Rubicon: The Last Years of the Roman Republic by Tom Holland

Published in 2005 by Anchor

Rubicon: The Last Years of the Roman Republic is a well-written fact-filled narrative interpretation of the end of the Roman Republic. Interpretation? Of course - all history books are the author's interpretation. Holland has his biases, but it does not distract from the power of the book. With the exception of a slow bit in the middle, this is an entertaining read and worthy to sit on the shelf next to other histories of Rome.

I wholeheartedly recommend this one for enthusiasts (his spin on things should pique your interest) and also for newcomers to Roman history. It is a fine springboard for further study.

Tom Holland

That being said, I do have a little bone to pick with the author, on a topic that has little bearing on the text as a whole. On p. 21 (paperback) Holland claims that the Circus Maximus, the chariot racetrack, was the largest sports arena in the world (200,000 spectators) and it still holds that title today. That is an oft-repeated by British authors and documentaries. As an Indianapolis resident I must correct this - the Indianapolis Motor Speedway has permanent seats for more more than 250,000 and more than 400,000 have been known to cram in to the track in May to watch the Indy 500. Around 300,000 come to the Brickyard 400 as well.

I rate this book 4 stars out of 5.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: Rubicon: The Last Years of the Roman Republic.

Reviewed on October 22, 2007.

A Scanner Darkly [Graphic Novel] by Philip K. Dick

I was expecting more

 Published in 2006 by Pantheon

I may be living in a box because I had not heard of this book or the movie before I found the graphic novel. When I saw it was based on a Philip K. Dick book I was hopeful - after all, he is the author of such thought-inducing works as Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep (A.K.A. Blade Runner) and he is the inspiration for The Minority Report and Total Recall (Not that Total Recall is as deep as the other two, but there are some themes that the three share, including a caste system based on birth, be you an android, a mutant or someone who can see the future).

What I hoped would be a thoughtful commentary on the "War on Drugs" and/or the damage that drugs do to the user turned into a rambling work of several episodes in the lives of some druggie pals and the undercover narc officer who has caught himself in the web of addiction. Sometimes funny, usually odd, this book just never lived up to the other Philip K. Dick works mentioned above. It never gelled, it never reached that critical mass where it started to make commentary on the folly of drug use, or the folly of empowering our government to go after users, etc.

Much like its characters, this book never really got off the couch and did anything, despite a series of fits and starts in which I thought that it might finally be going somewhere.

I rate this graphic novel 2 stars out of 5. This graphic novel can be found on Amazon.com here: A Scanner Darkly (graphic novel).

Reviewed on December 13, 2006.

Deogratias, A Tale of Rwanda (graphic novel) by J.P. Stassen

An important tale to be told - unfortunately this one fails to tell it well enough

Published by First Second in 2006.

Deogratias is the name of a young man from Rwanda. The story dances back and forth between pre- and post-1994 massacre Rwanda. Pre-massacre Deogratias is a likeable young man. Post-massacre Deogratias is insane. As one reads this graphic novel one finds out what drove him insane - in a climax that is not all that surprising or shocking (just sad), especially if one knows any of the detail of the Rwanda massacre.

An image from the graphic novel

Great works take the story of one person or group of people in a tragic situation and somehow make their story universal. For example, the Civil War movie Glory is the story of the first all-Black Federal regiment in the Civil War - it is also the story of every soldier - black or white, Union or Confederate. In Saving Private Ryan, the Tom Hanks character epitomizes the average man stuck in a terrible situation doing the best he can and dying in the process.

Deogratias fails to do this. It is too personal. The story is too small. Not to say it isn't important, but rather to say that it fails to become a universal story of the Rwanda tragedy.

My copy of the book has an introduction from Alexis Seigel, the translator. He does an exceptional job of explaining the Rwanda tragedy and its aftermath. I would give his introduction 5 stars.

However, the grade has to go to the graphic novel, not its introduction. So, I give this graphic novel 3 stars out of 5.

This graphic novel can be found on Amazon.com here: Deogratias: A Tale of Rwanda.

Reviewed on December 11, 2006.

This book was listed on a "banned book" list in Florida. Ugh.

And it was put on a book ban list in Tennessee. The article has a searchable database because the list has more than 1,100 unique titles.

