Don't Speak to Strangers by Marion Rosen

A roller coaster of good and bad writing

Published in 1993.

Don't Speak to Strangers is like riding a roller coaster - not because of its thrills, but because sometimes it is very poorly written and sometimes it is really quite good.

The author does a pretty good job of making you wonder why this boy is singled out by the kidnapper - but when I found out why I didn't really buy it. His attempts at escape are interesting but the FBI agents are pretty lame (the female agent is hyper-concerned at being treated as an equal but is always having heart palpitations when her cute boss stands near her).

So, it is a choppy read.

I rate this book 3 stars out of 5.

Reviewed in 2004.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: Don't Speak to Strangers by Marion Rosen. 

The Warrior Generals: Combat Leadership in the Civil War by Thomas Buell

Good, thought provoking

Published in 1997 by Crown.

In The Warrior Generals: Combat Leadership in the Civil War, Buell analyzes three Confederate and three Union generals with six very different leadership styles.

Buell gives a title to each of the six different men and they are:

The Yeoman: Ulysses S. Grant
The Aristocrat: Robert E. Lee
The Knight-Errant: John Bell Hood
The Roman: George H. Thomas
The Cavalier: John B . Gordon
The Puritan: Francis C. Barlow

Buell researched this book heavily, including delving into the National Archives to the point that he actually found boxes of papers from the Civil War that had not even been opened since they were packaged and delivered after the war, a fact that I find amazing given the vast number of books written on the war every year.

Buell is quite clear in his book that Robert E. Lee was vastly overrated and quite possibly incompetent (he never says it outright but he infers it). I agree that Lee has been overrated by some, but his incompetence is refuted, in my mind, by his track record against a much larger, better equipped army over the course of the war. To his credit, Buell does not lay the blame for the vast number of casualties in the Seven Days Battles in the Peninsular Campaign on Lee - which I consider fair considering that he was forced to take charge during the battles due to the wounding of Confederate General Joseph Johnston. Lee can't really take the blame for a situation he did not create.

Buell also is extremely critical of Grant, sometimes in a contradictory manner. At the beginning of the book he is critical of Grant's strategy as unimaginative at the end of the war (press Lee constantly, despite the constant casualties since Lee could not replace his casualties and Grant could easily replace his own - it quickly became a numbers game and denied Lee his famed mobility) and then, towards the end of the book he praises it.

General George H. Thomas
"The Rock of Chickamauga"

Buell's favorite is obviously Thomas, a brilliant organizer who built the army that literally simultaneously destroyed the Confederate Army of Tennessee (under Thomas) and was the core of Sherman's famous March to the Sea through Georgia. However, he was ultimately relieved of command by Grant for being too deliberate - a conclusion that I share with Grant. Buell, however, believes that it was an unjust firing. Grant believed that action was often more important than preparation - sometimes true, sometimes not, but Thomas never seemed to be prepared enough...

Although I disagreed with many of his conclusions, I did enjoy Buell's book. It was informative and well-written.

Reviewed in 2004.

I rate this book 5 stars out of 5.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: The Warrior Generals: Combat Leadership in the Civil War by Thomas Buell.

The Professional (Spenser book #37) by Robert B. Parker

A different kind of Spenser book

Published in 2009.

Spenser is back with a different type of mystery, and not necessarily for the better. I'm a big fan of a younger, tougher Spenser. A Spenser that was hassled by the cops, fought with the bad guys and generally spent his time wisecracking himself into and out of tough scrapes.

Sadly, The Professional is not that. This one is filled full of relationship discussions (I think Oprah actually moderated some of the scenes!), including more of the endless talk between Spenser and Susan about the nature of their relationship. Lots of talk about sex, the role of sex in a love relationship and, of course, Susan and Spenser have sex about 47 times.

Robert B. Parker

The mystery is a simple blackmailing case that gets out of control. All of Spenser's "friends" make an appearance and most help him for no reason that I can ascertain except for shared history, including Vinnie, Ty-Bop, Tony Marcus and an oversexed Hawk.

