THE KINGDOM, the POWER, and THE GLORY: AMERICAN EVANGELICALS in an AGE of EXTREMISM (audiobook) by Tim Alberta

Published by HarperAudio in December of 2023.
Read by the author, Tim Alberta.
Duration: 18 hours, 16 minutes.
Unabridged.

Tim Alberta is a writer for The Atlantic and also an Evangelical. He grew up in the faith, but is very troubled by the tendency towards Christian Nationalism. He was inspired to write this book after an incident at his father's funeral at the church he grew up in. 

Alberta embarked on a cross-country exploration of the intersection of Evangelicals and politics at Christian Nationalism - and how this combination is changing Evangelicals and they way they are perceived.

Alberta does not come at this as an outsider. As I already noted, he grew up in the church - and still belongs to a church. To me, this is important. I read another book with a similar theme (The Power Worshippers: Inside the Dangerous Rise of Religious Nationalism) that just didn't hit the right tone and answer the right questions because the author was coming from the outside. She didn't know the ins and outs and didn't truly understand the people she was writing about.

Russell Moore recently wrote a book (Losing Our Religion: An Altar Call for Evangelical America) that addresses problems among American Evangelicals from the inside, but it's not really a book about politics. The closest book to Alberta's is the excellent Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation. The two books don't really cover the same territory, but they certainly run in parallel lines and they do not present a pretty picture of contemporary Christianity.

The author, Tim Alberta

Alberta looks at the struggles of his home church, Liberty University and its rise to prominence by promoting politics instead of Christianity, Brian Zahnd's church's struggle when he went out of his way to reject Christian Nationalism, the Southern Baptist Convention's struggles with sexual abuse charges and, of course, the ever-present influence of Trump and Trumpism.

I found this book to be a fascinating look into this dangerous mix of Christianity and politics. I blasted through this 18 hour audiobook in just a few days and I wish it was twice as long.

I highly recommend this book.

5 stars out of 5.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: THE KINGDOM, the POWER, and THE GLORY: AMERICAN EVANGELICALS in an AGE of EXTREMISM by Tim Alberta.

PALM SUNDAY: AN AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL COLLAGE by Kurt Vonnegut

 

Published in 1981 by Delacorte Press.

Kurt Vonnegut offers this collection (he calls is a "collage") of fiction, non-fiction, interviews, and even a musical based on Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. 

As is the case with all collections, some parts of the collection are excellent and some parts are not very good. I believe that he first half of the collection is the best, mostly because of the inclusion of a history of the Vonnegut family in Indianapolis. Ironically, it was not written by Vonnegut, but by a family member who had married into the Vonnegut family. 

Indianapolis is my adopted hometown and this Vonnegut family history reads like a history of the city from the mid-1800s to the mid-1900s. I found it fascinating reading, especially the story of the subscription brothel gentlemen's club that was frequented by the city's elite in an area that still has political "clubs" with fancy dining and smoking rooms more than 100 years later. It would be tacky to pay a prostitute, but paying club dues that were used to maintain the club and also to pay the prostitutes - well that's not tacky at all!

The musical based on Jekyll and Hyde written in 1978 was completely horrible.

Vonnegut is well-known for having written a report card of his published books - this is the book that features that report card. Oftentimes, I disagree with his self-assessment - but not this time. He gives this book a "C" (yes, he graded the book as he was writing/collecting all of the parts of it) and I agree.

I rate this book 3 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: PALM SUNDAY: AN AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL COLLAGE by Kurt Vonnegut.

BATMAN/FORTNITE: ZERO POINT (graphic novel) by Christos Gage and others

Published in 2021
by DC Comics

 

When I first heard of this crossover graphic novel I thought to myself that this could be a horrible mess of a book. I actually flipped through it just to be ready to make fun of it. After all, how could a book based on a videogame that's using Batman as a promotional gimmick be any good? 

Turns out I was wrong. 

The plot makes sense. Even more importantly, it is an interesting and compelling read.

In the story, what Batman suspects is a crack in time and space opens up over Gotham City. People are fleeing. Batman consults with Chief Gordon and learns that some people are actually drawn to this tear in reality. 