The Glory Field by Walter Dean Myers

Published by Scholastic in January of 1994.

The Glory Field is the story of an African-American family and their tie to a piece of land on Curry Island in South Carolina over the course of 250 years.

Reminiscent of the James Michener sagas that follow the same format, The Glory Field is not nearly as detailed or as rich as a Michener selection. However, Michener's primary audience was adults and Myers' intended audience is young adults, most of whom would not have the patience or the courage to pick up a 1,000+ page book.

Myers has broken this book up into a series of six stories, snapshots of the Lewis family throughout nearly 250 years of history. The quality of the stories goes up and down. The 2nd, 3rd and 4th stories are so-so. The first is vivid, strong and way too short. The last two are so strong that, in my mind, they saved the book. I was considering not including it in my classroom library because of the middle stories - they drug along and just didn't have any pizzazz - they were historically accurate - just with no zip.

So, final grade: 4 stars out of 5 (and a place in my classroom library!)

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: The Glory Field by Walter Dean Myers.

Reviewed on December 7, 2006.

The Shape Shifter (Leaphorn and Chee #18) by Tony Hillerman

Despite some flaws, still a strong story (and a possible explanation for the flaws- as a literary device...)

Published by Harper in November of 2006. 

There are numerous flaws in Hillerman's newest book, The Shape Shifter, including a confusing, often rambling first 100 pages or so. However, at about the halfway point in the book it catches some traction and moves forward with purpose and speed and the last half of the book reminds me of the Hillerman of old.

For those readers who are disappointed with this one, might I suggest that some of the flaws are built in on purpose. Not to see if you are paying attention to the overarching plot line, but because the story is not being told with strict and exact attention to detail. Remember, the story is being told from Leaphorn to Chee and Bernadette. Leaphorn makes several references to the old days in which the Navajo stories would be passed down from one generation to the next. Leaphorn missed out on those days because he was bussed to mandatory English school and kept there for months at a time.

Tony Hillerman (1925-2008)

I propose that the story is being told as one of those stories being told from one generation to the next: Leaphorn to Chee and Bernie. It starts and ends in Chee's kitchen with Leaphorn telling them the story. In the end, we know that Leaphorn does not tell them the complete story since they do not know all of the details of the death of the "Shape Shifter". It would be interesting to look at the details of the Navajo creation myths that Leaphorn references so many times (especially those of the brothers who defeat the evil mountain monster that represents greed) and the details of Leaphorn and his ragtag group as they ascend the mountain to take on Mr. Delos, an evil man of multiple personas. Leaphorn's story is not exact to the timeline since it is not really of the timeline - he has taken it out of the timeline and made it one of the stories that the elders teach to their children (Chee is the closest thing Leaphorn has to a son in the stories). Leaphorn's lesson might be that despite the fact that Leaphorn is the Legendary Lt, sometimes the strictest attention to the law is not necessary and does not lead one to Justice.

For those that tire of the references to "Legendary Lt. Leaphorn" and "Lt. Leaphorn, retired" - those are most certainly plot devices. He uses Legendary to poke fun in a self-deprecating way at Leaphorn when he is not doing well at detecting (as in, look at the legend - he's not doing so hot right now, is he?) and Retired when he is confronting new physical limitations. This would go quite well with my thesis of the previous paragraph. It would also explain why Bernie is so insistent on being called Mrs. Chee every time we see her - she is not the real her, she is the Bernie of Leaphorn's story - a caricature of herself, as is everyone else.

So, if my thesis is correct, Hillerman still really has it and has moved on to a higher level of storytelling. Or, he's lost it in a lot of ways and I'm just grasping at straws and seeing connections that are not really there.

Either way, I give this one a grade of 4 stars out of 5 - the last half of the book is so strong that it saves the rambling beginning.

Reviewed on December 3, 2006.

This book can be found on Amazon here: The Shape Shifter

Q-Squared (Star Trek: The Next Generation) (abridged audiobook) by Peter David

A thoroughly entertaining audiobook experience

Published in 1994 by Simon and Schuster Audio Division
Read by John de Lancie
Duration: 2 hours, 59 minutes
Abridged

I picked this audiobook up at a library sale - they were clearing out all of their audiobooks on cassette. So, I picked up a bunch of them and dusted off the Sony Walkman (literally) and gave it a listen. Back in the day (1994) most audiobooks were edited to about 3 hours. This book was originally over 400 pages long so it was edited extensively as well, although the cover does not admit to it. That being said, the editing was very well done here. This could have been an extraordinarily confusing book considering that it bounces around in 3 different universes, but the editors have demonstrated a great deal of skill. All that being said, Q-Squared is not an audiobook for the Star Trek newbie.

