APOCALYPSE with a SIDE of GRILLED SPAM - Episode One (Stranglets series book #1) (kindle) by Michael Angel

 

Originally published in 2011.

Set in a future America where the world has been invaded by inter-dimensional space aliens that are a living bio/tech hybrid, this dystopian series is full of action and does not offer much in the way of subtlety.

The world has been overrun by strangelets - the cutesy nickname for creatures that can rip apart a human being in seconds. This was accidentally caused by a supercollider that opened up a rift that released an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) that destroyed electronic systems across the world.

I received this book for free way back in 2011 and it was quickly buried under hundreds of free Kindle book offers that I've found over the years. I was flipping through the list of books that I have not read and the title caught my attention. I have no idea how Spam is involved.

I found this book to be intriguing, even if it was simplistic. The only real problem I have is this: 49% of the book is the story I picked and 51% of it is a sample of another novel. To me, it felt like a rip-off and I didn't pay anything for the book.

I rate this kindle book 3 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: APOCALYPSE with a SIDE of GRILLED SPAM - Episode One (Stranglets series book #1) (kindle) by Michael Angel.

LOKI: WHERE MISCHIEF LIES: MARVEL UNIVERSE YA (audiobook) by Mackenzi Lee

 

Published in 2019 by Listening Library.

Duration; 9 hours, 10 minutes.

Read by Oliver Wyman.
Unabridged.

The eternal issue with Loki in the Marvel Universe is the sibling rivalry between Loki and Thor that is encouraged by their father Odin who dangles the possibility of inheriting the throne in front of both of them. Odin encourages Thor to be "The Hero" and Thor responds too enthusiastically and Odin disapproves. Odin encourages Loki to try and keep up with Thor, but Loki can't keep up physically so he is forced to act using magic and/or tricks and Odin disapproves.  This book is built on this tension.

It's an okay book, but not a great one. There are three main settings for the novel - Odin's court, on Alfheim and in London in the late 1800's. For me, the best part was the part in London, but it just never really grabbed me. In this novel, the brothers are in their late teens or early twenties (or the equivalent to that for Asgardians.) There was a great opportunity for Loki to grow and develop as a character, but due to the restrictions of essentially "borrowing" a character for this novel, the growth can't happen and that was unsatisfying. 

I rate this audiobook 3 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: LOKI: WHERE MISCHIEF LIES: MARVEL UNIVERSE YA by Mackenzi Lee.

THE OTHER SIDE of HISTORY: DAILY LIFE in the ANCIENT WORLD (The Great Courses) by Robert Garland

 

Published by The Great Courses in 2013.

Read by the author, Robert Garland.
Duration: 24 hours, 28 minutes.
Unabridged.

Robert Garland

Robert Garland gives his listeners a look at the "other side of history" - meaning from the point of view of the lower and middle classes, slaves, regular soldiers, women and children from the Stone Age through Medieval Europe. Occasionally, he looks at the rich, but not quite famous as well. He also explores how religion worked in every day life, family life, marriage ceremonies, how many jobs were performed and funeral rites in Mesopotamia, Ancient Egypt, Ancient Greece, the Persian Empire, the Roman Empire and Medieval Europe, particularly England.

Garland is a lecturer at Colgate University in New York State so he delivers this information through a series of 48 half-hour lectures. Asking for all 48 lectures to be 5 star quality is asking too much, but I found this to be an enjoyable and educational listen.

Highly recommended.

I rate this audiobook 5 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: THE OTHER SIDE of HISTORY: DAILY LIFE in the ANCIENT WORLD (The Great Courses) by Robert Garland.

DEAR CHURCH: A LOVE LETTER from a BLACK PREACHER to the WHITEST DENOMINATION in the U.S. by Lenny Duncan

Published in 2019 by Fortress Press

Lenny Duncan, as noted in the title, is a black pastor in a very white church body - the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA). I belong to a different Lutheran denomination, but I recognize the congregations and the issues he is talking about. I found out about Dear Church from an interview on the morning news on NPR.

Duncan took a unique route to becoming a pastor. He was a homeless teen, he was a prostitute, he served time in jail and he was seeking something spiritual when he attended an ELCA church and heard the Lutheran teachings on God's grace and his life was changed.

Now, he is a pastor telling this church that he loves that it must do better. To be fair to the ELCA, this letter is not just applicable to that denomination, it is applicable to most of the mostly white mainline protestant denominations. But, comments like this one are more than fair for all Lutheran churches: "People are deciding not to come to our churches because we have allowed them to become country clubs where we pantomime discipleship or to be German/Swedish cultural centers, not because we finally got the courage to love God’s own children."

I was struck by several quotes that I will list off:

"Now is the time to rise up with the oppressed. Our churches are emptying because we have become navel-gazing social clubs that are more concerned with the fund to keep the organ alive than funds for refugees."

"Dear Church, it’s time to stop prioritizing tradition and civility over the lives of the marginalized."

