Loser's Town (David Spandau #1) by Daniel Depp

A look at Hollywood from an insider's point of view

Published in 2009 by Simon & Schuster.
290 pages.

Daniel Depp knows his way around Hollywood - he is a screenwriter and his brother is famed actor Johnny Depp (a fact I did not know until after I read the book). Loser's Town features David Spandau, a former stuntman turned private detective. Spandau is jaded and definitely not impressed with the Hollywood movie scene.

Spandau is called back from vacation to take a case involving Bobby Dye, an up and coming new star on the verge of making it to the pinnacle of the Hollywood scene. But, he's receiving death threats and, more importantly, is being blackmailed. Spandau has to deal with greedy agents, flighty actors and an on again / off again relationship with his client throughout as he tracks clues through the ugly underbelly of the Hollywood scene.

The book's title comes from a Robert Mitchum quote: "I came out to Los Angeles in the 30s, during the Depression, because there was work here. LA is a loser's town. It always has been. You can make it here when you can't make it anywhere else." This quote sets the tone for the entire book. It is dark, cynical and nihilistic. For me, it was too much. This was not a particularly enjoyable book, although the behind-the-scenes of the movie business aspect was interesting - in the beginning. But, the relentless nature of the book comes off more as petty complaining and trying to air out showbiz's dirty laundry and less about trying to move the plot along.

I rate this book 2 stars out of 5.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: Loser's Town: A David Spandau Novel.

Reviewed on January 17, 2012.

LeMay: The Life and Wars of General Curtis LeMay by Warren Kozak

Very readable history

Paperback edition published in October 2011 by Regnery History
392 pages of text. 434 pages total.

Kozak was inspired to write LeMay: The Life and Wars of General Curtis LeMay by a quote from a college lecturer: "You might not agree with his politics, but if you have a son serving in combat, you want him serving under someone like LeMay." (p. 389) Personally, LeMay has always been a caricature of a general in the periphery of the story the World War II histories and pieces of historical fiction I have read. Kozak does a masterful job of dragging LeMay into the spotlight and showing us the man, not just a caricature or a non-entity on the sidelines.

General Curtis LeMay (1906-1990)

Kozak tells of LeMay's hardscrabble childhood, his determination and his ability to maneuver in an impersonal bureaucracy, be it Ohio State University or the United States Army - he could always find the way up. In a way, the story of LeMay in the Air Force is the story of the Air Force itself. He joined long before it split from the Army, he learned to fly in a bi-plane and ended up promoting the construction of supersonic jet bombers while advising the President. Along the way, he pioneered the bombing methods used by America against Germany and Japan. He also participated in the Berlin Air Lift, strengthened the Strategic Air Command and in a limited way he participated in the Korean War, the Bay of Pigs, the Cuban Missile Crisis and the Vietnam War.

As a devotee of the Bomber, LeMay advocated mass bombings under the theory that says: "If you kill enough of them, they stop fighting." Hard to argue with that blunt logic. And, blunt is exactly the word to describe LeMay - almost completely lacking in social graces, but willing to be the lead pilot in a bombing raid in order to convince his men that his plan would work - after he had done the math to make sure it would work.

Kozak is clearly a fan of LeMay but that does not stop him from being critical, especially of his decision to run for president with George Wallace in 1968 as a Dixiecrat. He explores it all and leaves the reader impressed. LeMay, coming from nothing to command a vast armada of bombers - a man without nuance or subtlety who mastered America's most complex weapons systems and helped to create the Air Force and the Strategic Air Command.

I give this enjoyable, very readable biography 5 stars out of 5.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: LeMay.

Reviewed on January 16, 2012.

Superman: True Brit by Kim "Howard" Johnson and John Cleese

I found this and hoped for something that it was not

Now, I'm not going to hold the fact that I did not read the cover very carefully against the book - that's my fault, not the book's.

I was hoping for something a bit more serious, like Millar's Red Son in which Superman is raised in the USSR rather than in the USA.