In the original Star Trek, Captain Kirk and company encountered Trelane, a being of extraordinary power but very little maturity who called himself "the Squire of Gothos." Trelane captured the Enterprise, verbally sparred with Spock and Kirk and finally ended up in a sword fight with Kirk. He was just about to beat Kirk when Trelane's parents interceded and took their very naughty boy away and set the Enterprise free.

Peter David goes ahead and makes Trelane a member of the Q Continuum and has Q, the character from Star Trek: The Next Generation serve as Trelane's godfather. Trelane is basically working as an apprentice under Q as a favor to Q's friends, Trelane's parents. Trelane and Q come to Captain Picard's Enterprise to learn about humans and see how they operate.

Picard and Q. Q is played by the reader of this audiobook, 
John de Lancie

But, Trelane gets a bellyfull of being told he's a nuisance and that he shouldn't use his awesome powers to make people he dislikes disappear. Trelane comes up with a plan...

There is a theory that there are actually multiple universes out there, not just one. This book follows three of them. The first is the standard Star Trek storyline. The second is a storyline in which the Federation and the Klingons are at war and the Federation is losing badly. The third is one in which Jack Crusher, husband of Dr. Beverly Crusher and best friend of Captain Picard is not dead. In fact, he is the Captain of the Enterprise, newly divorced from Dr. Crusher and Picard and Dr. Crusher are having a secret torrid affair.

Trelane's plan to get even with the Enterprise involves melting away the "walls" that separate these universes (and all of them, I suppose), blocking the Q Continuum from interfering and killing Q. But, Q does not die and the injured Q works his way through all 3 universes to fight Trelane with Picard's help. It is entertaining to listen to the interaction amongst them all and painful to listen to Trelane do his best to make Jack Crusher a source of even more pain for Dr. Crusher and Picard.

Trelane and his harpsichord in the original 
Star Trek series

The audiobook is read by John De Lancie, the actor who portrayed Q in the Star Trek: The Next Generation television shows. He captures the voice of his own character perfectly (of course) but he also nails the voice of Trelane as well with a manic and injured tone that captures his insanity and his dangerous side. Throw in some decent sound effects (including what has to be the loudest turbolift in Star Fleet...) and an interesting twist to the musical score that includes a harpsichord being played as Trelane's insanity builds to a crescendo (Trelane really enjoys the harpsichord) at the end of the book and you have a thoroughly entertaining audiobook experience.

I rate this audiobook 5 stars out of 5.

This audiobook can be found on Amazon.com here: Q-Squared by Peter David.

Reviewed on June 19, 2012.

Guilt (Abe Glitsky #2) by John Lescroart

I hate to be the party pooper but...

Published in 1997.

Despite good experience with Lescroart in the past, despite the rave reviews on the back cover of Guilt and a dozen rave reviews inside the front cover, I found myself only caring about what happened to Abe Glitsky. The slow-moving, plodding plot line only reinforced the fact that I did not care what happened to the Mark Dooher. Did he kill his wife? I don't know - it's mentioned in the first sentence in the plot synopsis on the back cover and 200 pages into the book she's still alive and I'm getting irritated at reading about Dooher's connivings to sleep with one of his young employees.

So, anyway, I read exactly 200 pages of this book. It was not easy. I was forcing myself to continue on, much like I would do with a college textbook.

Then I came across the new Tony Hillerman book and I gladly dropped this one into the box of books that I'm dropping off at the Goodwill. Thank goodness I am now "Guilt" free!.

I rate this book 1 star out of 5.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: Guilt by John Lescroart.

Reviewed on November 26, 2006.

God Save the Child (audiobook) (Spenser #2) by Robert B. Parker

Good Early Spenser novel

Published August 1st 1988 by Books on Tape, Inc.
Read by Michael Prichard
Duration: 5 hours, 4 minutes

Unabridged

Robert B. Parker and Tony Hillerman are the two authors I most consistently check when I go to a library or a bookstore. When it is a great day, one of the two has a new book. When it is a tremendous day, they both have a new one out and I have to decide which to read first!

