character is minimally fleshed out. He joins a group of anti-information age terrorists with little or no qualms, despite the fact that ...

The Mother Tongue: English and How It Got That Way by Bill Bryson

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I was so thrilled with this book - at least I was at first... I borrowed The Mother Tongue from my mom - I picked it up off of the shelf and after reading the first 3 or 4 pages I knew that I had to finish it. So, I borrowed the book and was happy with it and its light and humorous telling of the long and occasionally tortured history of the English language. But... Bill Bryson. Photo by Wes Washington. the mistakes and problems started to pile up. Bryson illustrates a lot of his points by showing the reader how other languages had similar developments. Most often he uses French and German, which is appropriate considering their close ties to English. On occasion, though, he uses Spanish, which is something that I am sensitive to since I teach Spanish. Mr. Bryson's assertions about Spanish accents and pronunciation were wrong more often than right. Too bad Mr. Bryson did not have a Spanish speaker actually pronounce a few of the words for him so he coul...

What's So Great About America by Dinesh D'Souza

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Fantastic! Originally published in 2002. D'Souza starts Whats So Great About Americ a with a thorough indictment of America. In a 30 page chapter entitled "Why They Hate Us" he honestly and thoroughly lays out all of the arguments about why America is reviled by so many. By the end of the chapter the reader begins to wonder if there really is anything so great about America. The balance of the book is spent answering every charge leveled in the first chapter. I have rarely read a book on contemporary politics in which I agree so thoroughly with his analyses. I may be just a high school history teacher but I do a lot of thinking about history and a lot of reading. The big ideas such as those of Locke, Rousseau and Jefferson fascinate me and I like to think about what their philosophies mean for us if implemented in the real world. D'Souza's comments on the West being an inheritance from both Athens and Jerusalem (pp. 60-61) closely mirror a concl...

Feathered Serpent: A Novel of the Mexican Conquest by Colin Falconer

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Very good, wonderful historical detail Hernan Cortes (1485-1547) In my mind, the Aztecs have been short-changed by modern authors. There has not been enough attention to them and their interesting story. And Cortes! If ever anyone should get high marks for having ambition and bravery in spades, it's him. Anyway, the historical details are well done in the book. Falconer almost makes you feel like you are there with the Spanish as the arrive at the Aztec city of Tenochtitlan. He has created a multi-dimensional Cortes, rather than the stereotypical 'evil conqueror' Cortes (although, at the end I lost the feel for Cortes - I don't know if Falconer lost interest or he also lost his feel for the man). In most books and texts Cortes is portrayed as a gold-crazed, land-crazed conqueror - but his motivations are far more complex - including a complete disgust with the Mesoamerica's fascination with human sacrifice and the cannibalistic consumption of t...

Byzantium by Stephen R. Lawhead

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The best description that I have for this book is that it is like a roller coaster Originally published in 1996. Why is it like a roller coaster? A roller coaster is slow when it starts out and climbs that first big hill. Byzantium is also slow while Lawhead lays the groundwork and has the reader join with an enterprising group of 13 monks from Ireland and Britain that head off for a pilgrimage to Constantinople. Like a roller coaster, once this book finally gets moving (around page 90 or so) the pace never stops and the reader is drawn into a wonderful world and is exposed to four cultures (Irish, Viking, Byzantine, Arab), as the main character is taken into slavery, lives the life of luxury, suffers from religious doubt, climbs to the heights of faith, fights corruption, is betrayed, and also travels the world in a whirlwind fashion. This wonderful story, based on a composite of Irish monks from the 9th and 10th centuries, is a joy to read. Bravo! This is my first Lawhea...

Black Cadillac (DVD)

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Pretty good small budget movie While not the best movie I've ever seen, this movie does what it sets out to do - draw the viewer in for some thriller action. 2 friends and a little brother have travelled to Wisconsin for an evening of booze and girls at a backwoods bar in the winter. After a barroom brawl a 1950s Cadillac menaces them and eventually persues them - but our 3 protagonists have no idea why. Randy Quaid as the local yokel good ol' boy sheriff is the only actor you're likely to recognize but, in my mind, young, pez-consuming Josh Hammond steals the show The guys in the cadillac I am unwilling to be a spoilersport, so I won't go into great details, but you can imagine the tension that develops with car chases in the winter on twisty country roads, a hitchhiking sheriff in the backseat spouting off platitudes and asking pointed questions and a general feeling that things are spinning out of control make the movie work. The DVD commentary is intere...

