THE PRINCESS, the SCOUNDREL, and the FARM BOY by Alexandra Bracken

 

Published in 2019 by Disney LucasFilm Press.

The Princess, the Scoundrel, and the Farm Boy is a YA re-telling of Star Wars: Episode IV: A New Hope. It is told from the perspective of three different characters: Princess Leia, Han Solo and Luke Skywalker - in that order.

The book starts out, like the movie, with the attack of Leia's ship and the fight as stormtroopers board it and stays with her through the destruction of Alderaan. The middle of the book starts with Han in the cantina looking at the results of Ben Kenobi's handiwork with a light saber. It stays with Han until they escape from the Death Star. At that point, it switches to Luke and stays with him until the end.

This is more than a simple re-telling of the movie, though. That book was already written by George Lucas (ghost-written by Alan Dean Foster) a long time ago.

There are lots of direct quotes from the movie ("I recognized your foul stench when I was brought on board." "That's no moon..." "No reward is worth this." "I used to bull's-eye womp rats...") but the strength of the book is that it adds to the plot of the movie. We get background on the activist background of Princess Leia, Han Solo's secret desire to be part of something larger and more meaningful, more details on the little bit of training Kenobi gave Luke on the Millennium Falcon and the training that Luke got so that he could go from flying a T-16 to an X-Wing so well. 

All of the additions made sense and the story still flowed smoothly. I read the original novel at least 10 times back in the early 80s and I can't count the number of times I have seen the movie (so many times that my mind supplied the correct bits of musical soundtrack as I read along). This book was a lot of fun. I have no idea if this book would make sense to anyone who hadn't already seen the movie, but I enjoyed it.

I rate this book 4 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: THE PRINCESS, THE SCOUNDREL, AND THE FARM BOY by Alexandra Bracken.

BLOOD MONEY: A LUCKY DEY THRILLER (audiobook) by Doug Richardson

Published in 2019 by Velvet Elvis Entertainment.
Read by Tim DeKay.
Duration: 9 hours, 35 minutes.
Unabridged

Synopsis:

On a lonely country road in Kern County, north of Los Angeles, a police officer is murdered while he is trying to help 2 crash victims.

The police officer is the little brother of a hard-charging officer named Lucky Dey and Lucky is determined to get the murderer at all costs. They determine that the driver of a black semi hauling a matching black refrigerated trailer is probably the murderer. The evidence points towards it heading to Los Angeles.

Lucky rolls into down at 100+ MPH, meets up with a contact/babysitter from LAPD and they soon figure out that this is even more of a mess than they thought it was...

My review:

The general idea of Blood Money was good, but just too busy. I think the story was told through at least eight different characters and that just diffused the action and drive of the story too much. On top of that, almost none of the characters are likable. For example, the main character is semi-racist throughout the book. Is semi-racist a thing? He says racist comments throughout the book. I guess that makes him just a simple racist. Also, sexist. But, on a positive note, he is good with kids.

******Spoilers******

Even worse, I never really could figure out what the deal was with the bad guy, but he had amazing powers of recuperation. He went from barely being able to walk due to a heavily damaged knee (took a superhuman effort to walk a few blocks) to being able to kill again, dispose of the body, stalk a man, drive with a clutch (18 wheelers have sooooo many gears!) and then also get involved in a running gun fight while literally climbing all over vehicles - all in the same day!

******End spoilers********

I rate this book 2 stars out of 5. This author should have been able to do better. He is literally the writer of multiple action screenplays that you have heard of - like Bad Boys and Die Hard 2.

It can be found at Amazon.com here: BLOOD MONEY: A LUCKY DEY THRILLER by Doug Richardson.

Note: I was sent a free review copy of this audiobook from the publisher so that I could write an honest review.

KING PHILLIP II: A LIFE from BEGINNING to END (Kindle) by Hourly History

 

Published in 2020 by Hourly History.

King Philip II (1527-1598) ruled Spain at its most powerful. This is the Spain that took over Portugal, consolidated its New World holdings, conquered the Philippines, stopped Ottoman naval expansion in the Eastern Mediterranean, stopped Protestant expansion in several areas yet lost the Spanish Armada to the English and suffered a series of losses in the Netherlands. It was the first that could reasonably claim that the sun never set on its empire. 

Philip's personal life takes up a lot of this book. For such a powerful man, his personal life had to humble him. He had multiple wives who died from a variety of ways, but usually related to giving birth.  He also lost several children.

His oldest son suffered from physical and mental illnesses that were so pronounced that the Philip II stepped in and barred his son from being next in line for the throne. That son died in custody, possibly by making himself ill while being held in confinement by poisoning himself or freezing himself by covering himself in ice and sleeping on beds of ice.

The beauty and the weakness of this book series is the brevity of each book. They are designed to be read in about an hour, which means I can explore a whole new area or person with little time commitment. But, I always end up with questions. In this book, Philip's self-assigned role as a defender of the Catholic faith and the politics in that arena was given light treatment.