But, this book is a tongue-in-cheek take on Superman, based on the premise that he landed in Kent in England, rather than Kansas, USA. Co-written by Monty Python contributers (it doesn't seem quite right to call John Cleese a mere contributor), this is an irreverant look at English culture, government and media - Superman is merely the medium used to deliver these scathing attacks.

A lot of the book deals with how normal people react to someone with super powers. Unfortunately, much of this ground was covered by Pixar's The Incredibles (both The Incredibles and True Brit were released in 2004) and even, to a lesser (and darker) extent by Frank Miller's first Dark Knight series.

The real lesson in this book is that good parents are very important. Superman's English parents can't hold a candle to Superman's traditional American parents.

The art of this one is a real strength - it reminded me very much of the vivid, clean lines of the Superman comics that I read when I was a kid.

So, mixed scores: Strong art, the Superman story is sacrificed for the jokes, but they are good jokes, no new ground covered when it comes to regular people's reactions to Super Heroes...

This one gets 3 out of 5 stars from me.

This graphic novel can be found on Amazon.com here: Superman: True Brit.

Reviewed on June 15, 2007.

The Eagle and the Raven by James Michener

Published in 1991 by Tor.

The Eagle and the Raven is an odd effort in many ways. Coming in at just 211 pages of text (plus about 20 pages of appendices), this is a tiny Michener book. It is even more tiny when you consider that 28 pages of this book is a forward by Michener and about 20 pages of the book are taken up with blank pages between chapters and illustrations.

This Michener paperback was published in 1991 by Tor, a publishing house best known for its sci-fi and fantasy offerings. I would imagine that they just wanted to cash in on the Michener name since he was in the midst of a real hit streak with such books as Alaska, Caribbean and Poland becoming best-sellers.

Tor calls this book a novel, although only a few pages really qualify as a novel, with inserted character dialogue that was most likely created by Michener. The rest of it is really best described as a comparative biography. While not the best of historical works, "The Eagle and the Raven" provides a comparison between Sam Houston of Tennessee and Texas and Santa Anna of Mexico. This is not a detailed biography by any means. I found myself wishing that he had went into a lot more detail, especially with the Mexican political situation.

James Michener (1907-1997)

Michener's forward to the book describes how and why he seemed to re-double his efforts as an author as he reached his eighties. In many ways, this is the most interesting portion of the book, especially if you are a Michener fan. In this forward the reader discovers that this book was actually a discarded chapter from his earlier book, Texas. He did something similar with a discarded chapter from Alaska.

It would be fair to say that Michener did not give this chapter the same editorial treatment that he gave Texas. Two factual errors jumped out at me as I read it - usually Michener and his editors catch them. Michener incorrectly attributes the eagle motiff on the Mexican flag to a Mayan legend (actually it was Aztec) and he claims Mexico was the first country in the New World to abolish slavery (it was Haiti). A little more editing would have eliminated the tiny amount of fiction that Michener inserted into the text (about 5 pages of conversation in a section at the end of the book) and Michener could have published this one as a dual biography rather than as a novel.

I give this book 3 stars out of 5. 

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: The Eagle and the Raven by James Michener.
  
Reviewed on June 11, 2007.

Days of Obligation: An Argument With My Mexican Father (audiobook) by Richard Rodriguez

Rodriguez writes a rambling, insightful and interesting work

Published by Blackstone Audio in 2008.

Read by Michael Anthony.
Duration: 8 hours, 14 minutes.

Unabridged.

I first learned of Richard Rodriguez on C-Span's Booknotes program. He was an invited guest of First Lady Laura Bush to speak at an author's fair that she started hosting in Texas while she was the First Lady of Texas. Rodriguez was promoting his book Brown at the the time and I thought his observations were wonderful.

Days of Obligations is in a similar vein, but not nearly as focused. He does (primarily) focus on the differences between Mexico and the United States Two interesting observations from Mexicans about America include: 1) "America is 'Organized'. Passive voice. Rodriguez notes that there seems to be no connection that actual Americans do the organizing. Rather it's almost like it is fate that America is organized. 2) Americans have too much freedom.

