Don't Know Much About the Civil War: Everything You Need to Know About America's Greatest Conflict But Never Learned by Kenneth C. Davis

A great introduction to the Civil War

Originally published in 1996 by William Morrow.

First, I need to tell you something about me. I am a Civil War buff. I can go into long expository speeches about nearly any topic of the war at the drop of a hat. I think it is a great moment in TV when the local PBS station shows Ken Burns' Civil War mini-series. The movie Glory is my favorite movie and I personally own more than 80 books on the Civil War. I love to debate any number of topics about the war and I truly believe that it is the pivotal moment in the history of our country in any number of topics including race relations, the growth of government power and the growth of the industrial might of the United States.

Don't Know Much About the Civil War is a very solid introduction to the Civil War, the issues and events that led up to the war and a much smaller section on the results of the war. Davis has a very approachable, easy to read style and I would gladly hand this book to anyone who was a Civil War newbie and wanted to learn more. Just about any topic that could be covered in the war is covered in this book at some point or another, maybe not in depth, but it is covered.

Each chapter begins with a series of questions. For example, Chapter Three begins with 10 questions, including:

-Where Did the Underground Railroad Run?
-Who Was Uncle Tom?
-What Happened at Harpers Ferry?

Kenneth C. Davis

Davis then spends the next 50 pages answering those questions, including a couple of timelines that repeat some of the same information as the text, but puts the information in a slightly different format.

This book would benefit from maps and pictures, but this should not detract a potential reader.

I rate this book 4 stars out of 5.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: Don't Know Much About the Civil War.

Reviewed on January 22, 2011.

The Afghan Campaign by Steven Pressfield

"This is the devil's country...and you are fighting the devil's war"

Published in 2007 by Doubleday

The Afghan Campaign is one of two pieces of historical fiction that Steven Pressfield has written about Alexander the Great (the other is The Virtues of War). Pressfield has written about several historical eras but his real area of interest seems to be the Greek and Hellenistic eras. His most famous and, in my opinion, his best novel is Gates of Fire: An Epic Novel of the Battle of Thermopylae.

Alexander the Great (356-323 B.C.)

The Afghan Campaign is a solid novel. Pressfield does his best to put us on the ground with the troops, much like he did with Gates of Fire.  The reader follows a group of young Macedonian recruits as they ship off to join Alexander's army as it approaches what is now known as Afghanistan.  Pressfield's choice to view the war from the level of a raw recruit (Matthias) as he learns to fight and eventually becomes a sergeant is an interesting one - and a good one. The reader gets a chance to learn all as he learns and gets a real feel for the Alexander's army and the difficulties they experienced.

One of more interesting aspects of the novel is Pressfield's choice to incorporate what I assume is made up Macedonian slang into the story. Every profession has its slang and the military seems to create more than most. In this novel, Alexander's army is no different. It gives it a more authentic "feel" even if the slang is not authentic. Fortunately, Pressfield provides a glossary in the back that I used heavily until I learned the expressions.

So, what do we learn in this book? Nothing new, but lessons that seem to have to be re-learned with every generation like war is brutal, ugly and terrible. People will die defending their homes and their ways of life, no matter how worthless they seem to outsiders. War changes the people that experience it, including the woman and children in the war zone.

I would be most interested in hearing any comments from soldiers who have served in Afghanistan and also read this book.

I rate this book 5 stars out of 5.

This novel can be found on Amazon.com here: The Afghan Campaign.

Reviewed on January 16, 2011.

Luther (LCA School of Religion series) by Robert H. Fischer



Excellent beginner's history to Luther and his times

Published in 1966 by Lutheran Church Press.

Fischer's book on the life and works of Luther is obviously intended to be a school-age biography of the great leader of the Reformation. I would suggest it for Middle or High School age students. Luther has several simple pencil illustrations spaced throughout the book that neither add nor detract from the text as a whole. This would also be an appropriate book for anyone new to Martin Luther or the Reformation.

Martin Luther (1483-1546)

Fischer starts by setting the scene for the reader. His description of life and politics in pre-Reformation is Europe is one of the best short summaries that this world history teacher has ever read. Fischer sets the scene wonderfully for the reader to understand Martin Luther and the magnitude of his demands for the Church to reform itself.

Fischer takes great care not to cast the Catholics as devils and Luther as an angel. All of Luther's warts are exposed (anti-Semitism, etc.), but Fischer lingers longest on Luther's positive achievements and qualities. This is appropriate since those are the things that have had such a large influence on Western history.

Fischer includes lots of quotes from Luther and his contemporaries, letting them speak for themselves (and to his credit, Fischer doesn't overquote and just supply us with an endless string of long quotes, as some historians do).

The last 30 pages of the book are quotes and comments on Luther's teaching and writing about a number of topics, including "The Lord's Supper", "The Christian and his neighbors" and comments about what Luther really wanted to do when he begin the Reformation movement.

I rate this book 5 stars out of 5.