In the meantime, I am making do by going back over their collected works as audiobooks. I have a long drive to work every day and Spenser makes a very good ride-along companion. I have long-since read all of the older Spenser books, but the beautiful thing about a faulty memory is that the plot lines get a bit hazy over time and now I can enjoy them all over again!

Besides, it is always interesting to see how the reader interprets Spenser and the gang. One of the best to capture Spenser smart-aleck comments was Burt Reynolds, although his interpretation of Hawk was pleasurable, but questionable in terms of accent.

The reader for God Save the Child was a Michael Prichard. His interpretation of Spenser was neither here nor there, neither good nor bad. However, his reading of the character Mrs. Bartlett was right on the money. Here's the scoop on Mrs. Bartlett: She and her husband hire Spenser to find her son. He is missing and a note has been sent to the Bartletts asking for $50,000 for his safe return. This book was written in 1974 when $50,000 was a whole lot of money. Mrs. Bartlett is an insipid, vapid twit of the first order. A woman more concerned with fashion than her child's safety. She hosts a dinner party in her house on the same day that a man is killed in it and during the time her son is missing. She is a woman who believes herself to be an artist because it gives her an excuse for her bad behavior. Prichard nails her voice so dead on that you wish you could reach through the radio speakers and smack her upside the head on at least half a dozen occasions.

Robert B. Parker

So, how's the plot? Good thriller, although you could see the ending coming as soon as you hear the details of the missing boy's case. Of course, that could be some latent memories from when I read the book 10 years ago...

We meet Susan Silverman.

We meet Healey of the State Police (Prichard nails him too - I never noticed before that Healey was funny, but Prichard reads him as Spenser's straight man foil and I laughed out loud a couple of times).

There's plenty of Spenser's dogged style of detecting and plenty of smart comments.

This listener was struck as to how old Spenser really is - there is a lot of descriptive detail about clothing from the 1970s that reinforce that fact. Luckily, Spenser is forever middle aged but tough enough to take on the world and Susan Silverman is forever ageless and beautiful, no matter the decade.

I rate this audiobook 5 stars out of 5.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: God Save the Child by Robert B. Parker.

Originally reviewed on November 23, 2006.

In the Heat of the Night by John Ball

After seeing the movie I was expecting much more

First published in 1965.

If you've seen Sidney Poitier and Rod Steiger tear into one another in the movie version of this book you may be expecting a few more fireworks than this book delivers. Heck, even if all you know of the story is the TV show with Carrol O'Connor and Howard Rollins than you have already seen more fireworks than this book delivers. And why is that? Because in the book version of In the Heat of the Night, Virgil Tibbs is a proud man but he often fails to show the fire that both Poitier and Rollins brought to the character.

John Ball (1911-1988)

Throw in a near-total lack of action (there are two small fight scenes, but they are almost incidental to the plot) with about 50 pages worth of driving around a small Southern town in the middle of the night and you can quickly figure out why the movie version remains popular, with more than 50 reviews on Amazon.com at the time of this writing, while the book has just a handful.

What this book most reminded me of was an Agatha Christie mystery. Sure, there's a lot of racial tension, but the book version of Virgil Tibbs is willing to take whole lot more of the racial runaround than the Sidney Poitier version, so that just becomes more of a nuisance than anything else. Similarities to an Agatha Christie novel include: rich guy gets killed, visiting detective gets on the case, a big "wrap-it-all-up" scene in the living room of one of the characters in which the visiting detective explains everything to everyone.

I rate this book 3 stars out of 5.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: In the Heat of the Night by John Ball.

Reviewed on November 19, 2006.

Napalm & Silly Putty (abridged audiobook) by George Carlin

Sometimes funny, sometimes just the rants of a cranky old man 

Performed by the author, George Carlin

Published by Highbridge Company, April 1, 2001

Duration: 2 hours, 29 minutes
abridged

George Carlin (1937-2008) was an iconic stand-up comic known for his cutting edge humor. This audiobook is not really either, however. I am not saying it does not have its funny moments - it certainly does. But, large stretches of it sound more like a cranky old man spouting off than an actual attempt at humor.