Rodriguez digresses from his Mexico/America discussion for an interesting (but off topic) discussion about the gay lifestyle in San Francisco. Perhaps it was meant to be a comparison between Mexicans moving into California and San Francisco's transformation into a beacon for homosexuals. If so, it was poorly correlated, although interesting nonetheless.

Richard Rodriguez

His observations on multiculturalism are very interesting. Rodriguez is a hard man to pin down politically. He is a walking dichotomy. Gay. Devoted Catholic. Mexican, but barely speaks Spanish. American, but feels that he is different. 

He looks at school to be the ultimate "de-individualizer" in American society, and that is not entirely bad. He believes that there needs to be a common understanding in society - we all have a common culture if we live in the United States, even if we prefer to ignore it. For example, he stresses the importance of the studying the Founding Fathers: "These were the men that shaped the country that shaped my life." He stresses that point off and on throughout the book - the United States shaped his life, Mexico shaped his parents' lives, and even though they brought Mexico with them in their hearts, he did not buy into it - he was shaped much more by America.

Rodriguez's observations on multiculturalism in the Catholic church and Protestant vs. Catholic (in attitude, worship style, individual vs. communal, even musical themes) take up nearly an hour of the audio edition - but it may be the most interesting hour of all.

Rodriguez is a skilled and experienced public speaker (regular duty on PBS plus book tours) so I have to wonder why he did not read his own book. The reader, Michael Anthony, did a great job with accents (primarily Irish and Mexican) and the spoken Spanish was solid so I have no complaints, but still...I enjoyed hearing Rodriguez speak for himself when I first heard of him at that book fair on C-Span that I could not help but be a bit disappointed.

I give this one 5 stars out of 5. Well worth a read, or in my case, a listen while driving to work. Lots of thoughts about immigration, Mexico, religion - and true to Rodriguez's form, no real answers. But, the discussion is worth the time and Rodriguez can turn a phrase quite nicely.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: Days of Obligation.

Eragon (Inheritance, Book 1) by Christopher Paolini

A pleasant enough read but Paolini seriously needs to send an apology to George Lucas...

Originally published in 2003.

I enjoyed the book but I kept on thinking that I've read this book before. No, I'm not talking about the obvious debt Paolini owes the Tolkein and also to the "Dragonriders of Pern" series.

I'm talking Star Wars: Episode IV: A New Hope or plain old Star Wars to all of us old-timers.

Both feature an orphaned teenage farm boy, left with his uncle under mysterious circumstances that no one wants to discuss.

The uncle dies when dangerous outsiders come looking for the boy.

Luke Skywalker has the Force. Eragon has magic.

Both Luke and Eragon are watched over by strange older men who eventually provide them with their first weapon - the very weapon that wiped out a set of good knights in the name of an evil emperor.  In both stories, the strange older man character teaches them a type of magic and how to fight.

The older man dies.

Eragon frees a girl from a castle with the help of that wanted-by-the-law Rogue Murtagh. Luke frees a girl from the Death Star with the help of that wanted-by-the-law rogue Han Solo.

The Emperor uses magic to turn a dragonrider to kill off all of the good dragonriders. The Emperor uses the Force to turn a Jedi Knight to kill off all of the good Jedi Knight.

Are there more comparisons? Surely there are but my point has been made.

I rate this book 4 stars out of 5.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: Eragon.

Reviewed on May 29, 2007.

Update: This book was placed on a "banned books" list in Texas in the 2022-2023 school year. Ugh. 

In the Fullness of Time: A Historian Looks at Christmas, Easter, and the Early Church by Paul L. Maier

Published by Kregel Publications in 1998.
384 pages

Paul Maier is a truly gifted lecturer. I've had the pleasure of watching two of his videos and if I lived anywhere near Western Michigan University, I'd sneak into the back of his classroom (he is a member of the history faculty there) on a regular basis - he has a gift for making the First Century A.D. accessible.