As Batman gets closer to investigate he finds Harley Quinn. She is heading directly towards the tear and Batman cannot stop her. However, his efforts have placed him in a vulnerable position and a shadowy figure pushes Batman in.

Batman arrives in the world of Fortnite with no memory and surrounded by violence. The world gets smaller and smaller, making the violence more intense until everyone dies and the world re-sets with no one retaining a memory of what has happened before. 

Of course, Batman is still Batman so he figures out a way...

I rate this graphic novel 5 out of 5 stars. It can be found on Amazon.com here: BATMAN/FORTNITE: ZERO POINT (graphic novel) by Christos Gage and others.

THE GOLEM'S VOICE (graphic novel) by David G. Klein

 

Published in 2015 by
Now What Media, LLC

Synopsis:

Set in Czechoslovakia during World War II, The Golem's Voice is the story of a young Jewish mom and her two sons trying to escape relocation by the Nazis. This was in the time when the Nazis were still telling Jews that they were relocating them to alternate settlements rather than just taking them to work and death camps.

As they are being loaded onto trains, the mom gets a bad feeling and tells her boys (Yoakim and Yakov) to just run. She does not join them because they are much faster than her and she just wants them to escape and live. Her boys run under the trains and, at first, things look good. But, soon enough, Nazi soldiers are in full pursuit and Yoakim is shot providing cover for his little brother.

Yakov continues to run to the only place the knows - the Jewish ghetto neighborhood that he just came from. He hears a voice in his head calling him to the home of a long-dead rabbi named Yudah Loew. Legend has it that Loew was much more than a prolific author, philosopher and academic - he was also the creator of a golem. 

Loew was supposed to have studied so much that he worked out how to create a man in clay and bring it to life. This creature is not truly a man and could not speak for itself because only God can do that. But, it is alive and follows the orders of the one who created it. Medieval legend said that if things got bad enough for the Jews, a golem could be created to defend them.

Yakov is led by the voice to a hidden room in the house and discovers everything one would need to create a golem - and if there were ever a time that the Jewish people could used a golem to defend them, this was it...

My review:

I think this book was well done. The art is moody, as it should be when discussing the dark and dangerous days of the Holocaust. I was curious to see if the book would fall into the temptation of straying into the complete fantasy of having the golem wreak havoc on the Nazis to the point of being able to march to Berlin and take out Adolph Hitler himself (Rest assured, this does not happen.)

There is a very clever angle taken by the author. The idea of a Golem is partially explained by texts found by Yakov and his memory of children's tales. But it is also explained through the Nazi officer who is hunting Yakov. That officer takes the legends seriously even though he hates the Jewish people. He wants to use the knowledge to create Golems to create an army that the Nazis can control. There is a "debate" of sorts between this officer and a spirit (is is Loew or is it God? I think it is God.) that fills in a lot of details.

I rate this graphic novel 4 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: The Golem's Voice by David G. Klein.

See a good sample of the book on the publisher's site here.

THE HOUSE on MANGO STREET (audiobook) by Sandra Cisneros

Originally Published in 1983.
Read by the author, Sandra Cisneros.
Duration: 2 hours, 18 minutes.
Unabridged

The House on Mango Street is the story of a Hispanic girl named Esperanza who grows up in a little house in a poor neighborhood in Chicago. Her story is told in a series of unrelated vignettes (44 in all) that tell some sort of story about her family life or the neighborhood itself. In some, the main character clearly has no idea of the more adult themes that occur around her, while in others she is very astute and understands the larger implications. 

At first, Esperanza's family intends that the house is going to be a temporary stop on their climb towards economic success in America. But, they never quite are able to move out of this troubled neighborhood and the reader is able to see how the neighborhood affects the lives of everyone around Esperanza as she grows up.

To be fair, the neighborhood is not all bad, but it is a tough place for children to grow up and keep their innocence. Some kids run away, some get married early and try to build some stability (one gets married extremely early.) Esperanza is determined to work her way out of the neighborhood and then come back and help others get out.

I read this book for two reasons:
1) It has a tremendous reputation. 
2) It has been placed on multiple book ban lists and I like to read those books to form my own opinion (unlike a lot of people who ban them.)

My review:

The author, Sandra Cisneros

I found that this book's biggest issue was that it was just boring. It's a 2 hours audiobook and I found myself wanting to listen to anything else at times. I simply could not get into this story. 

