Guardian of Lies: a Paul Madriani Novel by Steve Martini

Steve Martini gets better and better (from an occasional reader of Martini)

Published in 2009.

I'm not the biggest reader of Steve Martini. I'm inclined to discount his work precisely because he is a "name brand" author. Plenty of authors that have made it to the top  start to crank out books like a factory and the quality drops and I always think that Martini will do the same.

Guardian of Lies is my fourth Steve Martini/Paul Madriani novel. I went back and checked my reviews of them. I've enjoyed them all and have been surprised by the fact that I have enjoyed them as well. I was expecting churned out novels and have always been pleasantly surprised.

Steve Martini

Guardian of Lies is the most ambitious Martini/Madriani novel I've read. We move from a simple courtroom case to international terrorism. Madriani gets swept along in a multi-country chase to find out the truth and to clear his own name. Along the way, he gets stalked, betrayed, nearly blown up and framed in a plot that zips along.

Well, who could ask for more?
 
I rate this book 5 stars out of 5.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: 
Guardian of Lies: A Paul Madriani Novel (Paul Madriani Novels)  

Reviewed on July 17, 2009.

Roverandom by J.R.R. Tolkein

This one is tricky to review

Originally submitted for publication in 1937 (but rejected). Finally published in 1998.

When reviewing a piece of children's literature, especially a piece by a world-famous author and one that was originally created, not for the general public but to console his young son on the loss of a beloved toy, how can you be fair? Do you let the reputation of the author boost the score? Do you judge this book by the standard of his other books?

Since I have two small children, I decided to judge Roverandom by comparing it to the other children books that I have been reading lately. By that standard, Roverandom comes off as a solid 3 star book. There is little character development - the emphasis is on a fast-moving plot and plenty of inside family references that are covered in the introduction.

This is not a prequel to The Hobbit, but it is a quick, fun read with lots of emphasis on fantasy.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: Roverandom

I rate this one 3 stars out of 5.

Reviewed on November 27, 2010.

New Threats to Freedom edited by Adam Bellow

Mostly interesting set of essays

Published in 2010 by Templeton Press

The theme of New Threats to Freedom is, clearly, threats to our freedom. This can be interpreted as America's freedom, Western freedom in general of the freedom of all people throughout the world. Depending on the reader's sensitivities, some of these freedoms may seem trivial (the freedom of ice cream vendors in New York City to sell their wares near city parks, for example) or may seem monumental (back to those same vendors - can you really ban a licensed business from selling his wares just because you don't want to hear your kids whine all day about ice cream?)

The writing is generally high quality but there are a wide variety of styles, themes and issues that make this an uneven read. For example, Stephen Schwartz's essay "Shariah in the West" is mostly an essay about how Shariah is not a threat, but just a media-hyped bogeyman,  followed by a few paragraphs about how it might still be a threat. The "Illusion of Innocence" by Shelby Steele had a similar feel and the last essay by Dennis Whittle, "Orthodoxy and Freedom in International Aid" was more about bureaucratic inertia than any outright threat.

Adam Bellow,
 editor

On the other hand essays such as Greg Lukianoff's "Students Against Liberty?" was very thought-provoking. Indiana University - Purdue University at Indianapolis (IUPUI), the University where I earned my Master's gets a mention on page 139, much to my embarrassment. 

The placement of a very strong essay by Mark Helprin entitled "The Rise of Antireligious Orthodoxy" right before a strong essay on multi-culturalism by Christopher Hitchens (well known for his anti-religious books) makes me smile every time I think of it. Hitchins makes a strong point that we should never fail to confuse individual civil rights with "group" rights in our efforts to be a free society.

I rate this book 4 stars out of 5.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: New Threats to Freedom.

Reviewed on November 27, 2010.

101 Uses for a Jack Russell by Dusan Smetana

A wonderful gift for an owner of Jack Russell Terriers

Published in 2004.

We just got a Jack Russell Terrier mix from a pet rescue about three weeks ago. My wife found 101 Uses for a Jack Russell yesterday and the whole family (even the three year old) enjoyed looking through it.