In the Fullness of Time continues this tradition. Maier has basically consolidated 3 other books into one larger volume (with a few changes) and he discusses the first Christmas, the first Easter and the ministries of the early Apostles, especially Paul and Peter.

Dr. Paul Maier

Maier does a great job of bringing actual documentation that supports the stories of Christmas, Easter and the Book of Acts. He includes the works of Roman and Jewish historians, explains Roman and Jewish religious and political practices and deals with alternate theories that have been proposed. While this could be dry reading, Maier makes it lively and this volume reads more like a novel than a textbook.

So, who is this book for? If you are a well-read Christian who has looked into many of the facts that back the New Testament as it is written on your own, you won't find much new ground covered in this book. The internet has lots of this information scattered about. However, you are unlikely to find sources as concise and as well-written as this one. Plus, if you are interested in further research, it is well-documented with tons of footnotes.

If you are a new Christian or are newly interested in the history behind Christianity, this is a powerful introduction.

I give this one 5 stars out of 5.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: In the Fullness of Time: A Historian Looks at Christmas, Easter, and the Early Church by Paul L. Maier.

Reviewed on May 14, 2007.

Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln by Doris Kearns Goodwin

Published in 2005 by Simon and Schuster
944 pages
 
"No harm's done to history by making it something someone would want to read." -David McCullough

When I read a history book I realize that there multiple types of history books out there. Setting aside the ones that are designed to distort history (such as holocaust denier literature) there are still several styles of history book. They range from the small topical books that offer a brief overview to the more popular histories such as those that David McCollough specializes to definitive works - the type of work that others will refer back to for decades to come.

Doris Kearns Goodwin's Team of Rivals is just such a definitive work. It checks in at 754 pages of text with more than a hundred pages of 8 font footnotes. It took her 10 years to produce this book and it is a work of which she can be proud. It is exhaustively researched and documented.

However, that is also the problem with the book. It is so large, so thorough that only the heartiest of readers will ever finish it. There are so many details, so many quotes, so much substance to this book that it gets tiring to read, especially the middle 500 pages or so. I started this book in January and I finished it the last week of April. In the meantime, I read 12 other books and many magazines. I never stopped reading this one, but so many other books pulled me away from this one along the way.

Unlike the McCollough books (or Stephen Ambrose or James McPherson or Bruce Catton), the level of detail overwhelms the reader. A valuable resource to refer back to but just not the stuff that popular histories are made from.

Lincoln's Cabinet - 1861

So, I'm giving this one multiple grades:

Research, thoroughness: A+
Readability, high level of interest to the average history buff: C+
Final Grade: B+

A suggestion: It would have been instructive to have gone into more detail and tell more about how Lincoln's "Team" collapsed with under President Andrew Johnson. She briefly touches on it, but bit more would have been interesting. Perhaps another volume?

I rate this book 5 stars out of 5.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln

Reviewed on April 30, 2007.

Great Tales from English History: Volume II. Chaucer to the Glorious Revolution (audiobook) by Robert Lacey

A Real Treat As An Audiobook

Published by Whole Story Audio Books
Read by the author, Robert Lacey
Duration: 5 hours, 50 minutes
Unabridged

Robert Lacey has done something that many writers have failed to do (unfortunately) - he has written history in a fun, accessible, easy to grasp manner. After all, as Lacey points out in his introduction to Volume 1, the "history" and "story" come from the same Latin root word. Essentially, history should be the simple story of how things happened, to the best of the teller's knowledge.

Geoffrey Chaucer (1343-1400)

Lacey's power as a storyteller is highlighted here in spades. He narrates his audiobook as well so there is the added bonus of hearing the author add nuance to the reading - essentially reading it the way he meant it to be heard.

The stories are short and entertaining. Only a couple of times in nearly six hours of listening did I find my attention wandering. This is a terrifically fun experience for any history lover. Full of interesting tidbits but not lacking in the larger themes or commentaries.

I am going to look for volume 3 and hopefully he has written or is writing his promised volumes on Scotland and Ireland as well.