I rate this short e-book 3 stars out of 5. Nothing wrong with this book - it doesn't make the reader an expert, but it did fill in some blanks in my personal knowledge of this time period.

This e-book can be found on Amazon.com here:  King Philip II: A Life from Beginning to End in 2020 by Hourly History.

HOW the WORD IS PASSED: A RECKONING with the HISTORY of SLAVERY ACROSS AMERICA (audiobook) by Clint Smith

 

Published by Little, Brown and Company.
Read by the author, Clint Smith.
Duration: 10 hours, 6 minutes.
Unabridged.

Clint Smith decided to explore several key historical sites that have ties to American slavery and how the consequences of American slavery has echoed down throughout American history.

He is looking for constant threads in American history from the perspective of African Americans. He visits Thomas Jefferson's Monticello, New Orleans, Angola Prison, a plantation in Louisiana that emphasizes the lives of the majority of the people that lived and worked there (the slaves and the Jim Crow era labor that was trapped there), a Confederate grave yard, the place were Juneteenth happened in Texas, New York City (a slave stronghold in the North for a surprisingly long time) and finally a fortress used as a slave market in Africa.

Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) and Sally Hemings (c. 1773-1835)

This is a difficult book in many ways. Smith intentionally digs into difficult questions and is an excellent interviewer. His first location is Monticello and his interviews and observations are just about perfect. He explores the contradictions that should fill every discussion of Jefferson. There is a powerful discussion about Sally Hemings, how slavery has been dealt with on the Monticello tours and how the refusal to acknowledge this complicated past reflects the history we want to hear rather than the history that actually happened.

Monticello provided a strong start and the rest of the book was not quite as strong but still provided plenty to think about. This is a topic that America seems to want to avoid at all costs. This is evidenced by all of the furor over the 1619 Project and the abject fear that someone might be teaching something similar to Critical Race Theory in America somewhere. 

I rate this book 5 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: HOW the WORD IS PASSED: A RECKONING with the HISTORY of SLAVERY ACROSS AMERICA (audiobook) by Clint Smith.

This book would go well with these books that I have read in the last year: 

ROBERT E. LEE and ME: A SOUTHERNER'S RECKONING with the MYTH of the LOST CAUSE by Ty Seidule and DOWN ALONG with THAT DEVIL'S BONES: A RECKONING with MONUMENTS, MEMORY, and the LEGACY of WHITE SUPREMACY by Connor Towne O'Neill.

THE FAITHFUL SPY: DIETRICH BONHOEFFER and the PLOT to KILL HITLER by John Hendrix

Published in 2018 by Amulet Books.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer is well-known as one of the few ministers who stood up to the Nazis and kept his ministry completely independent of the totalitarian regime. Eventually, his principled stand led to his death in prison. Along that path there was a point where he closed down his ministry and used his connections to get a position in military intelligence.

At first, this sounds like he totally gave in to the Nazis. However, it turns out that the military intelligence and the Nazi intelligence departments were completely separate entities and they did not get along very well. Bonhoeffer used that mistrust and friction to his advantage - he sent intelligence to the Allied powers, he helped with plans to sneak Jews out of Germany.

These were easy actions on a moral level - if you believe the regime in charge of your country is evil, you will work against it. But, the more Bonhoeffer thought about it, the more he considered taking more decisive action - action that would end in the sin of murder. He joined a plot to assassinate Hitler...

This biography was very well done. The book is sort of a regular biography combined with a heavy dose of graphic novel. The pictures are sometimes accurate and sometimes heavily symbolic, like the wolf picture posted above (pages 60-61).

I rate this biography 5 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: THE FAITHFUL SPY: DIETRICH BONHOEFFER and the PLOT to KILL HITLER by John Hendrix.

SUBHAS CHANDRA BOSE: A LIFE from BEGINNING to END (kindle) by Hourly History

 

Published by Hourly History in 2020.

I am an avid reader of history, but I have areas of weakness that I am perfectly willing to shore up a bit, but I don't want to invest a ton of time in. The long history of India is just one of those areas for me. I know more than most people, but I can see the glaringly empty areas of ignorance.

Subhas Chandra Bose was one of those people for me. I had heard of him, but only described as sort of an "anti-Ghandi". He wanted independence as much as Ghandi did, but thought the non-violent protests were a waste of time. Subhas Chandra Bose was not only willing to fight - he thought it was the only way India would be free of English rule.

Bose was born in India but formally educated in England. He was poised to take his place in the bureaucracy of colonial India. But, he rejected that offer and became active in the independence movement. 

As World War II loomed, Bose saw it as an opportunity to free India. He approached the Fascist powers for support. Germany and Italy poo-pooed him but Japan saw the potential and financed a army of Indian nationals - but waited too late to make a difference. 

The beauty and the weakness of this book series is the brevity of each book. They are designed to be read in about an hour, which means I can explore a whole new area or person with little time commitment. But, I always end up with questions. In this book, I found myself wondering how much faith the Japanese really had in Bose and his army and why they waited so long to fund it.

