THE RED PONY by John Steinbeck

 

Originally published in 1945.

John Steinbeck
(1902-1968)

The Red Pony is a standard novel to be read at the middle school level across the country. I remember I read the first third of the book as a part of my 7th grade literature class textbook, but the rest of the book was new to me.

As I mentioned, The Red Pony is split into sections - three of them. In actuality, they are 3 coming-of-age short stories about Jody, a boy growing up on a northern California ranch. 

Being Steinbeck stories, they are well-written, brutally realistic and every one has a sad twist.  I like Steinbeck, but it has to come in small doses.

I rate this book 4 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: The Red Pony by John Steinbeck.

CITIES of the ANCIENT WORLD (The Great Courses) by Steven L. Tuck

 

Published in 2014 by The Great Courses.

Read by the author, Steven L. Tuck

Duration: 11 hours, 48 minutes.

Unabridged.

The publishers of The Great Courses offer college level lecture classes (100 or 200 level) as audiobooks and/or videos. 

Cities of the Ancient Word begins with a discussion of the earliest cities and then moves on to significant cities that came along later. To be a significant city it had to start a new pattern - cities built on rivers, cities built on defensive hills, cities built to take advantage of sea trade, cities with a clear plan, cities built with a plan to mix to allow people of different ethnicities to live together (separately) and so on.

The Roman Colosseum

I very much enjoyed the first part of these lectures. But, once we got to Tuck's specific areas of expertise (Greek, Hellenistic, Roman) the audiobook got bogged down. His last lecture about some of the lessons of ancient cities that have been adopted by modern cities or are becoming popular again was interesting.

My primary problem of the book was that its title says it is about "cities of the ancient world" but it only includes cities in the Mediterranean basin and the Near East - the farthest away is on the border of India and Pakistan.  T

The youngest city he discusses is Constantinople and he discusses it through the 500's A.D. That is late enough that he could have easily have included cities from Asia, the Americas or Africa and I find it odd that he did not considering that he was discussing universal concepts that transcend all cities. Rather than dealing with cities that were influencing each other (a point that he makes over and over again), he could have skipped to an entirely new region of the world and shown that these principles truly are universal.

I rate this audiobook 3 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: CITIES of the ANCIENT WORLD (The Great Courses) by Steven L. Tuck.

SAVAGE RUN (Joe Pickett #2) (audiobook) by C.J. Box

 

Originally published in 2002.

Published in 2010 by Recorded Books.
Read by David Chandler.
Duration: 8 hours, 48 minutes.
Unabridged.

I have been reading the Joe Pickett series for the last 10 years and I have been reading them all out of order. I started with book number one, went on to number thirteen and so on...

So, here I am ten years later with a review of Savage Run (book number two.)

The book starts out from the perspective of a radical environmentalist who leads a national organization. However, he is tired of using lawsuits to fight for the environment. He likes to get his hands dirty by spiking trees and cutting fences. While he is out doing that he gets blown up by a bomb that was strapped to a cow. 

Photo by DWD

Joe Pickett gets called out to the explosion site because there may have been wildlife injured or killed. He finds a horrible mess and soon enough gets sucked into another, much larger situation...

This is Box's sophomore effort and there is evidence of a sophomore slump here. It's not a bad book, it's just not as good as the rest of the series usually is. It has some very compelling parts, but the tension of what should have been the biggest moment of the chase scene is deflated by from comments that appear in the first part of the book.

I rate this book 3 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: SAVAGE RUN (Joe Pickett #2) by C.J. Box.

CITY of WINDOWS (Lucas Page #1) by Robert Pobi

Published by Macmillan Audio in 2019.

Read by Stephen Graybill.
Duration: 11 hours, 5 minutes.

Unabridged.

City of Windows features Lucas Page, a certified genius (an astrophysicist) with a special talent - he can envision the relations between the stars as they rotate in the sky above and predict where they will go mathematically. It is a natural talent, one he's had since he was a little boy. He can apply this skill to crime scenes as well. He can eyeball a crime scene and tell from what direction and angle a shot came from without having to take all of the steps that Crime Scene Investigators usually have to take. 

But, he was seriously injured while on the job with the FBI several years ago. The incident took an eye, a hand and part of a leg. He gladly walked away from the FBI and became a college professor.

But, when his old partner is killed by a sniper with a very long-range shot on a busy road in New York City in the middle of a snowstorm, Lucas Page is reluctantly called back into duty. He easily figures out the angles for the shooting, but the secrets he uncovers along the way in his investigation aren't nearly as easy to deal with...