Lovely photos and a sense of humor with the captions, such as "#13 - Someone who takes you on a walk". There's also a lot of captions that get the real characteristics of the breed, such as "#79 - Sentry, "41 - Explorer" and "#35 - Hurdler."

Enjoyable. Great gift for the Jack Russell lover.
 
I rated this book 5 stars out of 5.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: 101 Uses for a Jack Russell
 
Reviewed on July 17, 2009.

The Indy 500: 1956-1965 by Ben Lawrence, W.C. Madden and Christopher Bass

Excellent, for what it is

Published in 2004 by Arcadia Publishing.

The "Images of Sports" series is intended to be a scrapbook history of a team, or in this case of an event.

The Indy 500: 1956-1965 is a 127 page book mostly comprised of photographs taken by Ben Lawrence, a photographer for the now-defunct Indianapolis Times from 1956-1965. This book is not a comprehensive history of the Indy 500, but rather a photographic scrapbook, a yearbook, if you will.

In a way, it was also a Golden Era for the Speedway with the new (also now defunct) scoring tower and the arrival of mainstays such as A.J. Foyt, Parnelli Jones and the Unsers. There are captions for all pictures and a few introductory paragraphs for each new section.

Not only does the reader get pictures from the race but also from the first 500 Festival parades, shots of the fans, candid shots of the drivers, track workers and even celebrities (the Jayne Mansfield shot is something else!). The race is more than just a race, it is an event, the biggest thing that happens in Indiana all year long and the book gives us an idea what it was like 50 years ago.
 
I rate this book 5 stars out of 5.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: The Indy 500: 1956-1965.
 
Reviewed on July 17, 2009.

Liberty! The American Revolution DVD

A history teacher's review

When this first came out on PBS I started watching it and never got into the flow of it. I hated the fact that they used actors to play real people rather than using the tried and true (and fantastic) Ken Burns style. Ironically, I absolutely loved the book Liberty ! : The American Revolution by Thomas Fleming by - it is, hands down, the best single-volume comprehensive history of the American Revolution that I have found.
So, I was pretty much bashing the series because it was not something else. So, here I am years later and I decided to give it a second try. I am glad that I did.

Liberty! is much better than I remembered. It is not as good as the book but it the best documentary on the American Revolution I have seen. It is as thorough as one can be in the limited time that this format will allow.

"The Boston Massacre" by Paul Revere

As for the actor thing - this time around I really liked it. The actors are really good and the story is paced very well. The build up to the revolution is logical and shows how the logic of both the British and the American positions and how those positions led to the Revolution.

Liberty! does a good job of going back and forth from the political to the military action in the actual war. The last episode in the series covers the Articles of Confederation and the writing of the Constitution a little too quickly but it makes a good point about how the original argument about the Constitution are still the same argument we are having today - how much power should our national government have?
 
I rate this DVD set 5 stars out of 5.

This DVD set can be found on Amazon.com here: Liberty!

Reviewed on July 18, 2009.

Too Close to Home by Linwood Barclay

Not as good as other Linwood Barclay books

Published in 2009 by Bantam.

I am an enthusiastic fan of Never Look Away and Fear the Worst my first two Linwood Barclay books. This book continues in the tradition of many film noir thrillers - the regular guy who gets his whole life overturned by some sort of crime and how he reacts to it. Unfortunately, Too Close to Home was not the equal of those two books.

In Too Close to Home we meet the Cutter family, a mom, dad and a teenage son. The neighbors are brutally murdered one night and the family skeletons start to come out of the closet in a big, big way as the police begin to investigate everyone who even might be connected to the victims.

Linwood Barclay

This was precisely the problem with the book, in my opinion. This family has too many skeletons. Every few pages there is a major plot twist with a "sit down, I've got to tell you something" moment.

I am still giving the book 3 stars out of 5 because Barclay makes you want to keep pushing on - even though you know it is just going to get more complicated to the point of being silly.

This book can  be found on Amazon.com here: Too Close to Home.

Reviewed on November 26, 2010.