George Carlin
(1937-2008)

Funny parts of Napalm and Silly Putty include his observations on cats, dogs, grocery stores, "saving" the environment, health nuts and driving. Those are actually full blown comedy bits  and remind me quite a bit of Dave Barry with generous quantities of superfluous cursing thrown in for spice. Sadly, for a comic known for his edginess, none of these topics are particularly edgy.

His attempts at edginess come with rants about businessmen, organized religion and politicians that are too loose to be called bits and end up being along the same line of thought as grumpy old men who curse at these topics out of habit, not of any particularly well-developed line of thinking. Thrown in between some of the longer bits are several one-liners. Most are not particularly funny. I did like this one: "If there are really multiple universes, what do they call the thing they're all a part of?"

So, sometimes funny, sometimes not, always filled with profanity.

I rate this audiobook 3 stars out of 5.

This audiobook can be found on Amazon.com here: Napalm and Silly Putty by George Carlin.

Reviewed on June 17, 2012.

What Went Wrong?: The Clash Between Islam and Modernity in the Middle East by Bernard Lewis

Not the best of Bernard Lewis

Published January 24th 2002 by Oxford University Press, USA

Hardcover, 192 pages

I've read two other books by Lewis and found both of them to be much more comprehensive and satisfying than this one. My dissatisfaction stems from the title. The title What Went Wrong? implies a discussion of how the Islam world went from being the most advanced culture on the planet to one of the most insular and, in many ways, most backwards cultures on the planet. While such a discussion is implied, it is barely touched upon in the body of the book.

Lewis finally gets to this general topic in his conclusion. He notes, "By all standards that matter in the modern world-economic development and job creation, literacy and educational and scientific achievement, political freedom and respect for human rights - what was once a mighty civilization has indeed fallen low." (p. 152)

Bernard Lewis

"To a Western observer, schooled in the theory and practice of Western freedom, it is precisely the lack of freedom - freedom of the mind from constraint and indoctrination, to question and inquire and speak; freedom of the economy from corrupt and pervasive mismanagement; freedom of women from male oppression; freedom of citizens from tyranny - that underlies so many of the troubles of the Muslim world." (p. 159)

Lewis also notes that many Islamic countries blame their troubles on European colonialism and feel very inadequate when other former colonies surpass them as well: "The proud heirs of ancient civilizations had got used to hiring Western firms to carry out tasks that their own contractors and technicians were apparently not capable of doing. Now they found themselves inviting contractors and technicians form Korea - only recently emerged from Japanese colonial rule - to perform these tasks. Following is bad enough; limping in the rear is far worse." (p. 152)

Those are the the types of thoughts that I believed the book was going to be discussing throughout. Instead it gets included, almost as an afterthought, in the conclusion. The main body of the text is primarily concerned with how the Ottomans, and to a lesser extent the Persians, dealt with the rise of the Europe throughout the 1600s through the 1900s. Don't get me wrong, it is legitimate to discuss those issues, especially since they were the main two Muslim powers during that era, but it does little to illuminate the issues of the 21st century. It established a pattern of not keeping up with the West but little to add to an understanding of modern Muslim reaction to the West, with the exception of a few passing references to Khomeni's changes to the role of Islamic clergy in Iran that were not followed up on with enough detail to offer any insight.

A better book about modern Islam and an exploration into 'what went wrong' is Lewis' more controversial The Crisis of Islam: Holy War and Unholy Terror. It was one of the best books that I read in the entire year of 2004. It would not be a bad idea to consider What Went Wrong and The Crisis of Islam to be two volumes of a set that deal with the historical decline of the much accomplished historical Islamic civilization and some of its more modern adaptations to Western challenges, both perceived and real

What Went Wrong?: The Clash Between Islam and Modernity can be found on Amazon.com HERE.

I give this one a grade of 3 stars. The information is good and well-written. However, I felt like I had been a victim of a bait-and-switch scam - the title of the book and the text of the book really did not match. Maybe it should have been called "The Clash Between Islam and the European Renaissance and Enlightenment Movements."

Reviewed on November 18, 2006.

The Attorney: A Paul Madriani Novel (Paul Madriani #5) by Steve Martini

Abridged
Published by Simon and Schuster in 2000
Read by Chris Meloni
Duration: 4 hours, 41 minutes

I am a relative newcomer to the works of Steve Martini, this being my third book, the second one as an audiobook.