"Jesus wants us to love everyone. I’m constantly surprised and disappointed by how radical that statement seems to be."

"Dear Church, we are the ones we have been waiting for. No one else is coming. You are the generation that has been chosen for this time, this place, this moment in human history. Stop waiting for some sort of transformative leader to arise from the body politic or the body of Christ. It is you. You with all your flaws, fears, doubts, brokenness, and downright utter humanness—you are called for more."

Duncan looks at his role as pastor as being the advocate for the marginalized in society because Jesus reached out to people just like them - because Pastor Duncan was one of those marginalized people himself. He wants the church to mobilize to reach out - really reach out. Open up its doors. Feed the poor and more.

I don't agree with every point he makes, but Duncan makes enough good points that I have to give it a strong recommendation. 

I rate this book 4 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: DEAR CHURCH: A LOVE LETTER from a BLACK PREACHER to the WHITEST DENOMINATION in the U.S. by Lenny Duncan.

TREASON by David Nevin

 

Published in 2001 by Forge (Tor).

Treason has been in my to-be-read pile for a long time. I was inspired to finally read it after watching the musical Hamilton on a streaming service. As you may know, the character of Aaron Burr plays a large part and I got to wondering exactly what happened to Burr when he went west after his term as Vice President.

The problem, as the author points out, is that we don't really know exactly what Aaron Burr did. He went on trial for treason, but it was a hurried and botched trial and Burr was found not guilty.

Nevin does a solid job of explaining what Burr might have been doing. Nevin goes along with the popular theory that Burr was working with the commanding general of the U.S. Army, James Wilkinson. In 1854, letters were discovered that showed that Wilkinson was in the pay of the government of Spain and was feeding them all sorts of information.

Aaron Burr, 1756-1836.

Nevin supposes that Wilkinson gave Spain false information designed to make Spain attack the United States while Burr was bringing hundreds of men down the Ohio and Mississippi as part of a private army. Burr and Wilkinson were planning to use the Spanish attack as an excuse to initiate martial law in New Orleans, attack Mexico and combine New Orleans, Texas and Mexico into a new country, led by Burr and Wilkinson. Eventually, the states west of the Appalachians would join the new country and New England and New York would break away from the rest of the coastal states and the United States would simply cease to exist.

All of that was interesting, but David Nevin strung this book out and made all of that as boring as possible. He repeated conversations, rants, mental rants and made the pace crawl. The front cover features the Hamilton-Burr duel, but the book barely mentions it with just 6 pages out of a 545 page novel. Hamilton is basically a non-entity, which is weird because Burr is probably most remembered for the duel.

In short, this book is slow and tedious. It took me more than 6 weeks to read it. In the meantime, I read a completely different book because I thought it was more interesting. And magazines. And just goofed around on Facebook.

I rate this book 2 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: TREASON by David Nevin. 2 stars for the coherent theory about Burr's conspiracy.

HARRY POTTER and the GOBLET of FIRE (Harry Potter #4) (audiobook) by J.K. Rowling

 

Originally published in 2000.

Read by Jim Dale.
Duration: 20 hours, 37 minutes.
Unabridged.


I am continuing my first time read (technically a listen) of the Harry Potter series 20 years after the fact. Rather than go through the plot of the book, I am going to skip to my review.

The fourth installment of this book is best so far. A slow start builds up to a tremendous ending. I have been pretty critical of Jim Dale's performance in this series up until now. In Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire Jim Dale nails it. As it goes along he gets better and better. His reading of the scene where Harry looks into Dumbledore's pensieve is absolutely riveting. This is the book where the Harry Potter series makes a turn from being a bunch of cute kid's books. For example, grown-up topics like racism are dealt with. Racism is actually dealt with in 3 different ways - with the House Elves, Giants and the topic of pure blood wizards.

Jim Dale

I rate this audiobook 5 stars out of 5. It can be be found on Amazon.com here: HARRY POTTER and the GOBLET of FIRE by J.K. Rowling.

Note: this entire book series has been on banned book lists multiple times since it was originally published due to complaints from religious conservatives. Check out this website for more info.

TIN BADGES (Tank Rizzo #1) (audiobook) by Lorenzo Carcaterra

Published in 2019 by Random House Audio.

Read by Pete Simonelli

Duration: 7 hours, 44 minutes.
Unabridged.

Tank Rizzo is a retired police officer. He retired early because his partner suffered a career-ending injury in a botched raid on a drug dealer's apartment. 

Tank's retirement consists of hanging out at the neighborhood restaurant, dating the owner of the restaurant, helping his partner with his rehab and catching a few hockey games with the father of his girlfriend (a retired mob boss).

The author, Lorenzo Carcaterra

But, Tank has a hobby that is sort of an open secret. He has built his own team of crime solvers and he solves cold cases for his old boss. His former partner helps by working remotely. They are paid from sort of slush fund or a secret budget line. It's not really clear, but money is not an issue.