City of Windows had a lot of positives going for it, including an interesting back story for the Lucas Page, supporting characters that you want to root for and a grown up discussion of guns and violence in America.

*****SPOILERS*****

The book has a lot of discussion of militias and "patriot" movement groups. People who follow these topics, even on a superficial level will recognize the parallels to Ruby Ridge siege of 1992 in Idaho involving the FBI and the U.S. Marshals. It starts out very unsympathetic to their arguments, but then takes a turn that shows that sometimes they have a point. It does not end up supporting them, but makes an interesting discussion.

The book also has an interesting discussion of guns. It never advocates getting rid of them, but readily acknowledges that groups like the NRA (I am a former member) and its ever-active spokesman Wayne LaPierre whip up a lot of outrage no matter whether it makes sense or not and how this interacts with the politics of militias and patriot movement groups.

*****END SPOILERS*****

I ended up rating this book 3 stars out of 5. The mystery was very solid but the author's writing style was often overdone. Too many times he added an extra metaphor that didn't need to be there. For example, I clearly remember a reference to a rope ladder hanging from a house window being compared to a disconnected spinal column. It struck me as the author trying too hard. 

On top of that, the main character, Lucas Page, was more than a little hard to take. Would I want him working on a murder case if I were the FBI? Of course - he's talented and who cares about his manners?

But, I am not working with him - I am choosing to spend 11 hours with him in an audiobook and I don't think I will choose to spend another 11 hours with him in the next book since I wouldn't want to spend 11 hours with him in real life.

Bottom line: This book has some good points, a solid mystery but not enough for me to say it was more than "just okay" and certainly not enough for me to go on with the rest of the series.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: CITY of WINDOWS (Lucas Page #1) by Robert Pobi.

ULYSSES S. GRANT: A VICTOR, NOT A BUTCHER by Edward H. Bonekemper III

 

Originally published in 2010.

Re-published in 2017 by Regnery History.

Do you remember back in school when you would get a topic to argue for in an essay? That's pretty much what this book is. The topic is "Grant has the reputation for wasting his men in useless attacks. Is Grant's reputation as a butcher justified?"

Ulysses S. Grant: A Victor, Not a Butcher might be mistaken as a biography of Grant, but it is not. What it is is a fantastic defense of Grant's record in the Civil War.

Bonekemper was a federal government regulatory attorney for 34 years before he started writing books, delivering lectures, hosting discussions and teaching classes on the Civil War as a second career after he had retired. All that practice of 34 years of digging through books and digging through stats and regulations shines through this book.

You would think that what I just described is a boring book, but it is well-written and flows smoothly from one campaign to the next. Very readable.

Ulysses S. Grant (1822-1885)

Bonekemper digs through all of the stats and shows that Grant consistently inflicted a greater percentage of losses than he suffered. Only 4 armies surrendered during the Civil War. Sherman took one. Grant took the other 3 - in 1862, 1863 and 1865. Grant has a reputation of being a hard charger that just made his men charge headlong into the enemy. But, if you just look at the Vicksburg campaign you hardly see any headlong charges (sadly, they happened in every theater under every commander because they were sometimes very effective) and you do see a lot of different, creative strategies that resulted in an entire army surrendering and a second army defeated, retreating and its commander removed.

Grant gets a bad rap for his time as the commander against Lee (May 1864-April 1865). The Army of the Potomac suffered more losses from all of the previous commanders combined than under Grant and were no closer to beating Lee then when they started. Grant had more losses per day, but he finished it in less than a year. 

To be honest, I am surprised that Regnery History publishes Bonekemper's books. They usually feature a lot of books that go wholeheartedly with the "Lost Cause" tradition of Douglas Southall Freeman and Bonekemper's certainly do not. But, I am not going to look a gift horse in the mouth. I am just glad they're being published. 

I rate this book 4 stars out of 5. This book can be found on Amazon.com here: ULYSSES S. GRANT: A VICTOR, NOT A BUTCHER by Edward H. Bonekemper III.

HARRY POTTER and the ORDER of the PHOENIX (Harry Potter #5)(audiobook) by J.K. Rowling

 

Originally published in 2003.
Published by Pottermore Publishing.
Read by Jim Dale.
Duration: 26 hours, 29 minutes.
Unabridged.

Harry Potter has verified that the Lord Voldemort has returned - but the Ministry of Magic (the UK government for the Wizarding World) officially denies it. A team of wizards and witches have secretly formed a group called The Order of the Phoenix featuring a mixture of characters from the other books. Their purpose in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix is to protect Harry Potter and try to figure out what Voldemort intends to do next. 