Bravo!

I give this one an enthusiastic 5 stars out of 5.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: Great Tales from English History. (Note: I was unable to find the audiobook on Amazon, but I did find multiple version and combinations of these stories. The link goes to a 3 volume book collection.)

Reviewed on April 18, 2007.

Michener's the Name by Robert Vavra

A chance to get to know a bit of Michener's personality

Published in 2007 by University Press of Colorado
208 pages.

I am a huge fan of Michener's sweeping epics. Some look at those gigantic books as drudgery, but that is only because they have not opened one up and read it. I've read all but two - I own them but I'm saving them back like a wine connoisseur would save back a couple of his favorites. I know these books will be great and I know that once I read them there will be no more new Micheners for me.

James Michener
(1907-1997)

Vavra's book focuses on their mutual interest in Spain and Spanish culture, especially bullfighting, Spanish dance and the Spanish countryside. Vavra met several famous authors, actors and personalities while in Spain in the 1960s. He mentions them, but it rarely acquires the character of a name-dropping book. Mostly, he uses those others as a point of comparison to Michener, and Michener comes off very well in the comparison. Never flashy, sometimes socially awkward, oftentimes astute, Michener is a friend to great and small alike. He seems to have been able to keep his head despite the fame and fortune. Perhaps that is because, unlike Hemingway, Michener never sought the limelight. He did not shrink from it, but he did not seek it.

Two-thirds of the book consists of Vavra's black and white photographs of Spain and/or Michener. This is appropriate considering that Vavra is an internationally famous photographer. The text is just as strong as the pictures, just surprisingly short. But, then again, maybe not. After all, this book is not intended to be a complete biography of Michener. Rather, it is the collected remembrances of one of his friends and the good times they had together.

I rate this book 4 stars out of 5.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: Michener's the Name.

Reviewed on April 18, 2007.

Captured! A Boy Trapped in the Civil War by Mary Blair Immel

Published in 2005 by the Indiana Historical Society.
153 pages

Based on a true story, and full of relevant historical photographs, Captured! A Boy Trapped in the Civil War fails to deliver on action in many ways which will make it less attractive to the 10-14 year old (estimated) target audience..

Camp Morton in Indianapolis

It concerns a 14 year old boy named Johnny Ables who was captured by Confederate soldiers and pressed into service as a wood hauler. Ironically, those Confederate soldiers are themselves taken prisoner and Johnny is mistaken as a young Confederate soldier and is sent to prison camp (Camp Morton) in Indianapolis.

Although it will find a place on my classroom's bookshelf, I can only give this short volume 3 stars out of 5.


This book can be found on Amazon.com here: Captured! A Boy Trapped in the Civil War.

Reviewed on April 17, 2007

A Princess of Mars (Barsoom/John Carter of Mars #1) by Edgar Rice Burroughs

A Classic Sci-Fi Novel

Originally published 1912 in a magazine serial. (1917 in book form)

Since the movie John Carter is coming out in a couple of months I decided to go back and re-read the original of the 11 books that Burroughs wrote about Mars (or, as he calls it, Barsoom).

The Whelen cover.

I originally read the entire series, or at least most of it, nearly 30 years ago, when I was in high school. I must admit, I was struck by the art of Michael Whelen's cover more than anything else when I first picked it up and my circle of friends read at least some of them.

I remembered them fondly but found myself very vague on the specifics. I remembered the Princess was very beautiful and there were multiple races on Mars and that some had four arms and that Carter, a former Confederate soldier, traveled from Earth to Mars in some kind of psychic manner and that there was a lot of fighting.

Turns out, what I took as a poor memory was actually pretty accurate. The Princess is beautiful, there are multiple races of Martians and the green Martians have four arms and Carter does travel to Mars in some sort of psychic way. I had totally forgotten that it happens while he is being hunted by a group of Apache in Arizona at the time, but that really is not germane to the rest of the story.