The ending is obvious to anyone who has read Of Mice and Men but that ending is one of the few moments that really felt like an old-fashioned Spenser novel.

I give it 3 stars out of 5 because Spenser's practically a family friend.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: The Professional.

Reviewed on October 21, 2009.

Footnotes in Gaza by Joe Sacco

I found Sacco's other work Palestine to be much more revealing, balanced and just better

Originally published by Metropolitan Books in 2009.

I was thrilled to find Joe Sacco had written another graphic novel because I found Sacco's work Palestine: The Special Edition to be a revealing and balanced work that took me into one of those places that everyone has heard of but really knows nothing about.

Footnotes in Gaza focuses on a "footnote" in the 1956 Suez War in which Israel, England and France attacked Egypt and Gaza was overwhelmed by the Israeli Defense Forces. There were two civilian massacres of a combined total of 300-400 males of military age, mostly Palestinian, but there may have been a few Egyptian soldiers in civilian clothes in the mix as well.

Sacco's artwork remains stark and powerful and unique. No one portrays emotions such as anguish and fear as well as well as Sacco.

This work is rambling, nearly 100 more pages than the book "Palestine." It includes dozens of direct quotes, which are laudable, but often repetitious.

A self portrait of Joe Sacco

Sacco has thoroughly researched this topic. He endured life-threatening situations, annoying waits and the trials and tribulations of everyday life in the Gaza strip as he conducted dozens, if not hundreds, of first person interviews with eyewitnesses to the atrocities as well as to their aftermaths. I do not doubt his methods or the veracity of his reporting.

But, I do doubt the balanced nature of this work. "Footnotes" is almost entirely focused on a pro-Palestinian view of the current events (Intifada II) and of the 1956 War. Well, to be fair there are 4 text appendices at the end and one contains an eight page interview with IDF spokespeople about why Palestinian homes are destroyed in Gaza. Surely eight pages balances 389 pages?

I think it would have been better to have included perspectives from all sides - not just the Palestinians but also the Egyptians and the IDF soldiers. I suppose their points of view will just remain "footnotes."

As an interesting aside, during the time I was reading this book I was also listening to the audiobook version P.J. O'Rourke's Peace Kills: America's Fun New Imperialism, a book that includes a section that is as entirely biased to the Israeli side as this one is to the Palestinian. Experiencing them at the same time made for an interesting dichotomy, to say the least, and made them flaws of both much more pronounced.

I rate this book 3 stars out of 5.

This graphic novel can be found on Amazon.com here: Footnotes in Gaza: A Graphic Novel.

Reviewed on October 23, 2009.

What's Wrong with the World by G.K. Chesterton

Written in 1910, still relevant a century later.

G.K. Chesterton's What's Wrong With the World is not a bit of light reading. There are heady thoughts throughout and the reader is invited to do some of the heavy lifting as well. I don't agree with all of Chesterton's conclusions either but he does have a wonderful way with words. Have you ever had an argument with someone in which you thoroughly disagreed with some of their points but admired the way they laid them out and their turns of the phrase? That is my experience with G.K. Chesterton in a nutshell.

I only picked up this volume because I read somewhere that C.S. Lewis was a devoted fan of Chesterton.

G.K. Chesterton

Be prepared, there is no one thing that is wrong with the world - it is a collection of things. Of course, any thinking person knows that there are always a collection of problems that are inter-related and cause all sorts of things to be wrong in the world.

Chesterton is strongly pro-Catholic church so be prepared that one of the things wrong with the world is that the world is not Catholic. Being a Lutheran myself, I smiled and moved on. Women working outside of the home is a problem Chesterton identifies as well. Not because women are inferior (he reveres the housewife and acknowledges it is draining) but because the home is a special place if well-tended by an extraordinary women - a place where the family can actually be free of the demands of society and work. Plus, a homemaker is, by the very nature of the job, a skilled amateur that knows a little about "a hundred trades." Homemakers are not specialized and that is good in Chesterton's eyes.