I rate this book 4 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here:  SUBHA CHANDRA BOSE:  A LIFE from BEGINNING to END (kindle) by Hourly History.

MEDICAL MYTHS, LIES and HALF-TRUTHS: WHAT WE THING WE KNOW MAY HURT US by Dr. Steven Novella

 

Published by The Great Courses in 2013.

Presented by the author, Dr. Steven Novella.
Duration: 12 hours, 25 minutes.
Unabridged.

Dr. Steven Novella addresses common questions and misconceptions that people often have about medicine. 

The topics covered range from the very serious (like cancer, for example) to the relatively lightweight (do caffeinated drinks actually do anything to hydrate a person?).

Novella explains the science behind each of his discussions in everyday language and his demeanor is more like that of a friend than that of a lecturing authority figure. 

As in all books of this sort, there were parts that I was keenly interested in and parts that I didn't care a whole lot about. But, on the whole, this book is well worth your time.

I rate this audiobook 4 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here:  MEDICAL MYTHS, LIES and HALF-TRUTHS: WHAT WE THING WE KNOW MAY HURT US by Dr. Steven Novella.

SPIDER-MAN: MAYHEM in MANHATTAN (audiobook) by Len Wein and Marv Wolfman

Originally published as a paperback book by Pocket Books in 1978.

Published by Marvel as an audiobook in 2019.
Read by Tristan Wright.
Duration: 4 hours, 9 minutes.
Unabridged.

Spider-Man is busy being "your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man" when he encounters a dead body thrown out of a New York City luxury high-rise apartment onto the street below. While he is investigating, two beat cops stumble upon them and a rookie cop on his first night shift tour takes a shot at Spider-Man. Worse than that, they make Spider-Man the prime suspect for the murder and Daily Bugle publisher J. Jonah Jameson starts yet another media campaign against Spider-Man. 

Can things get worse? 

Spidey finds out that they certainly can as he begins an investigation to clear his name...

******

Spider-Man: Mayhem in Manhattan was kind of a tedious listen. Clearly, this book re-published as an audiobook in response to the Spider-Man craze that has come along since Spider-Man was added to the Marvel Cinematic Universe and not on its own merits as a piece of literature. Note: this book is not a part of the MCU, since it was published 30 years before the release of the first MCU movie. This was the first paperback in a short-lived series of books that Pocket Books published.

I am going to be tough on this audiobook because both Marvel and DC have done some nice work with their novels in the last few years - books that really dive deep into the character, something that Spider-Man actually helped to pioneer in the comics. This audiobook feels like more of a money grab - just publishing something that Marvel already owns rather than creating a new book written to higher standards. 

In this book the fight scenes are quite good, but the dialogue sounds stiff and like my grandparents would have spoken in 1978 rather than a college student (Yes, I was alive in 1978 - I am pretty old).

My biggest pet peeve is that there is a big reveal scene where Spider-Man finally figures out who is behind everything and the reader is supposed to be shocked who the bad guy is. Any casual fan of Spider-Man knows who it was from the little bit we saw of the character from the opening scene where the victim was thrown from the building. It was so anti-climactic when the big reveal officially happens. It would have been better to have just seen everything from Spider-Man's point of view and let it be a mystery to everyone.

The reader, Tristan Wright did a nice job.

I rate this audiobook 2 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: SPIDER-MAN: MAYHEM in MANHATTAN (audiobook) by Len Wein and Marv Wolfman.

Note: This book is also published under these alternate titles: The Amazing Spider-Man: Mayhem in Manhattan and Stan Lee Presents The Amazing Spider-Man: Mayhem in Manhattan.

THE PRESIDENT'S BRAIN IS MISSING (audiobook) by John Scalzi

 

Published by Macmillan Audio in 2019.

Originally published by Tor Books in 2011.
Read by P.J. Ochlan.
Duration: 47 minutes.
Unabridged.

When the President notices that he can't force his head to go underwater during his morning swim and he complains of being lightheaded, his aides take him off for a medical checkup. 

The author, John Scalzi

During the checkup, the President's doctor determines that the President does indeed have a major medical problem - his brain is missing but he continues to walk and talk like normal. His aides scramble to try to figure out what may have caused this and what they should do.

******

First things first in this hyper-political time: This audiobook is not a commentary on either President Trump or President Biden since the story was originally published during the first term of the Obama's presidency.

In a way, this is very much a piece of throwback science fiction, like a Twilight Zone story. It takes a weird premise and runs with it for a while.

I rate this audiobook 4 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: THE PRESIDENT'S BRAIN IS MISSING (audiobook) by John Scalzi.

THE DAWN of EVERYTHING: A NEW HISTORY of HUMANITY (audiobook) by David Graeber and David Wengrow

 

Published by Macmillan Audio in 2021.

