What's So Great about Christianity by Dinesh D'Souza

It was not only a joy to read but also well worth the effort

Published in 2007 by Salem Books

I read D'Souza's What's So Great about America last year and I enjoyed it. To use a food analogy, What's So Great About America is like a 4th of July dinner of hamburgers, chips and a soft drink - filling but also fun and easy to consume.



What's So Great About Christianity is a much more complicated work. If it were a meal it would be like a 3 course porterhouse steak meal - more challenging to consume, more work to prepare and, in the end, more filling. But there's a lot more chewing. This is a work that requires a lot more thought and more time to read and properly understand.



D'Souza systematically delves into all aspects of Christianity - from the areas of the world to where it is growing today to science to miracles to the "problem" of evil to the charges that more have been killed in the name of Christianity (and other religions) than any other cause. He takes on none of these topics lightly. This is not intended to be an evangelistic tract but rather an educational work for Christians. Too many Christians have no idea about the depth of scholarship and the richness of the intellectual traditions of Christianity.

Dinesh D'Souza

I read this book as an individual but I would recommend this book for an advanced Bible study. D'Souza has written a study guide (What's So Great about Christianity Study Guide: Your Guide to Answering the New Atheists) that I have flipped through after reading the book. It would be a great companion to this book and would surely generate and focus discussion. It would probably be helpful to anyone reading on an individual basis as well.

I can't say that I agree with every thought D'Souza has on Christianity but I can say that this is a thoughtful, well-argued book and it was not only a joy to read but also well worth the effort.

I rate this book 5 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: What's So Great about Christianity.

Reviewed on January 30, 2010.

Note: I wrote this review nearly 13 years ago. Back then, I respected D'Souza and his opinions. A lot has happened since then. The rise of the Age of Trump has changed things. Maybe the shock of Trump made the scales fall from my eyes. Maybe Trump's success compelled otherwise restrained people to advocate a number of things that I disagree with. Maybe they always were that way and the Age of Trump freed them. Either way, I cannot say that I support this man any longer.

I REALLY liked this book when I read it 14 years ago. I have not re-read it, and I have no interest in re-reading this man's take on Christianity since he has violated the Christian ethics multiple times by violating the law and misleading people with flat out lies in movies that he produced, speeches, and countless Tweets. His nonsense has created so much unnecessary chaos and show, at best, an extraordinarily bad sense of judgment.

The Chopin Manuscript: A Serial Thriller (audiobook) by various authors

Published in 2007.
Read by Alfred Molina.
Duration: 7 hours, 30 minutes.

Unabridged.

The Chopin Manuscript is not really a great story but an interesting premise and veteran actor Alfred Molina does a fantastic job performing this audiobook. This book was given an "Audie Award" (2008 Audiobook of the Year) and that is entirely due to the masterful ability of Molina to mimic accents and create voices for literally dozens of characters. His performance was much better than the material he was given to perform.

The idea behind the story is pretty simple - Jeffery Deaver (The Lesson of Her Death), a well-known writer of action thrillers started out an international thriller by writing the first chapter. Then the story was handed off to another author and a chapter was added (15 authors in total) until it got back Deaver who wrote the concluding chapter.

The story is a thrill-a-minute ride that has a herky-jerky nature. Every author seemed to be out to move the story along as much as possible so character development was sacrificed for action. I do not know if an over-arching plot line was discussed among the authors but it seems clear that the minor characters were definitely out to be slaughtered (or ignored) throughout. Super villains are created in one chapter and then dispatched in the next without much fuss as the next author cleans up the other author's "mess" and creates his own. A whole chapter is spent developing a character that appears on maybe two pages worth of material in the rest of the book.

Lisa Scottoline (Everywhere That Mary Went) is probably one of the least "big time" authors of this book but her chapter was excellent - she eschewed action for character development and revealed the most awful betrayal of the book in a chapter that literally was set in just one room. I've always liked her work and was pleased to see that she went for smart storytelling over a splashy shoot 'em up chapter.

So, to sum up - mixed bag but an interesting experiment. I recommend the audio version since Molina's performance will make the rough patches in this book more palatable.

3 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: The Chopin Manuscript: A Serial Thriller.

The Copper Bracelet (audiobook) by Jeffrey Deaver and 15 other authors

Much like the last one in the series, the experiment in making the story is better than the story.