Witch Hunt: A History of Persecution by Nigel Cawthorne

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Good information but told in a repetitious manner that wore this reader down A witch burning Cawthorne's Witch Hunt: A History of Persecution is a recounting of the witch hunt craze that infected not only Salem, Massachussets, a topic with which most Americans have a least a passing familiarity, but throughout Europe to a much, much larger degree. The back of the back says that this book "...examines this persecution and the religious hysteria which inspired it." To me the use of the word examination implies that the author will interpret this hysteria and make observations and insights throughout the reading . Cawthorne does not do anything close to this, with the exception of a brief, four page introduction. Rather, he recounts witch trial after witch trial, often going into great detail about the tortures used and the indictments brought against the accused witches. While this is an impressive bit of research, the book felt half-done. It was as ...

An Open Letter on Translating (Kindle) by Martin Luther

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A piece of history, yet still accessible I should note that I am a lifelong Lutheran and Martin Luther is one of my personal heroes, despite his numerous and many flaws. An Open Letter on Translating is a September, 1530 letter to Luther's critics concerning his translation of the Bible from Latin into German. This was very controversial at the time and it led to a lot of disagreement (even wars) over who should be allowed to read the Bible and who should interpret its meaning. Martin Luther (1483-1546) Luther defends his translation in his very best combative style. He correctly notes that not all turns of phrases translate literally from one language to another. He notes, along with a liberal dose of insulting names for his opponents, that he and his team of translators did a lot of research and took great care to make his translation accessible and accurate. What is perhaps most amazing is that this document is amazingly readable for anyone conversant with the iss...

Coal Black Horse by Robert Olmstead

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 "It is a tale ... full of sound and fury; signifying nothing." -Shakespeare The above quote tells quite a bit about Olmstead's Coal Black Horse . It is garnish and flair, it is pretty words and gruesome descriptions of the horrors of war, but it is a story without a point, except to say that life is without value and, eventually, someone will end yours and it will all be over. Olmstead borrows heavily from the styles of Howard Bahr and Stephen Crane to create this book. From  The Red Badge of Courage he borrows the stylistic device of never quite letting the reader what battlefields or locations the book is set in - that is until he suddenly tells you that it's in Gettysburg. How Robey avoids tens of thousands Confederate soldiers stacked up along the Potomac River (they massed there for days waiting for flood waters to go down) is a mystery to me. Why Olmstead decides to tell the reader the battlefield at that moment is a mystery as well. Fr...

On the Decay of the Art of Lying (kindle) by Mark Twain

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Not Twain's best work. Twain (1835-1910) says that On the Decay of the Art of Lying was an essay written in 1885 for a $30 prize for the "Historical and Antiquarian Club of Hartford". Twain notes that he did not win a prize for this essay. The essay focuses on the lost art of lying. Twain discusses different kinds of lies, situations in which people lie and why all lies are not bad. The essay is sometimes funny but mostly sounds like an old stand up routine about good lies and bad lies. The Kindle version is very short - only 86 locations which equals about 12 regular pages. I rate this essay 3 stars out of 5. This book can be found on Amazon.com here: On the Decay of the Art of Lying by Mark Twain. Reviewed on May 28, 2009.

Old Testament Legends being stories out of some of the less-known apochryphal books of the old testament (Kindle) by M.R. James

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Sometimes interesting, mostly tedious   M.R. James has collected additional stories from the Old Testament era. None of these is included in the canon books. These are not stories from the Apocrypha but even more stories. In times past, some churches actually treated some of these stories as scripture. According to M.R. James, some of these are quite ancient and some are newer. The stories are arranged chronologically and feature Adam, Eve, Cain, Abraham, Job, Joseph ,Jeremiah and Solomon. A new, non-Biblical character is Ahiker, advisor to the King of the Chaldeans. The stories about Adam and Eve mostly concern how they deal with being sent from the Garden of Eden. The story of Job is a re-telling of his book in the Bible, but it is more satisfying than the original. M.R. James (1862-1936) The story of Solomon is very bizarre. Solomon uses a ring to control demons in order to build the Temple. Abraham gets a lot of attention in these stories and we get to read storie...

Some Rambling Notes of an Idle Excursion (Kindle edition) by Mark Twain

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Story of a trip by Mark Twain to Bermuda - starts fairly weak and ends strong Mark Twain (1835-1910) The title of this essay has it right - these are just a series of stories about a trip that Twain and some friends took to Bermuda from New York City. Twain wrote this for "The Atlantic" in 1877 and his wry style makes him an excellent travel companion. In reality, Twain's story of the trip is the story of the people he meets along the way. Most of the stories are humorous, some are duds and about an equal number are quite funny. I won't forget the story about the town with the cat situation for quite a while. Twain on Bermuda: " We never met a man, or woman, or child anywhere in this sunny island who seemed to be unprosperous, or discontented, or sorry about anything. This sort of monotony became very tiresome presently, and even something worse. The spectacle of an entire nation groveling in contentment is an infuriating thing ....