At Hogwarts, things are going poorly. The Ministry of Magic has created a new position (the High Inquisitor) and her job is to root out anyone who disagrees with the official Ministry of Magic position on Lord Voldemort (meaning that he has not returned) and end the independent nature of the Hogwarts teaching staff. 

The reader, Jim Dale

Jim Dale's reading is always a mixed bag for me because his characterization of Hermione Granger comes off as whiny and annoying. However, his reading of the most memorable and most hated character of the entire series for me, the High Inquisitor Dolores Umbridge, was magnificent. Man, I wanted to smack that woman every time he read her lines, which is exactly what was intended when it was written.

Luna Lovegood was a welcome addition to Harry Potter's circle of friends and the scene with Neville Longbottom in the hospital is completely heartbreaking. 

This lengthy book could have been edited a bit (the night bus scene comes to mind), but this book was the best book in the series. Simply excellent. 

5 stars out of 5.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: HARRY POTTER and the ORDER of the PHOENIX (Harry Potter #5) by J.K. Rowling.

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

THE HOUSE of DANIEL: A NOVEL of WILD MAGIC, the GREAT DEPRESSION, and SEMIPRO BALL by Harry Turtledove

Published in 2016 by Tom Doherty Associates (A Tor Book)

Harry Turtledove specializes in alternate histories. Usually, he has a big twist - what if the South won the Civil War? What if Atlantis were a real continent? What if the Colonies lost the Revolutionary War? What if MacArthur actually dropped atomic bombs during the Korean War?

The House of Daniel is a different kind of story, with a twist.

To be perfectly honest, I read the description of this book, with its references to The Great Depression, baseball, "hotshot wizards" and zombies and missed the fact that it was actually referring to actual wizards and zombies, not metaphorical wizards (the whiz kid experts that FDR hired) and zombies (the unemployed masses who are desperate for work). I really thought that Turtledove had just written a straight book about semipro baseball in the Great Depression.

And, basically he has. 85% of this story is about baseball.

Jack Spivey does odd jobs, plays semipro baseball for a few bucks a game and a little muscle work for a local mobster-type named Big Stu in Enid, Oklahoma. He is contracted to go to a neighboring town to give a beating to the sibling of a client that is behind on his payments. When the sibling turns out to be a beautiful young woman, Jack can't do it. Instead, he takes a position with a traveling semipro baseball team called "The House of Daniel" and hits the road.

If you don't like baseball, this book will bore you to tears. Jack tells about his life on the road and about dozens of baseball games - sometimes in great detail, with play by play and even pitch by pitch descriptions. 

But, the world that they live in is a little off from our world. Major League Baseball exists, but none of the names are recognizable. Magic exists - regular magic, dark magic and even religious magic. So do vampires. And zombies. And magic carpets. And mystery creatures like chupacabras. 

I really enjoyed this book, despite my original confusion. 

I rate this book 5 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: THE HOUSE of DANIEL: A NOVEL of WILD MAGIC, the GREAT DEPRESSION, and SEMIPRO BALL by Harry Turtledove.

THE GOOD KILLER (audiobook) by Harry Dolan

 

Published in 2020 by Highbridge, a division of Recorded Books.

Read by James Patrick Cronin.
Duration: 9 hours, 15 minutes.
Unabridged.

In The Good Killer, Sean Tennant and Molly Winter are living under assumed names around Houston, Texas. They are in hiding (the story eventually lets the reader know why) and live off of the grid as much as possible. 

Tennant is a retired soldier who served a very rough tour in Iraq. He still has the skills that helped him survive: he is hyper-vigilant and always carries a weapon and tourniquet. On a trip to the mall to buy a new pair of boots a man attracts his attention. When he moves away, Tennant is relieved. When the man opens fire in a clothing store, Tennant leaps into action. He kills the shooter and saves a mother's life with his tourniquet. 

And he runs because he knows he will be on the news and the people who desperately want to find Sean and Molly will be coming...

I am a big fan of what I call "the chase book." That is a book where the hero (protagonist) is being chased by evil forces or police who will stop them from achieving some important goal to stop the evil forces.

A critical component of this formula (for me) has to be a likable set of protagonists. In this book, I found Sean and Molly to be nowhere near the most likable characters. I even found one of the bad guys to be more likable than them.

The reader, James Patrick Cronin, has an excellent reading voice even though he struggled with the pronunciation Midwestern place names. That wasn't necessarily his fault - his producers should have caught it and corrected it.

I rate this audiobook 3 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: The Good Killer by Harry Dolan.