I certainly wouldn't ban this book. It has a lot of adult themes, but I think too many sheltered adults don't realize that a lot of kids live very unsheltered lives. This book will come off as very real to a lot of those kids, assuming that they can get past the back that it is a very, very tedious read. This 30+ year teacher would put it in a classroom library or in a school library and support any student wanting to read it. 

Here are two stories about districts that have banned this book - one based in Texas and one based in Florida.

I rate this book 2 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: THE HOUSE on MANGO STREET by Sandra Cisneros.

NETWORK of LIES: THE EPIC SAGA of FOX NEWS, DONALD TRUMP, and the BATLLE for AMERICAN DEMOCRACY (audiobook) by Brian Stelter

Published by Simon and Schuster Audio in

November of 2013

Read by the author, Brian Stelter

Duration: 11 hours, 16 minutes.

Unabridged

Brian Stelter is a former CNN commentator. While in college, he started a blog about news commentary shows and the personalities that make them what they are. In a way, he has been working on this book for more than 15 years. 

Stelter pored over the paperwork from the Dominion Voting Systems lawsuit against Fox News to help write this 2020-2023 history of the cable news giant. 

He spends the most amount of time looking at the biggest show with the biggest host on Fox News at the time - Tucker Carlson. He goes over a litany of Tucker's Greatest Hits - the Great Replacement Theory, The January 6 Insurrection was just a tourist event, Ukrainian biolabs, transgender conspiracies, and, of course, the Big Lie that the 2020 election was stolen.

He looks at the power dynamics at the top of Fox News, including Rupert Murdoch, the board at Fox News, the advertisers, Murdoch's kids and the various women that Murdoch has been married or engaged to. 

Of course, the most powerful players were not actually present in the room. The most powerful players were (and still are) the viewers. Stelter demonstrates that the viewers were given a steady diet of misinformation and outright lies and, after a few years of this, refused anything but misinformation.

When Fox News tried to back off from the bombastic, crazytown commentary that passed for news after the January 6th Insurrection, viewers fled in droves. Where did they go? They went to the two networks that were even more bombastic and even more crazytown - OAN and NewsMax. Fox News could literally see the data that showed that they lost viewers and OAN and NewsMax gained a big chunk of them.

An actual screen shot from Carlson's
February 1, 2023 broadcast.
Anyone can see they had committed 
themselves to serious journalism.

This caused a reversal of policy and a resumption of the crazytown news. There were open discussions via email and text that showed that everyone knew that the "Stop the Steal" claims were bogus, but they were also hyper-aware that the viewers refused to hear anything of it - they left Fox News to go to the people that told them their comforting stories, whether they were true or not. So, Fox News decided to keep feeding them the equivalent of news garbage in order to keep them watching.

And that led to the lawsuits, the firing of Tucker Carlson, and even more lying to the viewers of Fox News (almost as if losing 3/4 of a billion dollars in a lawsuit is not a good bit of feedback that tells them that they are doing news all wrong.)

Stelter tells a story that would be unbelievable if I hadn't lived through it all and seen the rough outlines of it for myself. 

I rate this audiobook 4 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: NETWORK of LIES: THE EPIC SAGA of FOX NEWS, DONALD TRUMP, and the BATLLE for AMERICAN DEMOCRACY by Brian Stelter.

EVERYTHING I LEARNED, I LEARNED in a CHINESE RESTAURANT: A MEMOIR (audiobook) by Curtis Chin

Published in 2023 by Little, Brown, and Company.
Read by the author, Curtis Chin
Duration: 8 hours, 12 minutes.
Unabridged.

Curtis Chin grew up in the 1980s in and around Detroit, Michigan. His immediate family and his extended family shared ownership in a Chinese restaurant in Detroit's Chinatown. Chin spent a considerable chunk of his early life working, eating, and doing homework in the restaurant.

Chin tells about how his family ended up in Detroit, how his parents met and got married, the sometimes uncomfortable extended family dynamic, and the decline of Chung's Cantonese Cuisine's once vibrant neighborhood.