Tank's estranged brother and wife die in a car crash in a snowstorm and Tank's mystery-loving nephew moves in and joins the team and they have just caught a hot new case...

This book was full of so many cliches that it was amusing just to watch them build up:

*Rogue superstar cops? Check.

*Restaurant owned by a mobster? Check.

*The mobster is actually a decent guy? Check.

*Black cop/white cop partners who are so close that they are like brothers? Check.

*Brilliant teenager with amazing skills? Check.

*Amazing team that works together perfectly even though they have no reason to even know each other let alone work together? Check.
*Off the books special deal with the police? Check.

The best thing about this book was the audiobook reader, Pete Simonelli. He has a fantastic voice. The story was not very good. The reading was great.

I rate this audiobook 2 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon here: TIN BADGES (Tank Rizzo #1) by Lorenzo Carcaterra.

WHEN to ROB a BANK...and 131 MORE WARPED SUGGESTIONS and WELL-INTENDED RANTS (audiobook) by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner

 

Published in 2015 by HarperAudio.
Duration: 8 hours, 13 minutes.
Read by Steven D. Levitt, Stephen J. Dubner and Erik Bergmann.
Unabridged.

Levitt and Dubner are the authors the co-creators of the Freakonomics franchise. They have published several books, have a radio show, have a website and have had a long-running column in the New York Times. All of them have featured odd takes on economic theories (as the title of this book suggests). They also have a blog that they used as a place to put their odd thoughts - not complete articles or chapters.

This book consists of 132 entries from their blog. And, that, in short, is the weakness of this audiobook. Their other works are much more thought out and this one just feels like the results of a preliminary brainstorming session. There were some interesting entries and there were some real clunkers. Also, there were way too many entries about gambling. I have absolutely no interest in gambling but the authors are really into it. 

Bottom line: the quality of this book does not live up to the quality of their other books.

I rate this audiobook 3 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: WHEN to ROB a BANK...and 131 MORE WARPED SUGGESTIONS and WELL-INTENDED RANTS by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner.

MY VANISHING COUNTRY: A MEMOIR (audiobook) by Bakari Sellers

Published in 2020 by HarperAudio.
Read by the author, Bakari Sellers
Duration: 5 hours, 9 minutes.
Unabridged

I came to My Vanishing Country not knowing a thing about Bakari Sellers. I don't know where I heard about his book, but I had placed a hold on the audiobook at my library. I assume I heard him in an interview on NPR or found his name on a list of prominent books to be released in 2020.

Bakari Sellers in 2018. Photo by Luke Harold.

Sellers has the distinction of being one of the youngest state legislators ever and the youngest African American ever elected to a post in American history. He is from South Carolina, was a member of its legislature for 8 years, is an attorney and is now a commentator for CNN. I am not from South Carolina and I don't have cable or satellite so I had never seen his work on CNN, either. 

My complete unfamiliarity with Sellers made the book a little tedious at times. But, the last quarter of the book is very strong. It was so strong, due to more generalized commentary, that it pulled my score for this book up to 4 stars. 

Sellers read the audiobook himself. I understand the temptation for him to read his own audiobook. After all, his entire career on CNN is based on his ability to speak. He was okay as a reader - neither good nor bad. 

This audiobook can be found on Amazon here: MY VANISHING COUNTRY: A MEMOIR by Bakari Sellers.

RITA HAYWORTH and SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION (audiobook) by Stephen King

Originally published in 1982 as a novella in the collection Different Seasons.

Read by Frank Muller.
Duration: 3 hours, 57 minutes.
Unabridged.

I originally read this novella when it was published as a part of the collection called Different Seasons more than 35 years ago. This is the third time I have read this story, but the first time in the last 20 years.  I have never seen the beloved movie.

Stephen King

Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption tells the story of two prisoners in Shawshank Prison in Maine, starting in the late 1940's. One is the main supplier of things smuggled into the prison (but not hard core drugs) and the other is a banker that has been falsely convicted of murdering his wife and her lover. They are not exactly friends, but they are friendly and they certainly respect one another.

The banker has an odd habit of collecting rocks he finds in the prison yard and carving them into little sculptures - but could it be a sign of something more?

I have never seen the movie because I was always sort of indifferent to the novella. Strange considering that I've read it three times now. I gave it a try this time to see if my opinion had changed. Turns out it hasn't. Frank Muller did a fine job reading this story, but I still have to rate it 3 stars out of 5.

This story can be found on Amazon.com here: RITA HAYWORTH and SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION (audiobook) by Stephen King.

In November of 2023 it was announced that the group Moms for Liberty had challenged more than 300 books in Florida. This is one of the short stories in one of the books that the Moms challenged. Read more about the books here.

THE FIXER (audiobook) by Joseph Finder

 

Published in 2015 by Penguin Audio.

Read by Steven Kearney.
Duration: 9 hours, 33 minutes.
Unabridged.