GREENLIGHTS (audiobook) by Matthew McConaughey

Published in October of 2020 by Random House Audio.
Read by the author, Matthew McConaughey.
Duration: 6 hours, 42 minutes.
Unabridged,

Oscar-winning actor Matthew McConaughey's memoirs are a unique blend of life lessons, reminiscing and bumper stickers that he admired. The title, Greenlights, refers to life giving you opportunities to move forward that you need to take.

The life lessons and bumper stickers are laid out as he tells his life story. He decided to acknowledge his 50th birthday by going through his diaries and notebooks full of observations that he has kept for decades. It is not a true biography, but it is not a true philosophical discussion. What he ends up with is a rambling, yet endearing story.

Some observations:

-His childhood was more than a little concerning.

-I loved his decision to go on the road for a year. 

-John Mellencamp. He's a fan - he quotes his songs several times. I get it. 

I rate this audiobook 4 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: Greenlights by Matthew McConaughey.

THE STORY of HUMAN LANGUAGE (audiobook) by John McWhorter

 

Published in 2004 by The Great Courses.

Lectures delivered by the author, John McWhorter.
Duration: 18 hours, 15 minutes.
Unabridged. 

The idea behind The Great Courses is a simple one - take a college lecture course given by an expert that knows how to give an interesting lecture and package it up as an audiobook that anyone can listen to.

John McWhorter is probably the most famous linguist in America after Noam Chomsky. He takes the listeners on a very thorough introduction to the topic of human language. We learn about proto-languages, language families, tonal languages, sounds that are likely to disappear over time, and how English became the interesting mess that it is and why it's actually easier to learn than most English speakers think.

I come at this being sort of a language nerd - I teach Spanish. McWhorter's lectures were usually informative and entertaining. But, editing out or consolidating 5 or 6 lectures out of this 35+ lecture series would have improved it. 

Nonetheless, it is still a worthwhile listen.

I rate this audiobook 4 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: THE STORY of HUMAN LANGUAGE by John McWhorter.

OUR LINCOLN: NEW PERSPECTIVES on LINCOLN and HIS WORLD edited by Eric Foner

 

Published in 2008 by W.W. Norton and Company.

This series of essays was most likely compiled to be the text for college-level classes by Eric Foner, a historian well-known for his expertise on the Civil War, the Underground Railroad, American Slavery and Reconstruction. Lincoln, of course, sits astride all of these issues.

There are 11 essays covering four broad topics: 

-Lincoln as "The President", looking at such things as how he acted as commander-in-chief and how Lincoln protected (and failed to protect) civil rights during the war.

Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865)

-Lincoln as "The Emancipator", focusing on his view of slavery, citizenship for African Americans, his zeal for colonizing freed slaves and his hot and cold relationship with abolitionists. 

-Lincoln "The Man" with essays about his writing style (and how it changed as the war went on), his views on religion (and how it also may have changed as the war went on) and his family life (his birth family and his married life).

-Lincoln in "Politics and Memory". This is the shortest section and the most politically charged. The author's comments on the Bush administration only make me wonder what he would have said about the Trump administration.

On the whole, this was a solid collection, but like all collections, not all of the items in the collection are equal. One essay was about Lincoln's control of how his physical image was shared through paintings, sculpture and photographs and I found it to be so tedious that I started skimming it and finally just skipped to the next essay. The three essays on the Lincoln as The Emancipator were all excellent, but they also had a lot of overlap. 

I rate this collection 4 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: OUR LINCOLN: NEW PERSPECTIVES on LINCOLN and HIS WORLD edited by Eric Foner.

THE LAW of INNOCENCE (audiobook)(Mickey Haller #6) by Michael Connelly

Published in November of 2020 by Little, Brown and Company.

Read by Peter Giles.
Duration: 12 hours, 27 minutes.
Unabridged.

I am an enthusiastic fan of Michael Connelly's books, but to me the Mickey Haller/Lincoln Lawyer series has always been a lesser series than the related Harry Bosch series. It is never bad - just not quite as good.

I am pleased to say that The Law of Innocence is much better than the typical offering in this series. In fact, this is one of the best fiction audiobooks I have listened to in quite a while.

Mickey Haller is known to many as The Lincoln Lawyer. He has that nickname because he works out of the back of his car (always a Lincoln) rather than have an actual office in traffic-plagued Los Angeles. He has wi-fi, a printer and access to his digital files. His office manager works from her home office and sort of acts as his "air traffic controller" by setting up his schedule and arranging places to meet his next appointment. His drivers are typically former clients, some of whom are driving to work off their attorney's fees. 