Edgar Rice Burroughs (1875-1950)

The story is supposed to be the writings of John Carter himself (who is ageless and cannot remember his childhood). Carter told his nephew not to publish it until he had been dead for 21 years. The plot is mostly Carter's descriptions of his adventures told in first person with little conversation. There are lots and lots of battle scenes since Mars is a very violent place. Then again, Earth is not much better with Carter making a name for himself in the Civil War and in the first few pages being involved in a running battle with the Apache.

Short on character development and long on description and action, A Princess of Mars was not as good as I remembered it but I am very impressed with Burroughs and his imagination. In a time before science fiction was a normal part of the national psyche, he created an entirely new world, peopled it with aliens with new customs, languages and animals and made the world work in an interesting way. Some of his science is rather silly (the generator that creates the Martian atmosphere comes to mind), but it is a classic and a trendsetter.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: A Princess of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs.

I rate this novel 4 stars out of 5.

Reviewed on January 8, 2012.

Why Men Hate Going to Church (Completely Revised and Updated) by David Murrow

Powerful and dead on.

Published 2011 by Thomas Nelson
237 pages, including end notes.

David Murrow has put a lot of thought into why men do not go to church. I am in my mid-40s and have gone to church all of my life, with the exception of 2 or 3 years right after college where my wife and I went every once in a while at best.  We have been at the same church for 18 years.

We have a great church but we do have wives that come to church without their husbands week in and week out - not many, but after reading this book and being made more aware of the issue I am sure I will notice more. Murrow has studied and interviewed and talked and listened about this topic for years and he has come up with 12 reasons that men do not come to church. Among them are:

-I'll hate church, like when I was a kid;

-I'll lose control;

-If I become a Christian, I'll become soft;

-Church is full of hypocrites;

-All they want is my money;

-I'm jealous (women who idolize the pastor or men resenting the time their wives spend at church);

-I'm being held to an impossible standard.

I've heard all of these excuses (and more) for not going to church and I've had those thoughts myself so I got it when Murrow discusses these topics. Sometimes he even brought up things that I hadn't even realized I was bothered by, such as songs and church language that emphasize "relationship and romance" (p. 99) Men, if you have not noticed, are notoriously clutzy, as a group, with relationships. Don't talk about being intimate with Jesus. Not a comfortable image for most guys. Instead, give men a mission (like the old Blues Brothers movie where Jake and Elwood tell everyone they "are on a mission from God.").

The problem is that church, like school, has gradually become an environment run by women, maintained by women and very female-centric. It is highly verbal, lots of talk about relatioships, full of songs that Murrow refers to as "Jesus is my boyfriend" songs (he fulfills your every emotional need and holds you in his arms). The largest Christian music radio network is K-Love. My wife loves it. I don't. She ought to love it - it is aimed at a mythical listener named "Kathy" - a thirty-something soccer mom with two kids, a minivan and a mortgage. 2/3 of K-Love listeners are women and a whole lot of their songs are soft rock "Jesus is my boyfriend" stuff. (pages 66-7) 

Men feel like they are not welcome by the decor, the songs, the style of service and the lack of things they can do to participate. Who wants to stay where they are not welcome?

I am a public school teacher. I can testify to the fact that boys and girls tend to learn differently. Church (and the sermon) is the weekly chance to teach men and women about the Christian faith. Do not make this experience all "girl friendly" and leave out many (but not all) men because the church favors one gender's way of doing things (Murrow actually presents statistics that show that women stay and enjoy church even if it really tilted towards a man's way of thinking).

Murrow provides lots of examples of what to do and what not to do, including success stories (including one from a church led by a female pastor - statistically the worst indicator of male involvement). I was excited by the chapter entitled "How Men Minister to Others" - lots of great ideas. It made me think about how two of our most active leaders were motivated to become more involved by mens' retreats. One really did not want to go, but he came back all fired up because he found out there were regular guys at church who drink beer while they study the Bible (yes, we do, but only on the mens' retreat) and he has organized and participated in any number of activities (as well as being an Elder). The second guy I was thinking about went on a weekend servant event (I went, too) - we helped a family re-do their home after a devestating flood (this event was organized by the first guy I was talking about) and had a couple of small Bible studies, played some cards, and had a real good time when we were not working. I enjoyed it but the second guy was inspired to really get involved and he has not slowed down a bit.