Read by Mark Williams.
Duration: 24 hours, 2 minutes.
Unabridged.

In my professional life I am a high school history teacher. I don't teach it now (I teach another subject), but in the past when I taught world history I taught that the origins of civilization in the traditional way and it always goes something like this:

-At first there were wandering groups of people, probably based around 1 or 2 families. Things were fairly democratic because these groups had to talk things out to make decisions.

-Somebody along the way figured out how to domesticate a few animals.

-Somebody along the way figured out how to domesticate plants. Some small fields were started and left mostly on their own while the wandering continued with scheduled returns to the fields.

-Eventually, the fields were so productive that it made no sense to leave them.

-Populations grew, towns were developed and simple authoritarian government led by almost always by a man who served as an all-powerful king of some sort always sprang up to manage the resources, resolve property disputes, etc.

-With the exception of Athens and a few other Greek city-states, democracy was non-existent. 

The classic case for this was Egypt. The way we taught it is that it has always gone this way, pretty much without fail - like it was a law of human behavior.

In The Dawn of Everything, these authors come at this with a different perspective. They've done a lot of research and have come to the conclusion that what happened in Egypt was not only not the norm but may have been a fairly unique exception. 

The authors look at the roots for our the official history of how it had to have happened (we really have no idea how, when you think about it). They then proceed to take a long look at why it is wrong to say that all or even most civilizations followed that pattern when they adopted agriculture. 

The authors spend 24 hours of audiobook telling us something that we all should have known to begin with without being told - there is no law to human behavior in any area. Human beings continue to come up with a multitude of familial, work, governmental and religious arrangements. Is that a feature of modern man or has that been the situation all along? My vote goes to "all along."

Monks Mound at Cahokia in Illinois. It is the largest
pyramid structure in the Americas north of Mexico
and one of the largest pyramids in the world.

This audiobook is interesting and makes a serious, well-considered argument. It looks at ancient Egypt, Crete, ancient Pakistan, Turkey, Stonehenge, Ukraine, China, Japan, Cahokia near the Mississippi River in Illinois, Poverty Point, the Aztecs, the Mayas, the Inca and more. Sometimes it gets a little too detailed, especially in the first one-third of the book, but it did bring a different perspective to my view of ancient history and was well worth listening to.

I rate this audiobook 4 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: THE DAWN of EVERYTHING: A NEW HISTORY of HUMANITY (audiobook) by David Graeber and David Wengrow.

JESUS LAND: A MEMOIR (Kindle) by Julia Scheeres

Published in 2005 by Counterpoint.

Winner of the 2006 Alex Award from the American Library Association.

Winner of the 2006 New Visions Nonfiction Book Award from the Quality Paperback Book Club.

Note: I read because it is on a list of books that MAGA Republicans have asked to be banned in one way or another. I call it the MAGA Censorship List. More about that down below. 

Julia Scheeres grew up in around Lafayette, Indiana. She grew up in a fundamentalist household. When she begins this memoir, she has older brothers and sisters who have moved out of the house and lives with her parents and two adopted brothers out in the country outside of Lafayette. Her family is unique in that her two adopted brothers are black and the rest of the family is white.

The first part of Jesus Land: A Memoir deals with her horrible home and school life. At home, her father is mostly a distant figure. He returns home from work and dispenses discipline - often with great physical violence. These are not spankings - these are beatings with a 2x4. 

Her mother is a distant woman - more concerned with expressing love and support to missionaries she has never met in distant lands than in her own children. Her older adopted brother sexually abuses her for years.

Her younger adopted brother, however, is the closest to her in age and in spirit. His name is David. They are best friends and truly brother and sister. They are almost inseparable.

I say almost inseparable because when they go to school, Julia finds the racist pressure too much and often separates from her brother at school just to protect herself.

Halfway through the book, Julia and her younger brother get into trouble and are shipped off to a Christian Academy in the Dominican Republic called Escuela Caribe. Escuela Caribe advertises that it will help students free themselves from the influences of popular culture and maintain their education.

The school is really a lockdown facility. It is a reform school that is staffed with people with little or no training. All that is required of the staff is a high school diploma (or a GED) and faithful zeal.The students are in the Dominican Republic because it is on an island. They can't run away from the school because they don't know the language and the school holds their passports so they cannot go back to the United States.

The school is a model of brainwashing. Psychological abuse, cruelty, and even physical abuse runs rampant. Even straight out physical violence is used in an effort to show the campers the love of Jesus.

If that sounds wrong - well, that's because it is wrong. Very wrong.

I read this book because it was on a list of books that an angry parent group wanted to ban at a school corporation because it is anti-Christian and has sexual content (more on that later). I don't think of this book as "anti-Christian". All Scheeres did was point out that she and her brothers were physically beaten in their own homes by Christians and the violence continued at Escuela Caribe by Christians who hit them in the name of Jesus. My take as a lifelong Christian is that the book is not "anti-Christian". The behavior of the supposed Christians in this book is anti-Christian. Those "Christians" literally abused the author so much in the name of Jesus that she wants nothing to do with Jesus. 