The book begins with Mickey Haller hosting a party at a downtown bar celebrating a not guilty verdict. Haller is not partaking because he has been clean and sober for the past several years. This is an important point as he drives home and gets pulled over. Certain that this is a bad stop for drunk driving, Haller is surprised to see that he has a missing license plate. He is even more surprised to see a liquid dripping from the back of his car. The officer is sure it is blood, cuffs Haller and opens the trunk to find the body of a former client.

Haller is, of course, innocent. Haller goes from being a defense attorney to being the defendant in a murder trial and the case against him is very strong...

Note: The Law of Innocence has a lot of ties to the fourth novel in the series, The Fifth Witness. 

I rate this audiobook 5 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: THE LAW of INNOCENCE (audiobook)(Mickey Haller #6) by Michael Connelly.

THE ORIGINAL (audiobook) by Brandon Sanderson and Mary Robinette Kowal

 

Published in September of 2020 by Recorded Books.

Read by Julia Whelan.
Duration: 3 hours, 30 minutes.
Unabridged.

Brandon Sanderson is one of the go-to names in science fiction and fantasy in the 21st Century. He has been nominated for or has won just about all of the major awards. Mary Robinette Kowal has similar credentials. Together, they created this audiobook-exclusive novella.

This audiobook clocks in at 3 hours and 30 minutes, but it is an action-packed 3 hours and 30 minutes that takes the listener into an all-too-plausible (mostly) and creepy world.

Mary Robinette Kowal

The Original begins with Holly Winseed waking up in a hospital. She has no idea why she is there and gets very confusing answers from the staff. Soon, she realizes that she is a cloned copy of herself.

Winseed lives in a future filled with nano-technology, including in the human bloodstream. The tiny robots keep people healthy and young. 

It also allows the government to access your mind. Then, they can clone the body and, if things go well, unite the new body with the old mind. This is rarely done, though. The government reserves the right to do this when the original person has committed a heinous crime and needs to be tracked down. The idea is simple - who knows how you think better than you? 

The plot is interesting, but for me the setting was even better. This imagined world takes CGI to another level - enabled by the nano-technology in their bloodstreams. It is well worth your time to listen to this audiobook just for that - the story within their created universe is a bonus.

I rate this audiobook 5 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: THE ORIGINAL (audiobook) by Brandon Sanderson and Mary Robinette Kowal.

HOW to THINK: A SURVIVAL GUIDE for a WORLD at ODDS by Alan Jacobs

 

Published in 2017 by Random House Audio.

Read by P.J. Ochlan.

Duration: 4 hours, 21 minutes.
Unabridged.

Alan Jacobs is a professor and expert on the human mind. This short work is essentially a treatise on how to keep an open mind and not get stuck in a mental rut - meaning not simply rejecting new ideas out of hand. He also addresses the concept of how to reach out to people to make new ideas more appealing to them.

Alan Jacobs

Jacobs fills the book with a lot of anecdotes - they were usually interesting in and of themselves, but not particularly enlightening. For me the last part of that sentence pretty much describes the book. It was pleasant enough but it really didn't teach me anything and a lot of the time I was wondering where the author was going with yet another story.

I rate this audiobook 3 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: HOW to THINK: A SURVIVAL GUIDE for a WORLD at ODDS by Alan Jacobs.

DEATH WITHOUT COMPANY (Longmire #2) (audiobook) by Craig Johnson

 

Originally published in 2006.

Published by Recorded Books in 2007.
Read by George Guidall.
Duration: 9 hours, 48 minutes.

Unabridged

Walt Longmire's mentor as the Sheriff of Absaroka County is Lucian, a long-retired and extra-cranky one-legged man. Lucian lives in an assisted living home and he calls in Walt when a resident passes away. Nursing home residents passing away isn't normally an event that draws a lot of suspicion, but Lucian insists it was murder. Longmire decides to listen to Lucian and soon enough Walt uncovers a lot more than anyone was expecting...

I am coming to the Longmire book series after seeing the entire Longmire TV series. This is technically my third book. I listened to number 3, the first book and now the second book. 

And...I am going to give this series a rest for a while. I liked the interesting characters, but the book has serious pacing issues. As I said, I watched the series. My least favorite part of the series was the sequences when Walt would get visions. This book had way too many visions - they slowed the book and did little for me.

I rate this audiobook 3 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: DEATH WITHOUT COMPANY (Longmire #2) (audiobook) by Craig Johnson.

ANCIENT CIVILIZATIONS of NORTH AMERICA (The Great Courses) by Edwin Barnhart

Published in 2018 by The Great Courses.