The Fixer features Rick Hoffman, who used to be one of the biggest journalists in Boston. But, the magazine he worked for downsized and he lost his job. He also lost his girlfriend (undoubtedly related) and he had to move out. He is forced to move into his father's abandoned house. His father had a stroke years ago and Hoffman let his house fall into disrepair. It's been vandalized and it's pretty obvious that squatters have lived in it in the past. Basically, Hoffman is camping in the house.

His neighbor is a childhood acquaintance. The neighbor heads up a construction crew and offers to work with Hoffman to rehab the house with a sweat equity investment. As they are looking through the house Hoffman climbs into a secret attic room and finds a giant pile of cash - millions of dollars. He realizes two things: 1) this house is not a secure place and 2) he really doesn't know his neighbor that well and he's not sure how much of the money he saw and if can even trust him. 

Hoffman now has to use the skills he honed as a reporter to figure out where the money came from and what his incapacitated father was doing to amass a pile of cash. Soon enough, he discovers that someone with friends in powerful places wants their money back...

The premise of this audiobook is strong. The follow-through was not. There is a long scene at a very upscale men's store that goes into excessive detail when Hoffman uses some of the found money to buy a fancy set of clothes. It goes on and on and on and does very little to add to the story. It could have been handled in a single paragraph. It made me wonder if this was a real-life store in Boston and Finder was giving a friend some free advertising. The same thing happens just a few minutes later in the audiobook with a fancy restaurant. Editing these scenes could have cut at least a half an hour from the book and would have only helped it.

But, there were bigger issues. There are plot lines that dramatically start and then drop without explanation - specifically the interactions between Hoffman and the construction crew. It felt like someone suggested edits to Finder and he made them very sloppily, leaving plot threads everywhere.

This book could have been cleaned up, tightened up and perhaps clocked in at 7 hours and been a very good thriller. Instead, I am rating this audiobook 2 stars out of 5. This book can be found on Amazon.com here: THE FIXER by Joseph Finder. 

JESUS and JOHN WAYNE: HOW WHITE EVANGELICALS CORRUPTED a FAITH and FRACTURED a NATION (audiobook) by Kristen Kobes du Mez

 

Published on July 14, 2020 by Kalorama.

Read by Suzie Althens.
Duration: 12 hours, 3 minutes.

Unabridged.

Kristen Kobes du Mez comes to Jesus and John Wayne from the perspective of a person of faith. This is important because this book is highly critical of a certain strand of Christianity.

This strand of Christianity has replaced the values of Jesus with the values personified by John Wayne. Don't get me wrong - I have watched my fair share of John Wayne movies. I always stop to watch "The Cowboys" and the big muddy fistfight scene in "McClintock!" "Rooster Cogburn and the Lady" is one of my favorite westerns, even if it isn't a favorite of most John Wayne fans.

But, the lessons taught in most John Wayne movies are not the lessons taught by Christ. His movies rarely model turning the other cheek and often endorse revenge. They are escapist entertainment, but hardly the basis of a religious movement.

Or, are they? There is a movement in evangelical Christianity that endorses the idea that Jesus was a lot more like John Wayne than the traditionally thought. John Wayne becomes the model for the true Christian man - a man of action who acts the way a man ought to act - a man who is the "protector, provider and patriarch" as another book with both Jesus and John Wayne in the title concludes is embodied in the screen personae of John Wayne.

How did the come to pass? The author takes us back to the days of radio evangelists and finds that there has always been a manly man strain in the evangelical movement, even if those impulses contradict the teachings of Christ. The author follows that line of thinking as it matures a bit under Billy Graham and continues to grow until it comes into full flower with organizations like Focus on the Family and preachers that re-interpret (or outright make up) history just to prove their dubious theological points, like Douglas Wilson. 

At first I thought this book was dreadfully slow and not really making any points. I considered quitting the book. But, starting about 1/3 of the way in, it became obvious that she had been slowly building her argument by laying down a strong foundation for the rest of the book. I rate this audiobook 5 stars out of 5. 

Highly recommended.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: JESUS and JOHN WAYNE: HOW WHITE EVANGELICALS CORRUPTED a FAITH and FRACTURED a NATION.

HARRY POTTER and the PRISONER of AZKABAN (Harry Potter #3) (audiobook) by J.K. Rowling

Originally Published in 1999.

This audio edition published by Pottermore in 2015.
Read by Jim Dale
Duration: 11 hours, 49 minutes.
Unabridged

I am 21 years late to the Harry Potter party. I had seen the first movie and some of the second one but I knew nothing of this novel so I was able to come to it without having already formed any sort of impression.

The first part of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban disappointed me. The tried and true plot points of the first two novels were brought back (Harry and his horrible muggle family, yet another shopping trip for school supplies, a new super-fast broom was being sold, and a focus on the strange candy.  The monster books that were actually monsters themselves probably delight children (and it is a children's book so that it is appropriate), but this middle-aged teacher kept wondering what is wrong with the administration at Hogwarts when they let a teacher order a book like that!