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

Reviewed February 19, 2005.

Finding Our Way Again: The Return of the Ancient Practices by Brian McLaren

Not What I Hoped It Was

Published in 2008 by Thomas Nelson Inc.

I hate to fault a book for what it isn't - you cannot condemn a recipe book for lack of character development or a romance novel for it's lack of discussion about thermodynamics. But, in the case of this book, I was really hoping for an in-depth discussion of ancient Christian practices that have fallen by the wayside but are deserving or a re-assessment.

The title and the blurb on the back cover led me to believe that Finding Our Way Again: The Return of the Ancient Practices is a thorough discussion of certain practices. Instead, this book is an introduction to an entire series of books about specific practices. This book frustrated me for three reasons:

#1) I'm starting out with a very petty reason, but it bothered me throughout. McLaren makes extensive use of charts to demonstrate his points, but his first chart (pg. 7) was so much like the one about rating the value of a poem in the Robin Williams movie Dead Poets Society that I almost laughed out loud. For those who are unfamiliar with the reference, or that have forgotten it, here is the quote from a book about poetry that the Robin Williams character later dismisses:

If the poem's score for perfection is plotted along the horizontal of a graph, and its importance is plotted on the vertical, then calculating the total area of the poem yields the measure of its greatness.  A sonnet by Byron may score high on the vertical, but only average on the horizontal. A Shakespearean sonnet, on the other hand, would score high both horizontally and vertically, yielding a massive total area, thereby revealing the poem to be truly great. As you proceed through the poetry in this book, practice this rating method. As your ability to evaluate poems in this matter grows, so will - so will your enjoyment and understanding of poetry.

To all of this nonsense Williams' character comments: "We're not laying pipe, we're talking about poetry."

"St. Francis of Assisi in Ecstasy"
by Caravaggio

McLaren's graph is not about poetry, but attempts to makes a point about "Faith as a System of Belief" and "Faith as a Way of Life."  However, his graphs and charts come no closer to making the point than the passage in the book from Dead Poets Society does about great poetry.  McLaren's prescription, when he finally gets around to it is that certain ancient practices may be helpful in making your system of belief grow stronger and make it more of a way of life. Nice idea but he fails to make the point by providing little more than personal anecdotes and several unrelated stories about St. Francis (if you don't know much about him before you read this book, this will be little changed).

#2) McLaren spends a long time talking about this concept in vague terms. He names the practices but does little more to tell us anything in any detail until the very end of the book and even then he comes up with this simple concept - in times of stress in our Christian walk these practices are solid routines and practices to fall back on (and you can learn about them in more detail in the other books in this series). Sure, I get this as a concept, but I was not impressed by McLaren's roundabout way of getting there. I felt like the book was all buildup and little payoff.

#3) McLaren makes the point over and over again about the inter-relatedness of Islam, Judaism and Christianity. This is not news, these 3 faiths are commonly called the Abrahamic faiths for that reason. At times, McLaren sounds like he is making an appeal to Islam and Judaism to rejuvenate themselves by following these practices as well - making this a book designed for three faiths, which just seemed odd to me in a book designed for Christians.

So, to sum up, I was mostly irritated because the book took a long time to get to its point and when it finally got there I am told that I need to get yet another book to find the information I was hoping was contained in this book.

I reviewed this book in conjunction with Thomas Nelson's BookSneeze program. I was provided with a physical copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. I was not compensated for this review. The opinions expressed are mine.

I rate this book 2 stars out of 5.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: Finding Our Way Again: The Return of the Ancient Practices

Reviewed on January 9, 2011.

Perry Mason and the Case of the Velvet Claws: A Radio Dramatization

Perry Mason plays fast and loose with the law in a deadly case


Published in 2010 by The Colonial Radio Theatre on Brilliance Audio.

Voiced by the actors of The Colonial Radio Theatre on the Air.
Duration: 1 hour 31 minutes
Dramatized for audio by M.J. Elliot. Based on the book by Erle Stanley Gardner.

The Case of the Velvet Claws was the very first Perry Mason book, published in 1933. This radio dramatization is based on that book but, of course, it had to be adapted for the "radio play" format.

Perry Mason, Paul Drake and Della Street all figure large in this murder mystery that all began with an adulterous wife who wants to avoid political scandal. Eva Griffin, married to a powerful millionaire,  was discovered in a hotel with a married Congressman due to an unrelated crime at the hotel. Spicy Bits, a magazine that specializes in reporting scandal, is on the trail of this potential scandal and Griffin wants Perry Mason to act in her stead and offer the magazine a bribe to drop the story. Mason agrees to contact Spicy Bits and see what he can do but soon enough Griffin's husband is murdered and his client is, of course, a suspect. But, in a twist, Perry Mason is also a suspect!