Lectures by Edwin Barnhart.
Duration: 12 hours, 19 minutes.
Unabridged.

The idea behind The Great Courses is a simple one - take a college lecture course given by an expert that knows how to give an interesting lecture and package it up as an audiobook that anyone can listen to.

Edwin Barnhart is an archaeologist working out of University of Texas - Austin. This course is the completion of a trilogy of courses on Native American civilizations (South America, Mesoamerica, North America). Barnhart's area of true expertise is Mesoamerica, but he has a wealth of practical experience on digs throughout the Southwest. He also clear has a love for the various mound builder civilizations that arose in North America. 

Barnhart takes both chronological and regional approach to this history. The early history section generally is chronological because it is the most unclear. It is also the most technical section of the book, with long discussions of the pros and cons of various techniques to date artifacts. This part was pretty dry, to be honest.

 Monks Mound at Cahokia, easily the largest mound in North
America and one of the larger pyramids in the world.

The rest of the book moves from one region of the country to the next looking at the distinctive features and accomplishments of the various peoples. That part was very interesting to me. I have been to a few of them (most recently, Cahokia) and took a few notes of some great sites that I had never heard of. 

This is my fourth or fifth Great Courses audiobook. It was the first one where I felt that the presenter was actually presenting for a video course rather than an audio course. I kept thinking that I was missing some slides or visual aides as he was speaking. Turns out, this course is also available on DVD and streaming video. I enjoyed the audio presentation, but it might be better as a video. 

I rate this audiobook 4 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: ANCIENT CIVILIZATIONS of NORTH AMERICA (The Great Courses) by Edwin Barnhart.

THE GIFTS of the JEWS: HOW a TRIBE of DESERT NOMADS CHANGED the WAY EVERYONE THINKS and FEELS (The Hinges of History Series #2) by Thomas Cahill

 

Originally published in 1998 by Nan A. Talese/Anchor Books in 1998.

The Gifts of the Jews is the second book in The Hinges of History Series by Thomas Cahill. It is a series of histories that look at important long term movements in history that helped create Western Civilization. 

I read this book when it was first published and I placed it on my shelf and did not touch it for more than 20 years. Over time, I remembered it as remembered it as a dense tome and continued to keep it on my shelf as more of a trophy to my ability to read through difficult books than for any desire to go back and consult it or even re-read it. That changed when we stuck at home during the pandemic quarantine and we came to realize that our extensive bookshelves were overwhelmed and a purge was in order. This book was "purged" from the shelves, but went in to my to-be-read pile after I leafed though it.

I don't know why I remembered this book as hard to read. Cahill has a real gift for writing. This book was usually interesting (often immensely interesting), easy to read and offered challenging takes on the Old Testament. 

Cahill starts with a look at religious worship and religious belief in ancient Mesopotamia and Egypt. He emphasizes that everything was viewed as an unchanging cycle. This makes sense when you look at nature - the seasons, the lunar cycle, menstrual cycles, the unending cycle of birth and death and more birth and so on. The individual is not particularly important to society (everyone has a place and stays in their place and does what is expected) and the big gods don't particularly care about the individual (sacrifices are done by professionals to the bigger gods). Household gods do care about the individual, but they are limited in power and are prone to capricious behavior. Think about the Greek myths or even the famed literary character Conan the Barbarian who worships Crom - a god who does little to encourage or discourage his followers and mostly just watches over things in a generally disapproving way. 

Cahill asserts that the Old Testament is a change in that pattern. He is not unique in this thought - I have heard it at my church on a pretty regular basis. The argument is that Abraham changes the mold by stepping away from Ur, a Mesopotamian city state at the behest of God. Abraham leaves the faceless masses and becomes a known personality. The cycle stops and instead becomes a timeline following Abraham and his descendants and a relationship between a deity and his people. 

Cahill builds on this theme and shows that, over time, it becomes more than a relationship between a whole people and God and becomes more of relationship between God and individual people in that group (as typified by David).

During the exile in Babylon, the relationship changed again. Judaism had been forced to return to its roots in Mesopotamia and had to come up with a new paradigm or whither away. The temple and its sacrifices were literally gone. 

He dates the book of Ruth as being written in post-exile times (even though it describes pre-kingdom times) and notes that it is a story of regular people trusting in God and doing what is right. Even more importantly, Ruth - the title character - is not even Jewish. It is an effort towards inclusion. One does not have to be a literal child of Abraham to join his people. Judaism is no longer about blood or the location of a temple or even having a temple.