As a listener, I can tell that Martini's craft has improved quite a bit - my first experience with a Martini audiobook (The Judge) only accentuated Martini's overuse of the simile (he moved like a cat, etc.) - it was so obvious that I began a running count of how many times I heard them! This plot is not as strong as that one, but his skills as a writer have improved so that the entire effect is actually one of improvement.

Steve Martini

Paul Madriani and his partner Harry are back for another turn as protagonists in The Attorney, although Harry largely takes a backseat in this one, which is too bad. Nevertheless, the plot moves well, suspense builds nicely until the ending comes along and there is a bit of a letdown. However, I am not one to look down on 5 hours of solid entertainment just because the last 5 minutes were a bit weak.

Chris Meloni (more well known as Detective Elliot Stabler on "Law and Order: SVU") reads this audiobook version of The Attorney. Meloni does a pretty good job, especially with Madriani and the defendant, Jonah Hale. Considering that the book is set in San Diego, it is a bit odd that all of his police officers and district attorneys all end up sounding like transplanted southerners.

I rate this audiobook 5 stars out of 5.

This audiobook can be found on Amazon.com here: The Attorney by Steve Martini.

Reviewed on November 18, 2006.

Teacher Man: A Memoir by Frank McCourt

"Stop throwing sandwiches!"

Published in 2005 by Scribner

Teacher Man is my first McCourt book, as I am apparently the only person in the English-speaking world that has not read Angela's Ashes.

The book started like a house afire for me - full of the trepidation of the first day of school for a brand new teacher. What would he say? First impressions are vital - how much more vital is the first impression for an entire career? As is normal on a first day (I've had 17 years of them!), the first words from McCourt are not planned - they are a reaction to what the kids say and do - he has to yell, "Stop throwing sandwiches!"

Frank McCourt (1930-2009)
photo by David Shankbone

McCourt's classroom memories are enjoyable - his style is not mine (at least not as of yet - styles evolve and change over time) but it was certainly original and caused the kids to think and he had their attention - more than half the battle is won if you have your attention. His rantings against administrators seem, for the most part, true (sad to say).

I found myself irritated at the middle of the book - seemingly great stretches that wander away from the classroom and deal with his failed attempt at a doctorate from an Irish university and a bad marriage. At the end, we are back in the classroom and the book sings along happily once again.

So, final grade. I give it 4 stars out of 5. Great start and finish.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: Teacher Man: A Memoir by Frank McCourt.

Reviewed on November 14, 2006.

300 (graphic novel) by Frank Miller

Published in 1999 by Dark Horse

The Battle of Thermopylae is one of my favorite things to teach about in my world history class so this graphic novel was of particular interest to me.

Miller takes some liberties with history in the graphic novel 300, such as the homophobia of the Spartans and the ethnicity of the Persian emperor. But, he gets the heart of the story correctly. Thermopylae was one of those "turning points in history" battles - not for the events of the 3 days of the battle itself but rather for the time it gave the rest of Greece to prepare (and evacuate, in the case of Athens) and for the inspiration it provided (Think about Texas and the battle cry, "Remember the Alamo!" and you get the idea).




A more accurate portrayal of the battle in a piece of fiction would be found in Pressfield's Gates of Fire. However, as a piece of art and as a simple introduction to the Spartans and to the battle, this book is quite good.

Of course, this graphic novel has been made into the movie of the same name starring Gerard Butler. The movie is quite faithful to the graphic novel.

As a history teacher I am constantly referring to movies and books that got the story wrong in ancient history (Disney's Hercules, Russell Crowe's Gladiator, and the classic movie and novel Ben-Hur to name a few) in order to reinforce a more correct version of history. This book would be an excellent starting point to whet the appetite of a beginning history student..

I give this one 5 stars out of 5 despite the historical errors. That grade comes with the caveat that further reading is recommended.

This graphic novel can be found on Amazon.com here: 300 by Frank Miller.

Reviewed on November 14, 2006.