Is there sexual content? Yes.

Is it glorified? No. 

It's actually pretty sad. 

More about Escuela Caribe here in a Newsweek article. Escuela Caribe is now closed but it was bought out by a group with lots and lots of ties to Mike Pence. The new school kept some of the same employees as the old school and has the exact same qualifications to be a staff member.

This was a profound and disturbing memoir. I was not disturbed by the actions of a girl trying to find her way. I was disturbed by adult Christians who psychologically and physically abuse people so they can show them the love of Jesus. It angered me like few books have ever angered me.

I rate this memoir 5 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: Jesus Land: A Memoir by Julia Scheeres. 

FATES WORSE THAN DEATH: AN AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL COLLAGE by Kurt Vonnegut

 

Originally published in 1991.

Fates Worse Than Death is a collection of essays is basically Vonnegut's commentary on the 1980's. It was interesting to note how many of his essays (or parts thereof) address current day problems. I don't know if that means there are some problems that are timeless or if it simply means that we have just ignored the problems and they have festered. I know what Vonnegut would say:

"We probably could have saved ourselves, but were too damned lazy to try very hard...and too damn cheap." (p. 116, Essay XI)

Kurt Vonnegut (1922-2007)

There are 21 essays (some are actually transcribed speeches), a preface and a lengthy Appendix with multiple essays. Like any collection, there are good ones, mediocre ones and even a couple of terrible essays here. But, I found this collection to be pretty good, especially if you space them out.

I rate this collection 4 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: FATES WORSE THAN DEATH: AN AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL COLLAGE by Kurt Vonnegut.

REDSHIRTS: A NOVEL with THREE CODAS (Kindle) by John Scalzi

 

Winner of 2012 RT Reviewers Choice Award.
Winner of the 2013 Hugo Award for Best Novel.

Winner of the 2013 Locus Award for Best Science Fiction Novel.

Published in 2012 by Tor Books.

Redshirts is considered a modern classic and I absolutely jumped at the chance to download it for free thanks to Tor Publishing's e-mail newsletter and their monthly free e-book offer. I don't take every e-book they offer, but this is a book I've been considering for a while and you can't beat the price of free.

The title of the books tells you that there is a Star Trek tie-in with this novel. As every Star Trek fan knows, on the original series the joke is that the character wearing red shirts (except for Scotty and Uhura) are expendable characters that die in a number of weird and sometimes horrible ways. 

This book features a universe similar to that of Star Trek. The characters are based on the flagship of the Universal Union fleet - the Intrepid. The fate of the redshirts on the Intrepid is much like that of the redshirts on the Enterprise on Star Trek. 

And...that's all I can really say without going into spoilers and I really don't want to do that. Suffice it to say - if you are a Star Trek fan, you will enjoy this book.

I rate this book 4 stars out of 5. I would have made it 5 stars but the first of the three codas at the end was so padded with repetitive information that I literally skimmed several pages of it.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: Redshirts: A Novel with Three Codas by John Scalzi.

UPRIGHT WOMEN WANTED (audiobook) by Sarah Gailey

 

Published in 2020 by Tantor Audio.
Read by Romy Nordlinger

Duration: 3 hours, 52 minutes.

Unabridged.

A 2021 Hugo Award Finalist
A 2021 Locus Award Finalist
A 2020 ALA Booklist Top 10 SF/F Pick
A Booklist Editor's Choice Pick
Book Riot's Best Books of 2020 So Far
Named a Best of 2020 Pick for NPR | NYPL | Booklist | Bustle | Den of Geek

I have a weakness for dystopian literature. I don't do too much of it because so much of it is repetitive - usually it is World War III caused by a nuclear or bio-warfare attack by the Iranians, the Russians, the Chinese, the North Koreans, or the Americans. But, I do enjoy seeing where the author thinks we will break down and how we might recover and rebuild.

Upright Women Wanted fit the bill - a future world in which the western United States has devolved back into a Wild West environment ruled by iron-fisted sheriffs that enforce a strict moral code. Their rules include a death penalty for sexual crimes, such as homosexuality and lesbianism. The main character, Esther, had a short-lived romantic relationship with another female who was put to death for holding resistance propaganda material that she was reading because she did not want to forcibly marry a man. When Esther was assigned to marry that man, she fled.

The world she fled to is not very recognizable as modern America. The United States is involved has been involved in a war for so long and has devoted so many resources to that war that the home front has fallen to disrepair. For example, paved roads no longer exist - rich towns have gravel roads. Everyday people ride horses, use wagons and carry pistols. The clothing looks more like a western TV show than ours does. Modern jet planes still exist and are used by the military but civilian TV and radio no longer exist. Also, three states are pretty much out of the union - Utah, Florida and Maine. 