Cahill notes: If their identity as a nation was gone (or at least fundamentally altered), "what more could he possibly want from them? It was in the midst of this conundrum that the unheeded words of the prophets came back to them. God wanted something other than blood and smoke, buildings and citadels. He wanted justice, mercy and humility. He wanted what was invisible. He wanted their hearts - not the outside, but the inside." (p. 226)

I enjoyed this book, but I think Cahill oversold some aspects. There are certainly cycles to Judaism. For example, the Torah is read in worship in a cycle and the annual religious holidays are a cycle. But, maybe I am nitpicking.

There are parts of this book that dragged, especially in the first quarter. But, the rest of it was well worth my time to read. Turns out that I also had the third installment of this series on my shelf so I will be reading it soon. The lesson? Sometimes, it's a good idea to clear off the old book shelves and re-read a book you haven't looked it in a while.

I rate this book 4 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: THE GIFTS of the JEWS: HOW a TRIBE of DESERT NOMADS CHANGED the WAY EVERYONE THINKS and FEELS (The Hinges of History Series #2) by Thomas Cahill.

THE CIVIL WAR REMEMBERED: OFFICIAL NATIONAL PARK SERVICE HANDBOOK by various authors

 

Originally published in 2011 by Eastern National

Eastern National is the publisher of the official books published by the National Park Service. Their books are on display in National Park gift shops in visitor centers across the country. Most are pretty good - I've bought more than my share of them because they are compact volumes, full of great, pertinent illustrations printed on glossy paper and their information is solid. The problem is that the writing is always solid, if not particularly engrossing. 

The Civil War Remembered is an exception that pattern because the authors are historians who are also name brand Civil War authors - some are authors that have hit the top of the non-fiction best seller lists and you don't do that if you write dense prose.

There are 16 essays in this 175 page book. Each one covers a specific topic that makes for a rough narrative telling of the history by exploring themes such as America before the Civil War, what it is was like to serve in the military in the Civil War, how the war changed from a war to only preserve the Union to a war to end slavery in order to preserve the Union, industry in the Civil War, the West in the Civil War and Reconstruction. Some of the big names include James McPherson, Edward L. Ayers and Eric Foner. 

This book would serve as a great introduction to the Civil War for anyone. I was very pleased to see a review on Amazon that said that their college professor used this in class. This volume is that good. 

Highly recommended.

I rate this book 5 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: THE CIVIL WAR REMEMBERED: OFFICIAL NATIONAL PARK SERVICE HANDBOOK.

THE COLD DISH (Longmire #1)(audiobook) by Craig Johnson

 

Originally published in 2004.
Published by Recorded Books in 2007.
Read by George Guidall.
Duration: 13 hours, 17 minutes.
Unabridged.

The Longmire book series is the definition of a successful franchise with 16 novels and a six season television series. I watched the series and I enjoyed it immensely, so I decided to give the books a go.

There are obvious differences in characters (The Ferg is a massive change, for example), but they are not deal-breakers. I prefer to look at them as another interpretation of the characters. 

The main mystery in The Cold Dish was highly adapted for the TV series, so much so that it was basically a whole new mystery.

A few years earlier 4 white high school boys sexually assaulted a fellow student. She was Native American who suffered from fetal alcohol syndrome and didn't really understand what had happened. The trial that followed was rough on the local white and Native American communities and ended with minimal punishments for the boys. 

Now, the boys are being murdered one by one by a sniper using an 1874 Sharps Rifle (or a replica) and Longmire has no shortage of suspects...

So, what did I think?

The story drug from time to time, but the main characters are strong. I am not sure if that is because I know another version of them from the TV show or if they were strong in the novel. Either way, I am going to keep going.

I rate this audiobook 4 stars out of 5.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: THE COLD DISH by Craig Johnson.

CIVIL WAR in the INDIAN TERRITORY by Steve Cottrell

 

Originally published in 1995.
Published in 1998 by Pelican Publishing Company.

The answer to one of the more popular Civil War trivia questions is: Stand Watie. The question is: Who was the last Confederate General to surrender at the end of the Civil War?

Stand Watie is unique because he is the only Native American to become a general during the Civil War. The Cherokee and other Indian Nations living in Oklahoma were drawn into the Civil War and fought in more than 30 engagements - some relatively small and some quite large. 

Slavery was a factor (Watie had slaves and a plantation), but there were also local political issues that were probably more influential. 

Like most of the fighting in the West, the battles were not large by Civil War standards, but the fighting was usually pretty personal. Villages were burned out, refugees fled by the thousands and it was not uncommon for soldiers to know the people they were fighting personally. Also, this front was one of the first to have African American soldiers fight. 