A little past the halfway point, the novel takes a darker turn. This was a welcome change - the novel gets much more complicated and adult. Harry has multiple tough decisions to make and the action gets pretty complicated pretty quickly. I would rate the first half of the book 3 stars out of 5. I'd rate the second half of the book 4.5 out of 5. I'll make the whole book 4 stars out of 5.

The narrator, Jim Dale, is both a plus and a minus to the book. His voice characterizations for Hagrid and Professor McGonagall are excellent. However, almost all of his Slytherin characters sound the same and his characterization of Hermione Granger is horrible. She sounds like a nagging whiner.

This audiobook can be found on Amazon.com here: HARRY POTTER and the PRISONER of AZKABAN (Harry Potter #3) by J.K. Rowling.

Note: this entire book series has been on banned book lists multiple times since it was originally published due to complaints from religious conservatives. Check out this website for more info.

AFTER JESUS: THE TRIUMPH of CHRISTIANITY by Reader's Digest

Published in 1992 by Reader's Digest.

Back in the day, Reader's Digest was famous for taking a popular novel and editing it down without losing the essence of the story. They were so good at it that the phrase "the Reader's Digest version" was a common way of saying getting the short version of a story.

In this case, Reader's Digest has provided a short, easy-to-read and easy-to-follow history of Christianity from the death of Christ to the rise of Islam in 321 pages. It is also a passable history of the Roman Empire for the same time period.

Technically, this is a re-read for me. I enjoyed it thoroughly more than 20 years ago and to my surprise, i enjoyed it just as much the second time around. Look through 3 or 4 pages and you will see several full color photos of ancient art, artifacts or locations and, most importantly, get a solid rundown of the people, ideas and controversies of the era.

The only weakness is the periodic inclusion of illustrations from one of their staff artists. Those illustrations are very generic - like the stuff you would find in old textbooks. The cover is a great example of this. Don't let the cover dissuade you from taking a look at this book.

I rate this book 5 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: AFTER JESUS: THE TRIUMPH of CHRISTIANITY by Reader's Digest.

COUNTDOWN 1945: THE EXTRAORDINARY STORY of the ATOMIC BOMB and the 116 DAYS THAT CHANGED the WORLD (audiobook) by Chris Wallace and Mitch Weiss

Published by Simon and Schuster in June of 2020.
Read by one of the authors, Chris Wallace.
Duration: 8 hours, 40 minutes.
Unabridged.

The 116 days referred to in the title is the time between the day that Harry S. Truman became President and the day the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima. Chris Wallace quickly catches the reader up on what was going on and then uses a countdown for the chapters to add a sense of drama - will the scientists make it on time?

Of course, we know that they do succeed - the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki are one of the most well-known historical facts of the 20th century. Wallace's re-telling of the story in Countdown 1945 is full of facts but not particularly told in an interesting way.

For example, there is a great deal of information about the Potsdam Conference (July 17 - August 2, 1945) that met in Germany. The Conference was important because it included the leaders of the USSR, the United States and the UK and in many ways it paved the path for post-war Europe and the Cold War. But, there was so much detail involved (dinner sets, meals, the weather, the cars they rode in) that it began to feel like filler.

Mushroom clouds from the bombings of the Japanese cities of
Hiroshima (left) and Nagasaki (right)

Of course the Potsdam Conference is an important part of the story, but the main story was the construction, testing and deployment of the bombs. If I had been the editor of this book, I would have pushed for more information on the physical results of the bombs and their effects on the residents of Nagasaki and Hiroshima and less on the mundane details of the Potsdam Conference like descriptions of the meals they ate.

Note: I thought the authors did a very good job of explaining both points of view on the atomic bombings of Japan, but eventually settle on the argument that they were horrible weapons, but their use was justified.

The audiobook was read by Chris Wallace, one of the authors. This makes sense considering that Wallace is a nationally known television personality. At first I thought this was a great choice. I enjoy Wallace's Sunday morning political show and I think he is a tough, fair interviewer and I like his style. But, that unique voice of his started to wear on me after a while. Not a bad book - I wouldn't tell someone not to read it or listen to it - but not as good as it could have been.

So, I rate it 3 stars out of 5 because parts of the book felt padded and the narrator's voice wore on me.  This book can be found on Amazon.com here: COUNTDOWN 1945: THE EXTRAORDINARY STORY of the ATOMIC BOMB and the 116 DAYS THAT CHANGED the WORLD by Chris Wallace and Mitch Weiss.

DEMOCRACY in ONE BOOK or LESS: HOW IT WORKS, WHY IT DOESN'T, and WHY FIXING IT IS EASIER THAN YOU THINK (audiobook) by David Litt

Published by HarperAudio in June of 2020.
Read by the author, David Litt.
Duration: 11 hours, 51 minutes.
Unabridged.