My wife is reading this book next (I talked about it while I was reading it) and we're passing it on to others in our church. Who knows what will happen?

The book has an accompanying discussion guide available at Murrow's website: http://www.churchformen.com/ .

I rate this book 5 stars out of 5.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: Why Men Hate Going to Church.

Reviewed on January 6, 2011.

I received this book as part of Thomas Nelson's BookSneeze program in exchange for an honest review.

The Politically Incorrect Guide to the British Empire (P.I.G. Series) by H. W. Crocker III

A breezy look at a worthy topic

Published in 2011 by Regnery Publishing, Inc.
394 pages including extensive notes and an index.

Generally intended as an antidote to the slanted education that many of us have received, the Politically Incorrect Guide (P.I.G.) series is an entertaining series loosely based on the "Idiots Guide..." and the "Dummies..." books.

The Politically Incorrect Guide to the British Empire is an immensely readable look at the British Empire - it's origins, its ideals, its controversies and its rather abrupt ending after World War II. The format of the book is pretty simple. Crocker picks an area of the British Empire and than gives a brief (15-25 pages) history of the Empire in that part of the world, from beginning to end. Then, he focuses on several of the personalities mentioned in the brief history with biographies that go into greater detail.

Sir Francis Drake (1540-1596)

Those personalities are way more interesting than bland descriptions of policy edicts issued from the Lord such-and-such from the Ministry of This-and-that. The focus on the men that made the Empire makes this an interesting book from one end to the other. I especially enjoyed Sir Francis Drake, Sir Henry Morgan and General Charles George Gordon. Throw in sidebar articles with titles like "Nearly 1,000 Englishman against more than 55,000 soldiers of the nawab of Bengal = advantage England", "Kipling on the American War of Ingratitude - er, Independence" and "Films about British Africa That Anti-Colonialists Don't Want You to See" and you have the recipe for an entertaining, surprisingly breezy book that gives an interesting counter-argument to the crowd that argues that Western colonization ruined the world.

The question is, does the argument succeed? Was the British Empire a positive force for good? Is it like the front cover says: "Three cheers for colonialism!"

Well, yes and no. Did the British Empire spread the ideas of free speech, democracy, rights and responsible government around the world? Certainly. This book champions those notions and makes a series of strong arguments. But, rarely it is asked, "But, at what cost?" I can be certain that if I lived in Africa and if I were going to be colonized by a European power, I would want it to have been the British Empire. By far, they were the most humane, most generous and did their best to impart their ideals to their subjects. The proof is in the relative success of the former British colonies compared to the former colonies of other European powers. But, the caveat here is "If I were going to be colonized..." I would prefer not, thanks just the same.

But, this is a worthy counterpoint to the stuff that is dribbled out in most college classes (I took a few myself - "everything from the West is evil" , blah, blah, blah.) Read that stuff, read this book and you have a more realistic idea of what happened - everything was not evil, nor was it all wonderful. Like most things, Western colonization was a mixed bag. Colonization can be generally listed as a bad thing, but one can be certain that the British colonies, as a group, got a much better deal than the other colonies.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: The Politically Incorrect Guide to the British Empire.

I rate this book 4 stars out of 5.

Reviewed on January 6, 2012

The Swamp Fox of the Revolution (Landmark Books) by Stewart Holbrook

A bit of nostalgia

Published 1959 by Random House
180 pages

Many, many years ago Random House published a series of more than 100 books called "Landmark Books". These were short histories of a little more than 150 pages that were long on action and short on historical analysis.

Nevertheless, these were this history teacher's first introduction to written history. The library in Hope, Indiana had a whole shelf of these books and I happily read about Daniel Boone and the Alamo and John Paul Jones. I happened across this one at a middle school library clearance.