There is also plenty of discussion about school from kindergarten through a four year degree at the University of Michigan. These parts of the story often discussed the racial dynamics of going to school in Detroit's majority minority school system. Later, when the family joined the white flight to the suburbs, there was a new dynamic of going to a school where there were almost no minority students. On top of that, the family was clearly not welcome in the suburbs because they were not white.

As Chin grew older, he had another issue that had his attention more than the ins and outs of the shifting racial currents - his sexual orientation.

Chin starts this part with an amusing story of how he and a cousin snuck out of the restaurant to go into a store near the restaurant that sold porn magazines to take a look. It's an enlightening story for a couple of reasons. It shows how the neighborhood around the restaurant had declined. But, Chin knows something is different when he is more interested in the magazines featuring men than the ones featuring women.

The family restaurant in 1976
Photo from Detroit News archives.

From that point, the book focuses heavily on Chin's struggles with who he can safely come out to and how to meet a man while constantly being surrounded by a very traditional family. Chin often wonders how his family will react when he finally comes out to them.

I have two big criticisms of the book. The first is that we never find out how his family reacts when he comes out to them. He worries about that throughout the second half of the book and he almost tells them at one point at the very end. The second is that considering the title of the book, I found it disappointing that there is no summary at the end of the book that points out the life lessons he learned in a Chinese restaurant.

Not a bad book, but I was disappointed by the two omissions that I mentioned. I rate this audiobook 3 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here:  EVERYTHING I LEARNED, I LEARNED in a CHINESE RESTAURANT: A MEMOIR (audiobook) by Curtis Chin.

HAWKEYE VOLUME 1: MY LIFE as a WEAPON (graphic novel) by Matt Fraction, David Aja, and more

Published in 2013 by
Marvel Worldwide, Inc.

This collection is the inspiration for the Disney+ series "Hawkeye." I really enjoyed this series and thought I'd read the source material. 

Just like in the series, most of Hawkeye's adventures are small time affairs. That's okay by me. Every adventure can't be (and shouldn't be) a "save the world" event.

Fans of Hawkeye in the MCU will be surprised that Hawkeye in the comics is not a family man. He's also a lot more disjointed and unorganized than he is in the movies.

That being said, this was an enjoyable read and this Hawkeye may not have an overwhelming love for his family, but he has a big heart in different ways.

I very much enjoyed the simplified art design and color scheme of most of this graphic novel. It gave it a sense of moodiness. 

I rate this graphic novel 4 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: HAWKEYE VOLUME 1: MY LIFE as a WEAPON (graphic novel) by Matt Fraction, David Aja, and more.

THE BEST of 2023

 

This is a "best of" list based on the 87 books I read and reviewed in 2023. I do not focus on new books, so there are books on this "best of" ranging from being published in 1939 to being published in December of 2023.

The titles are active links to my reviews.

*** = Best of the best in that category.

HISTORY/MEMOIR/BIOGRAPHY

This was a tough category this year. Every one of these is excellent, but it's almost unfair to compare any book to the Pulitzer Prize winning Maus. Maus practically invented the modern genre of the graphic novel and its iconic images with the Nazis as cats and the Jews as mice are unforgettable. 

***The Complete Maus (graphic novel) by Art Spiegelman

Anne Frank's Diary: The Graphic Adaptation by Anne Frank, Ari Folman, and David Polonsky.

Pathogenesis: A History of the World in Eight Plagues by Jonathan Kennedy.

Che: A Revolutionary Life (graphic novel) by Jon Lee Anderson and Jose Hernandez.

Magna Carta: The Birth of Liberty by Dan Jones.

Ten Caesars: Roman Emperors from Augustus to Constantine by Barry Strauss.

FICTION

Like the previous category, the winner in this category that stands out in any collection. The Grapes of Wrath won the Pulitzer Prize, The National Book Award and its author won The Nobel Prize. This is a strong category, though. Vonnegut is, well, Vonnegut. He's a name brand author. Not many have sold more than Michael Connelly in the 21st century. Underground Airlines was an unexpected trip into another (unpleasant) world. Nick Petrie shows up 3 times here. I discovered him this year and very much enjoyed his action novels

***The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck

Mother Night by Kurt Vonnegut

Resurrection Walk by Michael Connelly

The Drifter by Nick Petrie

Tear It Down by Nick Petrie

The Wild One by Nick Petrie

Underground Airlines by Ben H. Winters

YOUNG ADULT

Every book I read in this category I read because it showed up on a banned books list created by Moms for Liberty or Purple for Parents or a similar MAGA group. I purposefully read several books this year from various banned books lists (9 in all) and these four were all excellent - and all great choices to put in school libraries.