Esther stows away in the wagon of two women known as Librarians. Librarians bring literature, movies, news and packages from one town to another. If you have seen the Kevin Costner movie The Postman or read the book by the same name, the librarians serve roughly the same purpose as The Postman did in that movie/book. They knit together these communities and are welcomed almost as celebrities when they arrive. 

This book won a lot of awards and I am not sure how. Before I get judged for it, be aware that I had no problem with the book's lesbian content. I knew that was in the story when I downloaded it and I was interested in seeing how that was worked into the story. Turn out it was pretty much like I imagined. 

Careful: spoilers ahead

I was disappointed in the story because so little about the dystopian future was explained (like who was American fighting the war with and how did it let the home front deteriorate so badly) and the book felt more like the introductory chapters to a much longer story than an actual complete story. I would say that it was a novella, but novellas usually have an actual ending and this story just sort of ended at what felt like maybe the halfway point, maybe even not that far along. It felt like a solid start, but nothing more. I was not bothered at the themes of the book, I was bothered by the fact that it just...abruptly ended.

More spoilers:

The government in this story, at the local and national levels, is very much into censorship. It is odd to me that no one wants to censor the materials that the librarians carry from town to town considering that libraries are often targets for censorship. I know the book was published in 2020, but a common theme of the news in 2021 was "concerned community members", lawmakers and other politicians that clamored for schools to remove books from school and classroom libraries. There were even concerted attempts to remove books from regular public libraries. 

The idea that a government that executes people for simply possessing propaganda would not also regulate what amounts to an Old West style bookmobile carries is laughable. It would be more appropriate to have the librarians subject to thorough searches at every checkpoint and town. 

I rate this audiobook 2 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here:  UPRIGHT WOMEN WANTED by Sarah Gailey.

ELECTRIFY: AN OPTIMIST'S PLAYBOOK for OUR CLEAN ENERGY FUTURE (audiobook) by Saul Griffith

 

Published by Tantor Audio in November of 2021.

Read by David Marantz.
Duration: 7 hours, 13 minutes.
Unabridged.

Saul Griffith makes a convincing argument in Electrify that the clean energy future to prevent excessive global warming (No carbon) only comes from making everything, and I mean everything, electric (with the exception of air travel) - electric cars, electric boats, electric trains, electric heat pumps to heat homes, electric stoves, electric ovens, electric water heaters, and electric clothes dryers. 

I mostly picked up this book as a reaction to the fact that so many people in my social media feed keep re-posting anti-electric car memes that they did not create. Someone is really pushing back hard against the concept. I saw this book and began to wonder if this concept were even possible.

According to Griffith, it is very possible and with almost no "and then we come up with magic technology" moments baked into his plan. Based on what is already being done in Australia and the United States, this could be 99.5% done with current technology. We just need to divest from Carbon infrastructure (oil, natural gas, coal) and re-route that spending to renewable electricity (hydroelectric, solar, wind) and carbon free energy like nuclear. 

People will argue that solar and especially wind have to be subsidized to keep up with fossil fuels, but Griffith correctly points out that fossil fuel companies receive billions of dollars of subsidies every year so it's kind of a moot point.

He imagines a world where every roof has solar power cells installed on them and can feed directly into the electrical grid. Every farm has windmills. Every parking lot is covered with a car port cover that is covered with solar power cells. The electric company becomes less of a supplier and more of a distributor from all of those homes. The company would manage the flow and would maintain a backup system (nuclear, hyrdo, or solar power brought in from other locations) to keep it all running. 

The biggest problem is financing all of this. For that, Griffith looks back to American history. After World War II, the U.S. government backed home loans to veterans (and later others) through government programs. This could be duplicated to homeowners, new builds and landlords to pay for solar panels and the changes to a home's electrical grid. Not only would the electricity have to be able to flow away from homes, but it would also have to be able to handle a lot more electricity. Electric cars and trucks take a lot of juice to recharge in a short time. 

I walked away convinced but can only rate this book 3 stars out of 5.

Why the low rating for a compelling argument?

1) I listened to the audio version of this book. Griffith includes a lot of charts and relies on them heavily to make his point. Rather than edit the audiobook text and provide summaries of the charts, Griffith has the narrator literally read the charts. I could have sat down and literally transcribed them onto a piece of paper. Do you know how completely boring it is to listen to all of that data when you are not literally transcribing it to a piece of paper?

2) I am going to go with a stereotype. Griffith is an engineer. I think he was taught to write by middle school English teacher who loved the TRIT writing plan and he never deviates from it (it is tried and true after all). This leads to an easy to follow format - but very boring. Griffith tries to liven it up with some dad joke humor here and there. The result - it reads like a government report presented by a likable guy. Too bad - he has an important message.

3) The audiobook reader is very clear and easy to understand. However, he sounds so detached that I thought he was a computer-generated voice (he sounds similar to a popular synthesized voice you find online).  With the processed writing format it just got tedious at times. 

I rate this audiobook 3 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here:  ELECTRIFY: AN OPTIMIST'S PLAYBOOK for OUR CLEAN ENERGY FUTURE (audiobook) by Saul Griffith.