David Litt is a former speech writer for President Obama. You need to know that before you read Democracy in One Book or Less, David Litt is unapologetically liberal. If that is a deal breaker for you, don't even bother to pick this book up.

Personally, I am not a liberal, but I do enjoy political discussion and hearing different people's points of view. Litt offers plenty of both.

The book starts off with a weird stunt involving Mitch McConnell's former fraternity house. This almost made me abandon the book, but the book got better pretty quickly.

The primary point of the first half of the book is that state and local governments work very hard to make sure that voting is not particularly easy, especially when compared to other countries. For example, Texas has especially tough voter registration laws that make it hard to organize registration drives. On top of that, it is a crime for a non-Texan to touch a Texas voter registration form.

Florida has a lot of laws that make you a felon, criminalizing behaviors that might not even be worthy of mention in other states. Felons are not allowed to vote (even those that are done serving their time) and more than 10% of the state of Florida's population is not allowed to vote, 23% of the African American population. Just to compare - some states allow felons to vote - even those that are currently serving time in prison!

Gerrymandering is also an issue - personally, it is my biggest area of concern because I have seen some very oddly shaped Congressional districts designed to create safe seats for sitting representatives.

Litt moves on to a weaker section of the book, in my mind. He spends a great deal of time going after the Senate. He is bothered that each state gets two Senators and spends a lot of time detailing how this could be changed. This was interesting, but pointless. There is absolutely no push for this. He also discusses changing the Electoral College - that is a discussion that might possibly go somewhere.

The last third of the book talks about the inner workings of the Congress - both

Mitch McConnell

the House and the Senate - and how those inner workings often favor doing nothing, which can increase the political clout of the GOP. They also affect the choices made for federal judiciary positions, including the Supreme Court. Mitch McConnell (the Senator from Kentucky who heads the Senate) does not come out looking well in this section.

Bottom line: Informative political discussion with a pronounced slant.

I rate this audiobook 4 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: DEMOCRACY in ONE BOOK or LESS: HOW IT WORKS, WHY IT DOESN'T, and WHY FIXING IT IS EASIER THAN YOU THINK by David Litt.

FAIR WARNING (Jack McEvoy #3) (audiobook) by Michael Connelly

Published in May of 2020 by Little, Brown and Company.
Read by Peter Giles and Zach Villa.
Duration: 10 hours, 20 minutes.
Unabridged.

This is the third book in a very slowly unfolding series featuring journalist Jack McEvoy - 25 years in the making so far.

Jack McEvoy started out the series as a reporter in Colorado who discovered a serial killer and stopped him. 15 years later, he is a reporter who is being let go as part of a series of layoffs from the LA Times and he discovers a serial killer and stops him. Now, 10 years later, he is working for a news website called Fair Warning and he once again discovers a serial killer. Interestingly, Fair Warning was an actual real-life news site when this book was written. A controversy in 2021 caused it to disband

The story starts out with McEvoy being questioned because he happened to have gone on one date nearly a year ago with a recent murder victim. They found his name on the contact list on her phone and the lead detective recognized his name from a story about a corrupt cop a few years back and decided to question him.

McEvoy starts to look into the unusual way she died and finds a number of similar deaths across the country and suspects that there is another serial killer involved...

I am not as fond of the McEvoy books as I am of Connelly's Harry Bosch series. I find McEvoy to be a less sympathetic character - to the point of being unlikable. Plus, going back to the serial killer well for a third time was just too much for me.

The audiobook features a 20 minute interview with the real editor of the Fair Warning news site (he is also a character in the book) by Michael Connelly. It was worth listening to.

I rate this audiobook 3 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: FAIR WARNING (Jack McEvoy #3) by Michael Connelly.

FOR LIBERTY and GLORY: WASHINGTON, LAFAYETTE, and THEIR REVOLUTIONS by James R. Gaines

Published in 2007 by W.W. Norton and Company.

First a bit of traditional blogging. I was going through some old receipts because I had plenty of time on my hands thanks to the Coronavirus lockdowns. This pile of receipts was 12 years old. It included some golden oldies like a Blockbuster receipt. I also found a receipt for this book. I had gotten a great deal on For Liberty and Glory - and it sat in my To-Be-Read pile for 12 years.

I had no idea it was in that pile for that long. If you had asked me before I found the receipt, I would guess it had been 4 or 5 years at most. At that moment, this book moved to the top of my To-Be-Read pile. I should have read it long before now - it was an excellent read.

Originally, I picked up this book because I simply didn't know much about Lafayette. I've read plenty of biographies of Washington and histories of the American Revolution. Lafayette always comes into the story somewhere in the middle. There's always a build up, with the Stamp Act, the Boston Massacre, Paul Revere and Patrick Henry and so on and then this kid from France comes over. He and Washington bond, Lafayette makes a good showing and he helps bring the French military in to help fight the English. And, at some point Lafayette goes away and doesn't come back until 1824.