***You Should See Me in a Crown by Leah Johnson

The Girl from the Sea (graphic novel) by Molly Knox Ostertag

Dear Martin by Nic Stone

Anne Frank's Diary: The Graphic Adaptation by Anne Frank, Ari Folman, and David Polonsky.

NON-FICTION (non-history)

This category is amazingly diverse. Sociology, religion, mental health, politics, economics, linguistics, and race. Ultimately, I decided that Of Boys and Men explained actually laid the foundation for the situations discussed in many of the other books. 

***Of Boys and Men: Why the Modern Male Is Struggling, Why It Matters, and What to Do About It by Richard V. Reeves

On Getting Out of Bed: The Burden and Gift of Living by Alan Noble

Oath and Honor: A Memoir and a Warning by Liz Cheney.

Poverty, By America by Matthew Desmond

The Making of Biblical Womanhood: How the Subjugation of Women Became Gospel Truth by Beth Allison Barr. 

The Corruption of Lindsey Graham: A Case Study in the Rise of Authoritarianism by William Saletan

Talking Back, Talking Black: Truths About America's Lingua Franca by John McWhorter

ON GETTING OUT of BED: THE BURDEN and GIFT of LIVING (audiobook) by Alan Noble

 

Published in 2023 by ChristianAudio.con

Read by the author, Alan Noble.
Duration: 2 hours, 18 minutes.
Unabridged.

Alan Noble is a college professor and a Christian writer who writes for Christian and non-Christian publications. 

He also struggles with a mental illness that he does not identify in this short book. On Getting Out of Bed is all about dealing with the depression and struggles that come with mental illness, thus the title.

Noble's powerful description of overwhelming depression demonstrates that he understands the issue and how it effects people well. This is important because it shows that he is coming from a place of understanding and that is vitally important.

His advice is not easy advice, but it is realistic advice. One of my relatives was advised by well-meaning church members that the best way to deal with depression and suicidal ideation was prayer for God to help with these thoughts. I cannot stress enough that this was sincerely intended to be helpful advice, it was taken as, "If you only had enough faith, God would lift this burden from you. But, he has not lifted this burden so you are not worthy."

He acknowledges the struggle and he goes on to offer realistic advice that is not easy.

The author, Alan Noble

The acknowledgement: 

"Each morning you must choose to get out of bed or not. All the medication and cognitive therapy and latest research and self-care in the world can't replace your choice. This decision can be aided by these resources but never replaced by them. Which means that you have to have an answer to a fundamental question: Why get out of bed? Or, more bluntly, why live?"

The advice:

"This is precisely why we must see that each choice to do the next thing is an act of worship, and therefore fundamentally good. Feeding your pets is an act of worship. Brushing your teeth is. Doing the dishes. Getting dressed. Going to work. Insofar as each of these actions assumes that life in this fallen world is good and worth living despite suffering, they are acts of faith in God. Choose to do the next thing before and unto God, take a step toward the block. That is all you must ever do and all you can do. It is your spiritual act of worship."

There is no "fix" for most people, although Noble doesn't discount the possibility of such a thing happening. But, for almost everyone else that suffers from depression, it has to be enough to get out of bed as an act of worship and of faith.

Another quote I really liked:

"We almost never take the witness of our actions seriously enough. I suspect that's because if we did, it would frighten us. It's scary to realize that my every decision communicates to people around me something about the nature of God, the goodness of His creation and laws."

I rate this book 5 stars out of 5 stars. It can be found on Amazon.com here: ON GETTING OUT of BED: THE BURDEN and GIFT of LIVING by Alan Noble.

FINDING GRACE by Alyssa Brugman

Published in 2001 by Delacorte Press

Synopsis: 

Rachel lives in Australia and is a brand new graduate of high school. She is ready to head off to college but she needs a job and a place to live that is close to the university.