A Thousand Bayonets by Joel Mark Harris

Published in 2011 by iUniverse

Joel Mark Harris is a young Canadian journalist and new novel writer. The advice always given to writers is to "write what you know" so Harris has done that - the main character of this novel is John Webster, an experienced investigative journalist for a Vancouver newspaper. Webster carries physical and emotional battle scars from covering the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. He is too old to start a blog to promote his articles and he is definitely too experienced to be playing fast and loose with the mob as the bullets start to fly and the bodies start to fall. But, he does, for reasons he doesn't quite understand his whole life has fallen apart since his horrible experiences in the war zones and he seems driven to push away his son and his ex-wife and take on ever more dangerous assignments at home.



The book begins with Webster listening in on a clandestine meeting of mobster leaders in a barn. The meeting becomes a crime scene as professional assassins shoot everyone. Webster lies still and goes unnoticed but his stories quickly grab the attention of a casino boss, mobsters and the local police (rumor has it some have been bought off) as he tries to figure out who ordered the murders and why before he is arrested or, even worse, killed.

Nice early work by a young author. Great at setting a mood and describing scenes. I have never been to Vancouver but I felt as though I had a sense of its gritty underside.

I rate this book 4 stars out of 5.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: A Thousand Bayonets by Joel Mark Harris.

Reviewed on June 16, 2012.

I received this book from the publisher as part of a drawing on Goodreads.com. The review is an honest assessment of the book.

The Founders' Key: The Divine and Natural Connection Between the Declaration and the Consititution and What We Risk by Losing It by Larry P. Arnn

Published in 2012 by Thomas Nelson

Larry P. Arnn is the president of Hillsdale College and I suppose I should tell you that I receive Hillsdale's free monthly bulletin, Imprimis, which features excerpts of speeches given by guests at Hillsdale College. President Arnn is featured annually so I was fairly familiar with his work before I picked up this book. In fact, that was the reason I picked The Founders' Key up in the first place.

Arnn's main point is that the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution are highly inter-related and that the efforts of some politicians and academics to separate them are not only incorrect but are also symptomatic of a larger effort to redefine and dilute the rights and governments described in both documents.

Arnn makes this point early and brilliantly in simple and soaring language. He demonstrates that the series of complaints against King George III in the Declaration describe how the King did not act as a faithful representative of his people, invaded their private rights and violated the principle of separation of powers (pages 36-37). These ideas are, of course, enshrined in the Constitution and he explains them quite well.

But, like the old joke about Chicago voters voting early and often, Arnn makes his point early and often. The original text only has 123 pages, but the book keeps on coming back to this main point again and again. I was impressed the first time (literally, I had not seen it that way before and I am glad he pointed it out). He points out how slavery nearly split the union and the Founders built in the tools to end slavery into the system (I was reminded of Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" speech in which he observes that they were there to cash the check written by the Founders for their rights), the tendency to let the bureaucracy act as a 4th (unelected) branch of government, the danger of re-interpretation, the danger of trading our rights for promised security and he comes back to the main points again and again in detail. I found myself both impressed and exasperated.

Following the 123 pages of original text, there is an appendix of 71 pages of documents, including the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, five of the Federalist Papers (#10, #39, #48, #49, #51) and an essay named "Property" written by James Madison in 1792. There are also extensive notes and 2 pages of "Suggested Further Reading."

I rate this book 3 stars out of 5.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: The Founders' Key: The Divine and Natural Connection Between the Declaration and the Constitution and What We Risk by Losing It

Reviewed on June 16, 2012.

I received this book for free from Thomas Nelson, Inc. in exchange for an honest review.

John Ericsson and the Inventions of the War (The History of the Civil War Series) by Ann Brophy

Published in 1991 by Silver Burdett Press
118 pages of text. 8 pages of timelines, sources and an index at the end.

This book is part of a larger series (The History of the Civil War Series). It is very readable with a good balance of national history versus the biography of Swedish immigrant inventor John Ericsson, with the glaring exception I note below.

John Ericsson (1803-1889) was almost the stereotypical nutty professor type inventor - he never properly patented many of his best inventions. Ericsson built a great number of inventions, but unlike Alexander Graham Bell and Thomas Edison, he never really built any industries around them. He seemed to have trouble with personal relationships and was happiest when the was building in his laboratory.