As a history, this book was very readable as an introduction. It is big on the action of the war and doesn't get much into the thoughts and motivations of the regular soldiers. For example, it would have been interesting to read about what white soldiers from Texas, Arkansas, Kansas and Wisconsin (a Wisconsin unit is mentioned throughout the book) thought about fighting alongside and/or against Native American and African American soldiers.

Also, there were a few times when Cottrell's text was over the top. For example, on page 76:

Stand Watie (1806-1871)

"Holding their rifles and cartridge boxes above their heads to keep their powder dry, the dauntless African-Americans sloshed through the waist-deep water to the opposite shore as bullets and buckshot flew around them. With warm adrenaline flowing through their veins, the former slaves followed their Anglo-Saxon colonel into the brush, overrunning the enemy rifle pits in a mad, fearless dash through the timber." 

I rate this book 3 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: CIVIL WAR in the INDIAN TERRITORY by Steve Cottrell.

RACER by John Andretti and Jade Gurss

 

Published by Octane Press in September of 2020.

I thoroughly enjoyed this autobiography because John Andretti was my favorite race car driver - period. 

I have watched auto racing for as long as I can remember. Some of my earliest memories are going to qualifications for the Indy 500. I have Janet Guthrie's autograph - not realizing when I got it that it was actually an amazing autograph to have. The sound of a single car circling the track with the roar and whine of the engine (it has both sounds at the same time) echoing off of the stands makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up. The history at that track cannot be topped by any other venue in the world.

I attended my first NASCAR race at Michigan in 1981 with my father. The spectacle of the whole thing was amazing. It was won by my favorite driver at the time, Richard Petty. In 1986, we went to our first Indy 500 and haven't missed one since (the 2020 race doesn't count since no spectators were allowed due to Covid-19). 

John Andretti first came to my attention as the cousin and nephew of his more famous relatives, Michael and Mario Andretti. He was like an also-ran compared to them because he didn't come with fully-funded top-notch rides and I paid him little attention - he had the famous name but I wasn't particularly fond of his cousin Michael Andretti. Michael had a reputation for complaining about everything and everyone. He has gotten much better as an owner and I have to say I am truly a fan of the way he manages his IndyCar teams.

So, when a local Indianapolis radio station started to interview him every week I listened with some serious skepticism. Before long, I found that I had a lot in common with John. We were born in the same hospital (5 years apart) and I live on the West Side of Indy, where he grew up. It became clear that he was much more of a regular guy race car driver than his more famous cousin. Plus, he had a great sense of humor. 

Soon enough, his segment became "must listen" radio for me and I became a fan. He started a go-kart race as a joke competition with one of the on-air personalities and raised money for Riley Children's Hospital in Indianapolis. It became know as the Race for Riley. I attended a few of them as the event grew from just a few thousand dollars to raising hundreds of thousands at a time (almost $5 million at the time this book was published). In fact, a portion of the purchase price of the hardcover edition of this book goes to Race for Riley.

John Andretti really lies at the intersection of my racing interests. I love the Indy 500 - and so did he. My favorite driver in NASCAR was Richard Petty and I was the absolute happiest as a fan when John drove Petty's 43 car. And John was the first driver to race the Indy 500, climb on a plane and then fly to Charlotte, North Carolina to race in NASCAR's longest race - the World 600 (as it was called then).

John's reaction when he discovered he had colon cancer was not surprising. His was so advanced when he found out that he really had almost no chance. He went out of his way to let people know that that was easily preventable and they could learn from his example and get a colonoscopy early on to have a better result. I did - one month before his death. And, it was a good thing, too! Thanks, John. 

Having heard John in several year's worth of weekly interviews, I can tell you that this book does have the true feel of his voice, which says a lot for his ghost author Jade Gurss. Gurss seems to specialize in racing-related books, which had to be a big help for writing this one.

The last page of this book hit me like a ton of bricks, even though I knew exactly how it ended. 

Left to Right: Richard Petty, John Andretti and
Michael Andretti. John ran a car with Richard
Petty's traditional colors for his cousin's
team in the 2010 Indy 500.

There are four forwards to the book and they are a testament to John Andretti's level of connection in the racing community: Mario Andretti, A.J. Foyt, Michael Andretti and Richard Petty. This is a collection of American racing royalty that is unrivaled. 

So, there is my mess of a review of a book that I absolutely enjoyed. I rate this book 5 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: RACER by John Andretti and Jade Gurss.