She finds both when the enigmatic Mr. Preston offers her a place to live just a few blocks from campus in exchange for watching over a woman named Grace. 

Rachel knows that Grace was brain damaged in some sort of accident, but not much more than that. Grace can walk and feed herself - but that's about all she can do. She cannot talk, she cannot bathe herself, she cannot communicate in any way.

Rachel spends the night with Grace, feeds Grace and watches over her much like a nanny watches a small child. She gets time off for classes, when the nurses come for physical therapy, and when Mr. Preston comes over to spend time with Grace.

My Review:

The author

I expected nothing from this book. Several year ago, I picked it up from a pile of books that were being shipped out of my school building because they weren't part of the curriculum any longer. The book sat in my to-be-read while for so long that I thought (because of the title) I was picking up one of the religious titles I had bought a couple of years ago. 

This wasn't the book that I was expecting, but it was a good book. Not much goes on, but it is a good coming of age book about transitions, love, rivalry, and dedication. 

I rate this book 4 start out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: FINDING GRACE by Alyssa Brugman.

MOTHER NIGHT by Kurt Vonnegut

Originally published in 1962

Mother Night is one of Kurt Vonnegut's (1922-2007) early novels (his third) and the first that is not a work of science fiction. 

The book features Howard W. Campbell, a defendant awaiting trial in Israel for war crimes in Israel. He is wanted for being a well-known voice for the Nazis on broadcasts that he made during World War II. 

Campbell freely admits that he did what they say he did, but he does have a defense - he was working as a double agent for the Americans and was passing secret messages during those broadcasts. 

The book sets itself up to be a legal thriller - will the hero of the book be saved? Can he prove what he says is true?

But, there's none of that in this book. Campbell probably would have been the voice of the Nazis in the broadcasts no matter if he was recruited as a spy or not? He is just a self-absorbed author of plays that was way more concerned about bedding his German wife than politics or any "trivial" things like a World War or the mass murder of millions of people. 

Most of the book is about the last few months of Campbell's life and how he was found hiding in plain sight in New York City where he had been living in a tiny apartment. We get to meet a cast of freaks and creeps that loathe or worship Campbell for his part in the war while Vonnegut demonstrates that patriotism, duty, and racism/race loyalty are all illusory constructs at best. 

Self-portrait by the author

The book starts out with these themes by having Campbell introduce his prison guards. One of them is too young to really remember the war, one doesn't care and one worked in a death camp - he helped lead his fellow Jews to the gas chambers by telling them it was just a de-lousing. Then, he would help loot their bodies and bury them. He did this to save his own life - but he still gets to guard a man who literally didn't do anything to hurt anyone in the war except talk.

Vonnegut revels in pointing out that life is contradictory and complicated and no one is who they act like they are.

Good quotes:

"We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful what we pretend to be." 

"Say what you will about the sweet miracle of unquestioning faith, I consider a capacity for it terrifying and absolutely vile."

I rate this audiobook 5 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: MOTHER NIGHT by Kurt Vonnegut.

OATH and HONOR: A MEMOIR and a WARNING (audiobook) by Liz Cheney

 

Published in 2023 by Little, Brown and Company in December of 2023.
Read by the author, Liz Cheney.
Duration: 12 hours, 14 minutes.
Unabridged.

Liz Cheney is most famous for two things. Pre-January 6, 2021 she was famous for being Dick Cheney's daughter and a leader of the House Republicans. 

Post-January 6, 2021 Cheney is most famous for being one of the leaders of the United States House Select Committee on the January 6 Attack. Cheney was one of the few Republicans willing to incur the wrath of Donald Trump and actually look into the role he played in the January 6 Attack.

Cheney calls the book a memoir, but this is not really true. The book offers next to nothing about her childhood or her personal life. You know that she has a husband because she mentions that he helped her proofread various papers she had prepared for the committee. 

Cheney starts with former President Donald Trump's election denialism immediately following the 2020 election date rather than her own life. This is a very Liz Cheney thing to do - the purpose of the book is to talk about how Donald Trump's Election Denialism and how it led directly to the January 6 Attack. There is not much else to the book because, in her mind, this movement is a direct threat to the American Republic itself. 