John Ericsson (1803-1889)

Among other things, Ericsson invented a screw propeller, a "caloric" engine and, most importantly, he was the designer of the famed U.S.S. Monitor, the first ironclad in the Union navy, participant in the Merrimack vs. Monitor battle at Hampton Roads, and the model for dozens of other monitor-style ships that patrolled the shores and rivers of the Confederacy for the duration of the war. The Monitor was notable for its ability to go in relatively shallow waters, its rotating turret and its iron body that made it virtually impervious to the cannon fire of enemy ships.

On the deck of the U.S.S. Monitor

For all of its interesting detail about Ericsson's life, it has one gigantic error. On page 108, in a section describing other advances in naval technology during the Civil War, the topic of one of the world's first submarines, H.L. Hunley comes up. This book claims that the Hunley was a Union ship and that it sank a Confederate ship. In fact, it was a Confederate ship (it was not an official Confederate ship, it was still in the experimental stages) that sank a Union ship by attaching a bomb to its hull and then sank on its way back to shore. This is an unforgivable mistake since the Hunley is literally a world-famous ship, since it was the first submarine to successfully sink an enemy warship.

I rate this book 3 stars out of 5.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: John Ericsson and the Inventions of War (History of the Civil War Series)

Reviewed on June 14, 2012.

The Gingerbread Girl (audiobook) by Stephen King

A short story: dramatic, gory, creepy and quite satisfying.

Published by Simon and Schuster Audio in 2008
Read by Mare Winningham
Duration: 2 hours, 13 minutes

Unabridged.

"Run, run, as fast as you can
You can't catch me, I'm the gingerbread man!"

Some time back some brilliant someone in the vast Simon and Schuster bureaucracy (I assume it is vast. I guess it could be just some guy named Simon talking to some guy named Schuster all day long but it seems much bigger to me) decided that Stephen King's short stories would make nice little audiobooks. That anonymous, faceless cubicle dweller was absolutely right. Here's the deal with Stephen King and audiobooks - he tends to write long books and that means you are listening to one story for a long time. For example, the audio version of The Stand lasts 47 hours and 52 minutes. Two complete days of a tale of woe, disease, mass death, chaos. I listen in the car so that would mean a solid month, maybe more. Can you imagine what that much Stephen King do to your brain? I shudder at the thought.

Stephen King

But, two hours of Stephen King? Get in, get out and get a little taste of what he has to offer. Yeah, I am in for that. This is my fifth Stephen King audio short story. It is probably the weakest, which means that it is merely good and well worth your time if you like gritty thrillers.

The Gingerbread Girl features Em (Emily), a young wife who has suffered the loss of her daughter to Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS). The death has had a dramatic toll on her marriage and she and her husband have drifted apart. There is no pathetic affair on his part - the marriage just fell apart after their daughter's death. This is King at his best. He creates characters that are believable and situations that command instant sympathy from the reader.

Em deals with her daughter's death by running. She has never been a jogger or a runner but now she runs. She runs with passion, but not out of sport. She runs as if she is punishing herself for the death of her daughter. She runs until she falls down and then she gets up and runs some more. Understandably, her husband is concerned but he deals with her in a way that shows the love is really gone from the marriage so she moves out to her father's vacation home on an island filled with vacation homes off of the coast of Florida. It is an isolated place because it is off season and she runs and runs and runs up and down the beaches until she is finally starting  feel like she has gotten it out of her system.

And, that is when the bad guy steps in. I remember reading an article by Stephen King in which he comments about his short stories. He doesn't plan on them being short, they just turn out that way. The story doesn't expand in his mind like the books do. This story could have expanded quite easily but it would have been fluff that got in the way of the real story.

Em is warned by the friendly drawbridge keeper who operates the only bridge to the island about her neighbor, a wealthy man who has brought a series of  young women to his house over the years but they never are seen again. Supposedly, they all left the island by way of his yacht, but the drawbridge keeper has his doubts.

Within 10 minutes of audio listening, Em encounters her neighbor and anyone can see where it is going to go, which is probably why Stephen King did not even bother to stretch it out into a novel. But, as a short story, it is dramatic, gory, creepy and quite satisfying.

Two time Emmy Award-winning actress Mare Winningham reads the story with a great deal of empathy, which makes the horrific aspects of the second half of the story all the more powerful.

Click here for the link to The Gingerbread Girl at Amazon.com.

I rate this audiobook 4 stars out of 5.

Reviewed on June 13, 2012.