I knew Lafayette was involved with the French Revolution, but my interest in the French Revolution is not strong (to me, it's a story that starts out well and then, all of a sudden, mobs are carrying heads and body parts around screaming for more blood and ends with a dictator that attacks every country in Europe, parts of Africa and even Haiti). So, I simply lost track of him. I asked someone who was a French Revolution buff what happened to Lafayette and the short answer was: "It didn't go well for him" with no elaboration.

So, this book looked like it would answer that question. It is a double biography of Washington and Lafayette as well as a double history of the American Revolution and the French Revolution. It is certainly not the definitive biography of either man or the definitive history of either revolution. But, it is immensely readable. I enjoyed it.

Turns out that I learned a lot about Lafayette. For example, his first name is Gilbert. Yeah, that seems trivial, but I've never heard him referred to as anything but Lafayette or the Marquis de Lafayette (almost like "Marquis" was his first name).

Lafayette was in love with the concept of the American Revolution from the

moment he heard of it. This teenager was so excited by the prospect of assisting in the war that he came here against the orders of the King's advisors - they had ordered all of the potential volunteers to stay in France. But, Lafayette and a few others crossed the border to Spain. Lafayette bought his own ship, sailed to South Carolina and eventually became an American hero - a Founding Father of sorts with more than 400 towns named after him. In my own state (Indiana) we have two cities and one county named after him.

Lafayette returned to France and was caught up in the French Revolution. The phrase "caught up" makes it sound like he was passive. Hardly. He co-wrote the most famous document of the French Revolution - the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen. He created the modern French flag by combining the flag of Paris with the flag of the King of France. He helped save Louis XVI's life at one point and ended up languishing in a foreign prison for five years because of his role in the Revolution. He was offered the chance to be dictator at one point, and like his friend and hero George Washington, he turned it down. Bonaparte would not turn it down when he was offered that chance. But, Lafayette had a hand in Bonaparte's political demise in 1815 (after Waterloo). The luster of his name helped to carry the day.

Speaking of Bonaparte, Lafayette knew him personally. He knew so many big names in his life - George Washington, Victor Hugo, Marie Antoinette, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, Victor Hugo, Louis XVI, Andrew Jackson, Alexis de Tocqueville, James Monroe, James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, and more.

I rate this book 5 stars out of 5. A must read if you are a student of the American Revolution and the early years of America's independence. Gaines has made this very approachable and writes in a lively manner.

It can be found on Amazon.com here: FOR LIBERTY and GLORY: WASHINGTON, LAFAYETTE, and THEIR REVOLUTIONS by James R. Gaines.

GOD IS NOT ONE: THE EIGHT RIVAL RELIGIONS THAT RUN the WORLD - and WHY THEIR DIFFERENCES MATTER (audiobook) by Stephen Prothero

Published in 2010 by HarperAudio.
Read by Paul Boehmer.
Duration: 14 hours, 37 minutes.
Unabridged.

Stephen Prothero is a professor of religion at Boston University. The purpose of God Is Not One is to inform the reader of the eight greatest world religions, their philosophies and their way of looking at the world.

Prothero is very aware that choosing just eight religions is fraught with problems. How do you choose? Is it based on influence? Number of adherents? Importance of the countries it is in? He went through all of those questions again once again when he chose the order he would present the religions he picked.

The religions he profiled are: Islam, Christianity, Buddhism, Hinduism, Confucianism, Judaism, Yoruba religion, and Daoism. He spends about 90 minutes discussing each religion and includes nearly an hour on Atheism at the end, on the theory that militant Atheism (Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens) behaves much like a religion, complete with evangelistic movements and a coherent worldview.

Prothero takes great pains to point out that these religions do not approach the world in the same way. He is pretty irritated at the "all religions are basically the same - they answer the same questions in different ways" view of religion. He thinks it is intellectually lazy. For example, Christianity teaches that the main problem with the world is sin. Daoism doesn't even have that concept - they think the main problem is society polluting people and making them unhappy by making them take on roles that go against their nature. Confucianism thinks the biggest problem is people not knowing their place in society - embrace the role given you and you will be happy. Yoruba religion is all about power, including spiritual power and leveraging it to your advantage. Atheism think religion itself is the problem - but they are usually most vocal against the three monotheistic religions (Islam, Judaism and Christianity). They might be okay with Daoist and Confucian philosophy and some Buddhist sects. Of course, all of those summaries are super-simplistic.

Prothero is not making this point in order to say that the religions of the world can't get along. Rather, he is making this point in order to say that if we are going to get along, we actually have to know what the other religions are saying and where they are coming from.

Prothero's explanations include Western cultural references to movies and books. If you are a well-read person these can be quite helpful.

I rate this audiobook 5 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: GOD IS NOT ONE: THE EIGHT RIVAL RELIGIONS THAT RUN the WORLD - and WHY THEIR DIFFERENCES MATTER by Stephen Prothero.