I am not going to detail all of her arguments that she laid out in the televised presentations that the committee prepared for the country in 2022. Those are easily available on YouTube and anyone can watch and see the arguments she makes in this book.

The book is almost always clear, concise, and to the point. That is very much Cheney's plainspoken style.

I rate this audiobook 5 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: OATH and HONOR: A MEMOIR and a WARNING (audiobook) by Liz Cheney.

THE GREAT DECHURCHING: WHO'S LEAVING, WHY ARE THEY GOING, and WHAT WILL IT TAKE to BRING THEM BACK? (audiobook) by Jim Davis and Michael Graham with Ryan P. Burge.

Published by Zondervan in August of 2013.
Read by Jim Davis, Michael Graham, and Ryan P. Burge.
Duration: 7 hours, 3 minutes.
Unabridged.

America's church members are dropping out of church at a record pace - millions upon millions over the last 2 decades and, according to the stats, the only thing that will slow the pace is the fact that Christianity in America will be so much smaller that it will statistically impossible to lose so many people without completely emptying the pews.

The authors started out to identify a number of things such as:
a) Who is leaving - is it the old, the young, the middle-aged?

b) Who is staying?
c) Why are they leaving? Is it toxic politics? Sex scandals? Abuse? Lost interest? No connection?
d) Will they be willing to come back? What would it take?

This book draws heavily from a religious attitude survey administered by Baylor University from time to time. I recently read another book on Christian Nationalism that used the same surveys and these books dovetail nicely together in a concerning way for anyone that is interested in a healthy Christianity surviving in America.

One data point leaped out to the researchers. It is a common piece of conventional wisdom that "going to college" makes people drop out of church. Kids go away, get an education and are convinced that Christianity is bad.

But, it turns out that the most likely to stay in church group is college educated Christians. They discuss various theories to explain this, but the most compelling to me is the argument that church is extremely friendly to families that have success in America and buy into America's definition of success. Having a degree is a sign that you have also bought into that definition of success. The other side of that coin is the idea that the church is not friendly to people who can't (or won't) buy into that definition of success. Single moms, divorced people, and people that work for hourly wages with irregular hours just can't participate as well and feel left out. If you feel left out enough, you drop out.

To answer all of the questions at the beginning:

a) the old, the youngish (18-30), and the middle-aged are leaving.

b) the same ages are also staying.
c) People are leaving for all of those reasons. One of the biggest reasons is that people move and never get started at a new church.

d) Most are open to coming back so long as they feel like they will actually be connected. People who were abused are not likely to come back - ever.

A topic that was never covered is if this "dropping out" is occurring in other religions. For example, are American Muslims experiencing this?   

This book was full of good information but not particularly riveting in its presentation. I rate it 3 stars out of 5. 

RESURRECTION WALK (audiobook) (Book 7 of the Lincoln Lawyer series) by Michael Connelly

 

Published in November of 2023 by Little, Brown and Company.
Read by Peter Giles, Titus Welliver, and Christine Lakin.
Duration: 10 hours, 30 minutes.
Unabridged.

Synopsis:

The seventh book in the Lincoln Lawyer series is also a crossover with the more prolific Harry Bosch series. 

Mickey Haller is known as "the Lincoln Lawyer" because, at one point, he didn't actually have an office and he used the backseat of a Lincoln automobile as his office while he rode through LA's infamous traffic. Haller is a high profile defense attorney known for his antics and willingness to make any argument for the defense. But, lately, Haller has started his own version of the Innocence Project - he is looking for cases of truly innocent people who were mistakenly convicted.

Harry Bosch is Haller's older half brother (by 15 years.) Bosch is a retired LAPD detective and has always looked at defense attorneys as slimy characters that use tricks to get the guilty people that he arrested set free. 

Despite that mindset, Bosch has always hated sloppy police work - it convicts the wrong people and leaves the guilty free to continue on with their crimes. It's that angle that draws Bosch in and lets him work as an investigator for the most outrageous defense attorney in Los Angeles.

The author, Michael Connelly

Bosch sorts through the big pile of letters that arrive in Haller's office and finds the ones that seem plausible to him and he does what he does best - he investigates.

When he comes across a case of a woman who is convicted of killing her ex-husband (a sheriff deputy) in her front yard after an argument, Bosch is convinced that there's more to the case than the files suggest.