Published in 2009 by Audible Originals.

Read by Alfred Molina.

Duration: 8 hours, 31 minutes.
Unabridged.

The Copper Bracelet is the second installment in the Harry Middleton story. Harry is former military officer, former music teacher, current hunter of war criminals. Along with his compatriots, the Volunteers, Harry Middleton is after war criminals from Kashmir.

The story behind the book is pretty simple - Jeffery Deaver (Garden of Beasts: A Novel of Berlin 1936), a well-known writer of action thrillers started out an international thriller by writing the first chapter. Then the story was handed off to another author and a chapter was added (16 authors in total) until it got back Deaver who wrote the concluding chapter.

This is a slightly different group of writers than in the first novel, The Chopin Manuscript: A Serial Thriller. The Copper Bracelet is a bit smoother than the first book, but it still has its herky-jerky moments in which characters are introduced and then promptly killed. To me, the bad guys seemed rather James Bond Super-Villain-ish, which for me is too cartoonish to be interesting.

The most interesting feature of the audiobook is the last "Bonus" disc that includes an interview with the narrator, veteran actor Alfred Molina (Spider-Man 2) and an interview with Jeffrey Deaver and a couple of authors about the process they used to write the book. Most interestingly, no overall plot was ever discussed beforehand - the authors receive the completed chapters and have a limited amount of time to add another chapter before it gets handed off to the next author in line.

I rate this audiobook 3 stars out of 5. It ca be found on Amazon.com here: The Copper Bracelet.

Reviewed on March 10, 2010.

Lights Out: Islam, Free Speech and the Twilight of the West by Mark Steyn

Fascinating, entertaining and important

Published in 2009 by Stockade Books.

For those of you who are not aware, Mark Steyn was brought before three courts of Canada's Human Rights Commission for violating the human rights of some Muslim students and the Canadian Islamic Congress. You see, in Canada, your right not to be offended is more important than your right to speak your mind (except in the hypocritical cases Steyn has fun with throughout the book).

What was Steyn's crime? Maclean's magazine printed excerpts from his book America Alone: The End of the World As We Know It. This was a bestseller in America and Canada but if he was found guilty the books would be pulled from all Canadian bookstores and Maclean's would have to be minded by politically correct nanny censors. Steyn is continually amazed that "large numbers of Canadians apparently think there's nothing wrong in subjecting the contents of political magazines to the approval of agents of the state." (p. 4)

Mark Steyn

Steyn details the fight against these three cases. Along the way he generates lots of memorable quotes such as, "I don't want to get off the hook. I want to take the hook and stick it up the collective butt of these thought police." (p. 5)

So, Steyn includes offending comments from the excerpts that brought him to court. He also includes columns that were included as supporting evidence. As a bonus he includes commentary from the complaints and then writes rebuttals. Steyn gleefully quotes author Martin Amis who noted that Steyn's "thoughts and themes are sane and serious - but he writes like a maniac." (p. 106). How very true - Steyn whipsaws back and forth - sometimes darkly sarcastic, sometimes sad, sometimes like a little boy who is glad to point and call names. But, throughout all of it Steyn is right - dead on 100% right. We cannot let the freedom of speech to be compromised, especially not in the name of offending the religious sensibilities of a determined few (my own religious beliefs are assaulted almost daily on sites I visit on the internet, TV and even in my classroom but I hardly am interested in shutting up those who offend me). To quote Steyn again, "What's so bad about disagreement that it needs to be turned into a crime?" (p. 182)

One of the most important books of our troubled times - as a bonus it's a joy to read!

I rate this book 5 stars out of 5.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: Lights Out: Islam, Free Speech And The Twilight Of The West

Reviewed on January 30, 2010.

The Greatest Generation by Tom Brokaw

A Classic

Published in 1998.

Tom Brokaw's The Greatest Generation is a classic. This is not sophisticated writing and the format is basic but Brokaw's interviews with dozens and dozens of veterans of World War II, their wives, their children and their comments on how the war affected them and the way they lived the rest of their lives is a loving tribute to his father's generation.

Brokaw has sections on regular foot soldiers and sailors, soldiers who went on to become famous such as Caspar Weinberger, Bob Dole, Andy Rooney and Julia Child. He also addresses the racism and sexism of the time (and incorrectly asserts that only the Japanese were forcibly removed - several East Coast Italians were removed to western states and their fishing boats were confiscated, although clearly the Japanese were treated much worse as a group). He also talks to soldiers who were wounded during the war and how that affected them.