"I LOVE PAUL REVERE, WHETHER HE RODE or NOT" by Richard Shenkman

Originally published by HarperPerennial in 1991.

Richard Shenkman has written several books that show that many of the commonly-held beliefs about history are not quite true and some are absolutely false. The title comes from a quote from President Warren G. Harding when he was asked about a popular newspaper article that asserted that Paul Revere did not actually make his famous ride. Ironically, Paul Revere only gets two mentions: once on page 10 and the other on page 192. The mention on page 192 is simply the complete quote from Harding that inspired the title of the book. So, if you were thinking this was going to be a book about Paul Revere, you will be disappointed. 

Instead, Shenkman's I Love Paul Revere, Whether He Rode or Not is a reminder that there are always multiple views on history. Anybody that tells you that a certain group all believed a certain thing or they all did something for one reason is simplifying things and losing some of the nuance of how it really happened. 

The Boston Tea Party

Shenkman explores several different areas in 12 chapters including patriotism, religion, business, alcohol/drugs, and women. Typically, he brings up a "fact" that people commonly believe, such as the Puritans living in a theocracy, and then demonstrates that they the common belief is, at best, an exaggeration (government often told the ministers to mind their own business and ministers told the government to do the same -even early on. He cites an example from 1639 - just 19 years after Plymouth colony was founded).

But, sometimes he takes things too far in order to make a point. For example, on page 66-67 he discusses the common belief that the Civil War laid the foundation for a post-war explosion of growth. He looks at railroad expansion and notes that "Before the war, railroad track increased at a rate of about 200 percent a decade. In the decade afterward, the rate barely reached 75 percent." Comparing rate of growth to actual growth is a game people play with statistics but does not deal in absolute growth.

His discussion of the Boston Tea Party is similar in that it is completely factual, but does not include all of the facts in order to make a point about the men who led it. It's a valid point, but it is certainly not the only point.

This is an extremely readable book that makes the valuable point, as I've already noted, that history is seldom as simple as we tell one another. It's not always as simple as Shenkman makes it out to be, either. I do recommend this book, however. It teaches that the reader needs to do his or her own research and provides plenty of places to get started.

I rate this book 4 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: "I LOVE PAUL REVERE, WHETHER HE RODE or NOT" by Richard Shenkman.

SEMICOLON: THE PAST, PRESENT, and FUTURE of a MISUNDERSTOOD MARK by Cecilia Watson

Published by HarperAudio in July of 2019.
Read by Pam Ward.
Duration: 3 hours, 47 minutes.
Unabridged.

Cecelia Watson is a historian whose research has made her an expert on the semicolon. Why the semicolon? She describes herself as a reformed member of the grammar police and really enjoys looking at how authors use punctuation in their writing.

I did learn some interesting (albeit trivial) facts about the origins of the semicolon and I as a world language teacher and I did appreciate Watson's de-emphasis of grammar in favor of meaning. But, sometimes this short book sometimes felt like it was slowing to a crawl as the focus went on to how various grammar books explained semicolons (and other points of grammar) over the years.

The author, Cecilia Watson

Personally, I avoid semicolons. My theory is that in most cases it would be better to make two smaller sentences than having one longer unwieldy sentence held together by a semicolon, although Watson does point out a brilliant sentence from Martin Luther King's Letter from Birmingham Jail.

If you are a fan of grammar, this may well be your book. I rate this book 3 stars out of 5. Semicolon: The Past, Present, and Future of a Misunderstood Mark by Cecilia Watson. 

FRONT ROW at the TRUMP SHOW (audiobook) by Jonathan Karl

Published by Penguin Audio on March 31, 2020.
Read by the author, Jonathan Karl.
Duration: 10 hours, 16 minutes.
Unabridged.

Jonathan Karl has had a long relationship with Donald Trump. Karl is a reporter

Jonathan Karl and Donald Trump in 1994 and nowadays.

(The New Republic, The New York Post, CNN and ABC) and he first met Donald Trump in 1994. Michael Jackson and Lisa Marie Presley had just gotten married and were staying in Trump Tower for their honeymoon. Karl convinced Trump to do an interview about why celebrities would want to stay in his building. Trump personally led Karl on a tour of the building.

Over the years, Karl interviewed Trump multiple times for multiple reasons. Because of this relationship, Karl was called on to interview Trump when he toyed with the idea of running for president before 2016 (5 times).

Karl moved on to be the White House correspondent for the Obama administration for ABC and stayed when Donald Trump was elected.

This book will not change a single mind about President Trump, for or against him so I am not going to even delve into his stories. I thought Karl made a series of fair points.  He was also critical of other administrations and their dealings with the press. But, he didn't go into detail on those because it is a book about the "Trump Show".

The book is very listenable. Karl reads his own audiobook and does a great job, which is to be expected considering what he does for a living.

I rate this audiobook 5 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: FRONT ROW at the TRUMP SHOW by Jonathan Karl.