Why is specialization a problem? People become experts in just one thing and don't learn about the rest of the world. Think of our modern college system. Someone can get an MBA in business but never have taken an art class. Doctorates of art in all likelihood have never taken an econ class. Are those people well educated?

Probably his biggest thing that is wrong with the world is its habit of "altering the human soul to fit its conditions, instead of altering human conditions to fit the human soul." In other words, we conform to the arbitrary demands of society rather than making sure that society conforms to the needs of the human soul.

Tired of the "Think of the Children" mantra? So was Chesterton 100 years ago: "There has arisen...a foolish and wicked try typical of the confusion. I mean the cry, "Save the children." It is, of course, part of that modern morbidity that insists on treating the state (which is the home of man) as a sort of desperate expedient in time of panic. This terrified opportunism is also the origin of the Socialist and other schemes."

Chesterton also has several comments on education that to this 20 year veteran teacher sound grumpy, fuddy-duddy and exactly 100% right.

I rate this essay 5 stars out of 5 stars. It can be found on Amazon.com here: What's Wrong with the World.

Reviewed on October 24, 2009.

Children at Play: A Cul de Sac Collection by Richard Thompson

Cul de Sac hits the spot left by Calvin and Hobbes and Peanuts

Published in 2010.

If you can while away a pleasant afternoon or evening reading a collection of Calvin and Hobbes or Peanuts add this one to your collection right now!

I only recently discovered Cul de Sac on the internet and have been enjoying it enough that I grabbed this book. Clever lines, interesting art and enough of real life to make me read cartoons to my wife and say, "Who does this remind you of?" (page 24's shopping experience is so much like my own 2 children that I suspect someone may have been watching us at the store...)

Gentle, clever, good-humored, keenly observant...a worthy heir to the position held by Peanuts and Calvin and Hobbes in my mind.

Highly recommended.

I rate this collection 5 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: Children at Play: A Cul de Sac Collection by Richard Thompson

Reviewed on October 27, 2009.

Peace Kills: America's Fun New Imperialism (audiobook) by P.J. O'Rourke

My first foray into P.J. O'Rourke's books

Published by Brilliance Audio
Duration: 5 hours, 48 minutes
Read by Dick Hill
Unabridged

I've read some of P.J. O'Rourke's columns and have heard an interview or two so I knew that I would most likely find one of his books to be most interesting.

To begin with, I found Peace Kills: America's Fun New Imperialism mostly dead-on accurate and depressing. Observations about the War in Bosnia, human nature in general and Israel were factually interesting but mostly deflating. Not that I am overly optimistic about human nature (being both a history major and a Lutheran has given me a fairly low opinion about the character of humanity) but P.J.'s account was even getting to me.

But, in the middle it picks up - ironically with his description of 9/11 and the days that followed in Washington, D.C. I found his observations to be keen, interesting and, in an odd way, hopeful. His descriptions of the pro-Palestinian/anti-war protests was a hoot. Laugh out loud funny.

His commentary on the Nobel Prize winners' open letter about the state of the world issued in mid-2001 was so good that I almost felt sorry that 100 of the smartest people on the planet were up against O'Rourke. He makes mincemeat of their poorly written logic-defying declaration and along the way he had me laughing so hard I nearly cried.

O'Rourke traveled to Iraq during invasion in 2003. Wonderfully observant (his comments on the looters are interesting and make me wonder if they were masterminded in some way) and sometimes laugh out loud funny, especially the scene with the case of beer.

He bookends the book with another very dark, depressing chapter with a visit to Iwo Jima. It was a good and fitting ending, but not at all humorous. But, let's face it, war is tragic, not funny and O'Rourke's good even when he's not being funny.

Expertly read by Dick Hill, who is one of the best audiobook narrators in the business.

I rate this audiobook 4 stars out of 5.

This audiobook can be found on Amazon.com here: Peace Kills: America's Fun New Imperialism by P.J. O'Rourke.

Reviewed on October 27, 2009.