IF GOD IS LOVE, DON'T BE a JERK: FINDING a FAITH THAT MAKES US BETTER (audiobook) by John Pavlovitz

 

Published by eChristian in November of 2021.

Read by the author, John Pavlovitz
Duration: 6 hours, 19 minutes
Unabridged.

John Pavlovitz is a minister who has done a lot of thinking about how Jesus told us to act and how formal "name brand" Christianity often acts to those that it deems as "less". We all know that thinking of people as "less" is not really a thing Christ endorses, but it is still an all too often sad reality.

Who are the less that have been in the news lately? Immigrants, LGTBQ people, Muslims...and more. 

Pavlovitz asks:

"If God is love and if you're emulating that God, then you should be loving. If you claim a religious worldview or have spiritual aspirations, those should yield more compassion, not less; more decency, not less; more generosity, not less. If not, what's the point of having them?"

Great question. What's the point?

I've had these thoughts more than once in the last 6 years, coinciding with the candidacy and presidency of the 45th President. If nothing else, he shook a lot of things loose. 

The author, John Pavlovitz

Pavlovitz doesn't really follow a mainstream religious tradition any longer. He boils it all down very simply - God calls us to love each other. He gave us a great example in the person of Jesus. Aspire to that. If your theology is in the way of you doing that, ditch the theology.

I don't agree with everything Pavlovitz talks about, but I found some parts extremely compelling. Specifically, I found myself in serious agreement with his chapter on prayer. 

I listened to this as an audiobook from my library so I was not able to take notes as well as I could have on paper. I have added this book to my wish list to get as a paper copy so I can mark it up and think about it harder later on.

I rate this audiobook 5 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: IF GOD IS LOVE, DON'T BE a JERK:  FINDING a FAITH THAT MAKES US BETTER by John Pavlovitz.

BETRAYAL: THE FINAL ACT of the TRUMP SHOW (audiobook) by Jonathan Karl

 

Published in November of 2021 by Penguin Audio.
Read by the author, Jonathan Karl.
Duration: 10 hours, 32 minutes.
Unabridged.

In 2020, ABC White House reporter Jonathan Karl wrote a book about his experiences covering Donald Trump's run for President in 2016 and the first three years of his Presidency. It is called Front Row at the Trump Show. Karl follows up with this book of the last year of the Trump Administration and the first few months of his post-Presidency. 

Karl meticulously names his sources and plays actual audio tracks as he tells this sordid story of misinformation, deceit, outright lies and a botched attack on the Capitol building in an attempt to thwart the results of an election.

If the previous paragraph upsets you and you think it is full of lies then you do not want to read this book unless you enjoy being upset. 

If that paragraph sounds about right to you, I highly recommend this book as a primer to what you are likely to hear from the January 6 Commission. I've found it to be enormously instructive. 

The audiobook was read by the author, Jonathan Karl. It includes multiple interviews with President Trump himself. His post-Presidency interview with Karl was so full of self-inflicted leaks that it makes me wonder about President Trump's competency. He should have known that he would come off poorly - Karl had already written an entire book about Trump's time as President and it was not complimentary. 

Karl points out that President Trump always ran with a thin group of advisors and by the time the 2020 election his A Team advisors and his B Team advisors and a number of his C Team advisors had already come and gone. Perhaps these people didn't advise him that Karl had already written a critical book. Perhaps President Trump just wanted the publicity. Perhaps you can't tell President Trump anything.

I rate this audiobook 5 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here:  BETRAYAL: THE FINAL ACT of the TRUMP SHOW by Jonathan Karl.

THE 1619 PROJECT: A NEW ORIGIN STORY by Nikole Hannah-Jones and others.

 

Published in November of 2021 by Random House Audio.
Multicast Performance
Duration: 18 hours, 57 minutes.
Unabridged.

I have developed a new hobby as of late - I read books that politicians tell people they should not read. The former governor of Indiana (and later the President of Purdue University) tried to prohibit Indiana University (or anyone else) to use a well-known history book to teach anyone anywhere. I read it. The Lt. Governor of Texas cancelled a book reading about the Alamo because it was not a hero worship book. There's a politician in Texas that posted a list of 850 books that he wants to ban across the state that has provided a lot of potential reading. 

But, in the last couple of years nothing, absolutely nothing, has compared to the 1619 Project and the controversy it has generated.

If you have not heard of the original 1619 Project, you have not been paying attention to America's culture wars. President Trump hated it so much he created a commission to counter its assertions. Local school boards are assailed with parents that demand it not be used in classrooms and several state legislatures have literally outlawed its use in classrooms by name.

The 1619 Project started out as a 100 page edition of The New York Times Magazine with a theme of looking at United States history through the lens of the African American experience. This book is an expanded version of the original magazine. 

All of that controversy and I can almost 100% guarantee that no more than a handful of the people who complain and pass laws have actually read the original magazine articles.