Erle Stanley Gardner
 (1889-1970)

Perry Mason and the Case of the Velvet Claws is an entertaining audiobook (or radio play, if you prefer). Special effects are well-utilized and the characters all have distinctive voices and accents and work well together. I was struck, however, by Mason's willingness to tamper with evidence, create fake alibis and flat out lie in order to save his client. Nevertheless, it was still a solid bit of entertainment.

I rate this audiobook 4 stars out of 5.

This audiobook can be found on Amazon.com here: Perry Mason and the Case of the Velvet Claws: A Radio Dramatization

Reviewed on January 9, 2011.

The Sandy Knoll Murder: Legacy of the Sheepshooters by Melany Tupper

Could have been so much more

Published in 2010 by Central Oregon Books, LLC

The Sandy Knoll Murder brought a certain type of partnership you come across on those old TV lawyer shows. Perry Mason had Paul Drake. Ben Matlock had Tyler Hudson, Conrad McMasters and Cliff Lewis. What did they have? Tremendous investigators - researchers that covered the whole thing and then turned it over to someone else to make it sound nice for the judge and the jury.

Melany Tupper has thoroughly investigated (and thoroughly documented) the murder of John Creed Conn in 1904. She is a great investigator, especially considering that the murder happened more than 100 years ago.

Here are the basics:

Conn was a frontier businessman who disappeared, presumed to have committed suicide or accidentally drowned but than his body suddenly appeared on Sandy Knoll 7 weeks later.

At the same time, sheep were being slaughtered dozens and sometimes even hundreds at a time in yet another confrontation between cattle ranchers and sheepherders and there was a possible serial killer was living in and around the area.

All of this sounds like a great recipe for an exciting bit of history. This is where my reference to Perry Mason and Ben Matlock comes in. Tupper could easily be compared to one of his investigators.  Note that Paul Drake does the investigating for Perry Mason - but Perry Mason tells the story in the courtroom. Matlock did not do the difficult leg work - he had others do that while he weaved it together into an interesting, folksy, and convincing tale in order to save his clients. Tupper has dug and scraped at a history that was presumed to be "settled" and came up with a completely different conclusion than the settled upon facts of the case. This is a very good bit of investigative work.

Central Oregon Sheepherders

But, it is hard to read, especially the first few chapters. There is an assumption that the reader knows all about the Conn incident and the sheepshooters (I only know about this book and this particular incident because it was brought to my attention on an auto racing internet board). This is a critical mistake and makes the beginning of the book difficult at best. The commentary about Ray Jackson at the end of the book are quite good and quite convincing but too many times it was a hard slog to get to that point.

Working with another author to make the presentation more palatable and would have done this thorough and impressive piece of research a favor.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: The Sandy Knoll Murder: Legacy of the Sheepshooters

I rate this book 2 stars out of 5.

Reviewed on January 2, 2011.

Wanda Hickey's Night of Golden Memories and Other Disasters by Jean Shepherd

Excellent. Absolutely Excellent.

Originally published in 1971

Wanda Hickey's Night of Golden Memories and Other Disasters is written by the man who co-wrote and narrates the classic movie A Christmas Story, Jean Shepherd (1921-1999). Shepherd's book  In God We Trust, All Others Pay Cash is the inspiration for that movie, although the infamous dogs in the kitchen scene comes from Wanda Hickey.

If you love the movie A Christmas Story, you will absolutely enjoy this book. Set in Hammond, Indiana (he fictionalizes it as Hohman, Indiana) in the 1930s, Wanda Hickey is actually a set of 8 semi-fictional short stories loosely based on actual people and events in Shepherd's life. Hohman is described as being "nestled picturesquely between the looming steel mills and the verminously aromatic oil refineries and encircled by a colorful conglomerate of city dumps and fetid rivers" which is an unkind, but not inaccurate description of Indiana's industrial northwest corner.

Jean Shepherd

These short stories cover Shepherd's youth from elementary school to his high school prom (his date is the Wanda Hickey from the title). Shepherd's genius in story-telling is his ability to take a fairly normal situation and somehow milk it for every bit of humor and add a bit of wisdom in the re-telling. All of the stories were originally published in Playboy magazine from 1966-1970.

The Bumpus Hounds from
A Christmas Story

He begins with The Grandstand Passion Play of Delbert and the Bumpus Hounds.

 

If you have ever had bad neighbors - neighbors with no concept of cleaning up after themselves or keeping their arguments and music inside the house - you will appreciate this story. As a bonus, this is the story that contains the infamous dogs in the kitchen scene from the movie A Christmas Story. However, in this story, it is an Easter ham, not a Christmas turkey.

Three other stories deal with Jean as a younger child. I enjoyed them all but particularly enjoyed County Fair! Three of the last four deal with Jean's forays into the world of dating and The Return of the Smiling Wimpy Doll is about the memories stirred up by a crate of childhood toys that are sent to an adult Jean Shepherd in New York City.

An absolute joy to read. 5 stars out of 5.

This book can be found on Amazon here: Wanda Hickey's Night of Golden Memories: And Other Disasters

Reviewed January 2, 2011.