Tom Brokaw

Interesting comment from former pacifist Andy Rooney about his witnessing the liberation of Buchenwald concentration camp: "For the first time I knew that any peace is not better than any war." (p. 296)

Commentary about the differences of values between generations abounds. I liked this observation about divorce from Peggy Assenzio: "It's too easy to get a divorce. We've had our arguments, but we don't give up. When my friends ask whether I ever considered divorce I remind them of the old saying, 'We've thought about killing each other, but divorce? Never.'" (p. 239)

I also like the observation of a black soldier who philosophically overlooked the racism he experienced: "When you get over there and the nation's in trouble you ain't got no black and white. You only got America." (p. 199)

I rate this book 5 stars out of 5 and it can be found on Amazon.com here: The Greatest Generation by Tom Brokaw.

Reviewed on January 30, 2010.

Think Twice by Lisa Scottoline

This may be the end of this series

Originally published in 2010.

 Bennie Rosato and her law firm full of female lawyers is back in Think Twice for what may very well be the last installment of this long-running series.

This will seem like a series of spoilers, but you can find all of these items on the back cover of the book: Bennie Rosato's long-lost twin (introduced in the book Mistaken Identity) turns out to be an evil twin who kidnaps Bennie, buries her alive and takes over her life.

So, ignoring the fact that seems that the premise was stolen straight from the "Plot Ideas That Ought To Have Been Retired" Hall of Fame, this book just does not have the zing of the others in the series. I love these characters and have been reading about them ever since I read Everywhere That Mary Went back in the 1990s. I worked at a bookstore at the time and whenever a fan of legal thrillers would come in and ask if we had anything new that was a little different I'd hand them that book. Soon enough, we were sold out. I even talked a group of ladies to use it for their book discussion group and they loved it.

Sadly, Think Twice just seems tired. I think it may be the end of the series because 5 major plot issues that have been threaded throughout the series have now been resolved - 2 personal issues for Bennie, one personal/professional issue for Bennie, 1 professional issue for Mary DiNunzio and 1 personal issue for Mary.

I do not recommend this book for anyone who has not read from this series before. I do recommend it for readers of the series because I think that this one was the finale.

I rate this book 3 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: Think Twice by Lisa Scottoline.

Reviewed on February 6, 2010.

The Case for the Real Jesus: A Journalist Investigates Current Attacks on the Identity of Christ (audiobook) by Lee Strobel

Published in 2007 by Zondervan
Read by the author, Lee Strobel
Duration: 10 hours, 45 minutes
Unabridged

Lee Strobel has written several "The Case for..." books. The Case for the Real Jesus: A Journalist Investigates Current Attacks on the Identity of Christ explicitly counters the arguments from many different sources that question Jesus, the teachings about him and the integrity of the New Testament.

Critics argue that Strobel is not an expert on the things he writes about. I believe he would agree with that - at most he is a well-informed layman. But, Strobel did the best thing that one can do to create a rebuttal these arguments - he went out to the experts and questioned them (because, really, who is a qualified expert in all of these fields?). Strobel asks them the questions that the "anti-" crowd would ask (really a wide range, from Muslim teachers to Hollywood directors to college professors to former Christian clergy to internet bloggers).

Lee Strobel

The beauty of having these experts interviewed rather than just reading the books they may have written is that Strobel pushes them for clearer explanations and doesn't let them give answers that only sort of answer the questions. Strobel reads the book himself. This enables him to insert the inflections (outrage, sarcasm, sympathy, weariness and more) that were present in the original taped interviews. Of course, it would have been better to have the original recorded interviews, but the quality would not be as good as that of Strobel sitting in a recording studio and to try and re-create those interviews in a studio would be foolish - they would not have the same feel as the original interviews).

This was a most enjoyable audiobook. I learned a lot. I know my wife got tired of hearing me tell her what new thing I learned while driving to and from work. My only negative is that it is so hard to go back and find a particularly relevant piece of information in the audiobook format. In a book you can just insert a bookmark - in an audiobook the information is harder to go back and access.

Highly recommended.

I rate this audiobook 5 stars out of 5.

This audiobook can be found on Amazon.com here: The Case for the Real Jesus.

Reviewed on February 6, 2010.