To be fair, I didn't read the original magazine articles, either. But, I jumped at the chance to hear this audiobook.

As I stated before, it is a history of the United States told through the perspective of typical African Americans. It is not a parade of famous African Americans, like you might see during Black History Month. 

One of the complaints that many politicians make is that it is critical of America. This is a ridiculous complaint. How much of American history has been a real positive time for African Americans? I am going to address that in a ridiculous way:

1619. First Africans arrive in Virginia. They are sold as slaves.
1620. Still enslaved.

1621. Still enslaved.

1622. Still enslaved.

1623. Still enslaved.

1624. First child born to the enslaved Africans. He is the first African American. He is born enslaved.

1702. African Americans are still enslaved.

1776. Thomas Jefferson wrote: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal..." But, not African Americans, almost all of whom are still enslaved.

1892. African Americans are no longer enslaved. But, they have few civil rights in most states. They cannot vote in most states, they cannot sit on juries in most states. They can't even own guns in some states. Most live in a state of peonage to white landowners.

You get the idea.

This was never going to be an upbeat book. Let's face it - African Americans have gotten the short end of the stick in just about every way there has been to get the short end of the stick in American history right up to and including now. Is it better than it was in 1619? Certainly. Has America delivered on its declaration that all men are created equal? Not yet. That enduring fact is worth of comment. After all, if we don't recognize our shortcomings as a country, how can they be addressed?

My review:

The history in here is very solid. There are political complaints that it is riddled with errors and slanted. 

Here's a little secret from a history geek - all histories are slanted and riddled with errors because all historians interpret history. You can't write a complete history of, let's say, the Civil War because you can't literally include everything. You can't tell about every general, every division, every squad, every soldier and every bullet fired in every battle. There were 10,500 military engagements. You can't cover all of those in a book. Who would read a book that big? There were 50 major battles, but most histories don't even cover all of them.

Once you start cutting out parts from a history, you are interpreting it. When you decide that something is important enough to keep and other things are going to be cut from a history, you are slanting it and you are committing an error because the history is not complete. For example, everyone knows about Gettysburg - the only battle to be fought on non-slave state soil in the Civil War, right? It is in every history of the Civil War and rightly so. But, there was another battle fought on non-slave state soil 5 days after Gettysburg in Corydon, Indiana. The Confederate general was a famous one - John Hunt Morgan of Morgan's raiders. I have never read a Civil War history (I've reviewed 138 books that I've tagged "Civil War") that mentions this battle by name, even though the raid is often mentioned.  Are those histories slanted against the brave civilian militia from Indiana that tried to stop Morgan's men? No, of course not.

The 1619 Project is a history of African Americans. The traditional American heroes are not going to be heroes in this book. How can George Washington be a hero in this book when he owned African Americans and forced them to work for him under the threat of violence? How can Thomas Jefferson be a hero when he says that "all men are created equal" in the Declaration of Independence (1776) and then complains in the same document that the British were arming escaped slaves and using them as soldiers (starting in 1775) and this made the other slaves hard to control - "He has excited domestic insurrections among us...". If all men were created equal in Jefferson's eyes, he should have been freeing and arming his own slaves. 

A frequent complaint is that The 1619 Project makes too big a deal of a British court decision that essentially outlawed slavery in the British Isles right before the tensions that created the Revolutionary War. I am sure that the colonists were aware of this case, but considering that so many of the colonists' complaints were about how the colonies were treated differently than their fellow citizens back in Britain, they must have assumed that the case simply did not and would not apply to them. It would have been a minor concern at best. But, after 1775 (see previous paragraph), it is certainly correct to say that slave owners could be worried about their slaves being taken away by British soldiers and to say that slaveowners would have been motivated to fight the British to keep their slaves.

My question is not why the court case in Britain was included in this history. It is  why haven't I heard of this case before. I have 51 books that I tagged "Revolutionary War" and this is the first I am hearing of it? It does point towards the beginnings a general trend that eventually resulted in Great Britain outlawing slavery, though.

Each chapter of the book is separated by a short work of fiction that accentuates the themes that are being explored. I literally have no problem with using fiction to accentuate history. When I taught history, I used to have my students pick out  a piece of historical fiction to read. Historical fiction can be so immersive that it makes the history seemingly come to life. But, I did not enjoy many of these interludes. There was a lot of poetry and I rarely enjoy poetry. Nothing wrong with the idea itself, but It fell very flat with me. If I had been reading a physical book, I would have skipped those sections entirely. But, I was listening to an audiobook and I had to keep listening.

I am still going to give this work a 5 star rating, though. Highly recommended, especially for those that are immediately against it because a politician or a talking head on a news channel told you it was wrong. Go to your library and read it for yourself if you are concerned about financially supporting the authors. It's okay to see history through the eyes of another culture.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: THE 1619 PROJECT:  A NEW ORIGIN STORY by Nikole Hannah-Jones and others.