The book delivers as I remember - lots of action and not much into the motivations of Francis Marion and the others who hid in the swamps of South Carolina with him and fought the British Army. That's okay, though. It's aimed at middle schoolers/upper elementary students and they don't care much for analysis anyway. Better to get them an appealing taste of history and let the whys and the wherefores fill themselves in later on.

I give this book 4 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: The Swamp Fox of the Revolution (Landmark Books) by Stewart Holbrook.

Reviewed on April 17, 2007.

My Best Friend, Abe Lincoln: A Tale of Two Boys from Indiana by Robert L. Bloch.

A fun introduction to American history for young children

Published June 2011 by Big Tent Books
Illustrations by John W. Ewing
32 pages


My Best Friend, Abe Lincoln is a children's book (ages 5-8) that creates a fictional account of the adventures of Abraham Lincoln and his best friend as a child in southern Indiana. The best friend, Sam Harding, is entirely made up (as the book makes clear) but the story is based on known details of Lincoln's childhood (for example, Lincoln called the school of his sparse formal education a "blab" school and this book does too) and includes details that would have been common to almost all children of the frontier.

The illustrations should be very approachable to all children since the illustrator, John Ewing, is a former Disney illustrator and he uses a familiar Disney-esque style with his characters. I thought his interpretation of young Lincoln's face was interesting - I had never considered how Lincoln's distinctive, weathered face would have looked as a young man.

The book touches on young Lincoln's love of books, story-telling and introduces the idea of slavery and why he was against it. Young Sam Harding moves to Ohio after his Indiana family farm failed and the young friends say goodbye. The last few pages talk about Sam hearing about Abe Lincoln in the Lincoln-Douglass debates and very briefly covers the Civil War.

Several pages that have no specific illustrations have an interesting background: the text of the Gettysburg Address. I recommend this for kids that have interest in history. Also, this would be a great addition to any classroom library or school library.

I rate this book 5 stars out of 5.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: My Best Friend, Abe Lincoln.

Reviewed on January 4, 2012.

Taft 2012 by Jason Heller

A little book about a big man (Would you like a little sci-fi with your politics?)

Published by Quirk Books in January of 2012.
248 pages.

Okay, let's get the ridiculous part of  the book out of the way. Yes, Taft 2012 is based entirely on a silly premise: What if William Howard Taft disappeared from history the day Wilson was inaugurated and arrived in the year 2011 and fired up everyone's imagination to run for president again in 2012? But, setting that aside, what if Taft were alive and well today? What would he think of the United States 100 years after it rejected him for his re-election bid?

If you love The Twilight Zone or those Harry Turtledove time-traveling books and you are interested in politics, this one will satisfy.

William Howard Taft (1857-1930)

I liked the book because I liked Heller's characterization of William Howard Taft. It's not hard for this overweight reviewer to sympathize with our fattest president (he got stuck in the presidential bathtub, a fact that embarrasses Heller's interpretation of Taft to no end - he cannot believe that people still remember that about him) who eats when he's under stress. But, Heller makes him understandable, likeable and gets us to sympathize with him. Taft's wonder at modern gadgets is short-lived (although his attempts to use Twitter are funny) but his amazement at the changes in American society such as the clothing, relations between the sexes and the freer interaction among the races continue to throw him throughout the book. At times, Taft is a man adrift, at times he is a man who knows he has been given an extraordinary second chance.

As a groundswell builds for a "draft Taft" to run for president in 2012, Heller introduces the political world and political issues of 2012. His portrayal is a bit simplistic but this is a short book. Taft becomes a single-issue candidate and the issue is not very well explained (giant corporate food interests) except that Taft gets an upset stomach when he eats too much processed food. It's almost as though Heller assumes that everyone is already sold on the issue and they will just go along with him so he makes very little effort to explain except for one creepy scene in a restaurant.

But, this is still an enjoyable book and I am pleased that I started out the New Year by meeting and sharing and adventure with Mr. Taft.



I rate this book 4 stars out of 5.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: Taft 2012: A Novel

Reviewed on January 3, 2012.