Once he starts digging, Bosch and Haller get sucked into a complicated mess...

My review:

This is a satisfying, complicated mystery coupled with a lot of dramatic courtroom scenes. 

This book would probably not be a great place to jump in as a first novel in either series. If you watch the Lincoln Lawyer series on Netflix or the Harry Bosch series on Amazon/FreeVee, be aware that there is significant divergence between the shows and the books.

The audiobook goes back and forth between the three readers that typically read the audiobooks nowadays. If the action features a certain character in a chapter, that reader reads the chapter. The other actors read for their character if there is dialogue. It is a nice touch and it works.

I rate this audiobook 5 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: RESURRECTION WALK (audiobook) (Book 7 of the Lincoln Lawyer series) by Michael Connelly.

TAKING AMERICA BACK for GOD: CHRISTIAN NATIONALISM in the UNITED STATES (audiobook) by Andrew L. Whitehead and Samuel L. Perry

Published by Tantor Audio in 2020.
Read by Tom Parks.
Duration: 6 hours, 44 minutes.
Unabridged.

Whitehead and Perry are the first sociologists who set out to do an in-depth study of Christian Nationalism and Christian Nationalists. Whitehead (Indiana University-Purdue University in Indianapolis) and Perry (University of Oklahoma) both hail from states where Christian Nationalism plays a strong role in the political and cultural realms.

First, you need a working definition of Christian Nationalism. Whitehead describes it as:  "a cultural framework that is all about trying to advocate for a fusion between Christianity — as they define it — and American civic life." I also like this description by a completely unrelated person, Rev. Skye Jethani: 
"Christians participating in politics or influencing society with their values is NOT Christian Nationalism. Christians believing they have a God-given right to dominate the government & society by excluding & diminishing the value of their non-Christian neighbors IS Christian Nationalism." Whitehead and Perry piggybacked 6 statements into a periodic national survey on religion that Baylor University has conducted for years. Participants ranked their agreement with the statements and were given a total score. The higher the score, the higher the correlation with Christian Nationalism. Here are the statements: 

1. The federal government should declare the United States a Christian Nation.
2. The federal government should advocate Christian values.
3. The federal government should enforce strict separation of church and state. 
4. The federal government should allow the display of religious symbols in public spaces.
5. The success of the United States is part of God’s plan.
6. The federal government should allow prayer in public schools.

The results tell us that a little over half of the country (51.9%) is Christian Nationalist or sympathetic. 48.1% of the country is very opposed or supportive of opposition to Christian Nationalism. Once again, the country is very deeply split. 

Regional differences are strong here. Unsurprisingly, the South is the stronghold of Christian Nationalism. Also, it is no surprise that the Northeast is the stronghold of its opposition.

One of the more interesting facts to come from their study is that the long perceived truth that White Evangelical Christian is just another way of saying Christian Nationalist is incorrect. Although there is a strong correlation between the two, there are White Evangelical Christians represented in all four group identified in strong numbers. For example, the reverend that I quoted above with his definition of Christian Nationalism is an Evangelical Christian, but he is certainly no Christian Nationalist. 

The book starts and ends with detailed explanations of how the data was compiled. It's not particularly invigorating listening in an audiobook, but it does demonstrate that the authors used tried and true methods to gather solid data. 

The discussion of the results in the middle was particularly riveting to me, though. It turns out that I must be what they identify as a "rejector" of Christian Nationalism based on how I reacted to what I think is Christian Nationalism's perversion of the ideals and basic tenets of both my faith and the ideals of my country. As they went through comments from individuals that they gleaned from the surveys I often felt sick to my stomach and sometimes felt like crying. I would love to provide examples, but as I already noted, I listened to the audiobook and it is hard to take notes while driving or walking the dog.

I rated this audiobook 4 stars out of 5 only because all of the parts of the book actually tell you that this is reliable information makes for a slow listen and is likely to drive away listeners who have not taken a sociology class or studied how good polls are made (hint: most polls you run across on social media are very bad polls.)

I rate this audiobook 4 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: TAKING AMERICA BACK for GOD: CHRISTIAN NATIONALISM in the UNITED STATES by Andrew L. Whitehead and Samuel L. Perry.