To America: Personal Reflections of a Historian by Stephen E. Ambrose

Originally published in 2002.

To America: Personal Reflections of a Historian wanders and meanders its way through American history and, while this may bother others, personally, I love it. For me, it was as if I were able to sit and listen in on a conversation with a master story-teller.

Ambrose discusses such things as the hypocrisy of Jefferson ('unalienable rights' for all men - how about your own slaves?) and most of the Founding Fathers - but still he does not just topple them for their hypocrisy - he also points out, with wonder, that they accomplished the near-impossible. He also notes the seeds for social change that they all planted, such as universal education (Jefferson). In fact, he directly confronts the 'but he was a slaveholder' mentality - acknowledge the terrible fault - in fact, insist on acknowledging it. But, judge them by the whole of their work.

Stephen E. Ambrose
(1936-2002)

Ambrose covers such flawed men as Andrew Jackson, Theodore Roosevelt in a similar fashion. He also discusses other things that he had a hand in, such as D-Day museum, the Band of Brothers TV shows and the process of writing.

Ambrose also throws in his own personal experiences - both with items of a historical nature (such as his own experiences as a vocal protester of the Vietnam War - some he's proud of and others that he wished he wouldn't have done) and his own experiences with success and tragedy.

Thoroughly enjoyable.

I rate this book 5 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: To America: Personal Reflections of a Historian by Stephen E. Ambrose.

Reviewed on May 14, 2005.

Cold Service by Robert B. Parker

Reading a Spenser novel is better than not reading one but..

Published in 2005.

...this one doesn't make me want to run out and get another one, either.

I've read every Spenser novel and just about everything else Parker has produced and Cold Service just felt tired.

This book started out so well - the action was moving, the lines were crisp. I laughed out loud and I couldn't wait to open the book back up.

Then, the psychobabble began. There was way, way, way too much relationship study between Spenser and Susan about Spenser and Hawk. Enough already! We know that they'd do anything for each other - not out of debt but out of male-bonded love! We got that during the last book and the other 15 or so that have had this exact same conversation (except in shorter form!)!!

Too bad, because Parker's last Jesse Stone novel was the best of the series and his Jackie Robinson book Double Play was very, very good. This one was not up to those high standards
 
I rate this book 3 stars out of 5.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: Cold Service by Robert B. Parker.
 
Reviewed May 14, 2005.

Chance by Robert B. Parker

Check out the audiobook - it is worth it

Published by Phoenix Books
Read by Burt Reynolds
Duration: 6 hours, 52 minutes
Unabridged

I avoided this audiobook performance of Chance because its read by Burt Reynolds and I figured that if anybody has a chance to ruin a Spenser novel it would be Burt Reynolds. Not that Burt is a bad actor, but he tends to do what he wants to do rather than what he's told to do.

Boy, was I wrong.

Despite his talent for finding bad movies, Reynolds is, underneath it all, a real actor. He finds the voice for the wise-cracking Spenser and hits it dead on. Spenser's observations and one-liners are read perfectly. Not only that, but he covers the voices of all of the mob leaders and his characterization of Shirley Meeker/Ventura gives the reader a great deal of sympathy for how truly pathetic and harmless she was as she got herself caught up in events beyond her control.

Burt Reynolds

Reynold's portrayal of Hawke was different (more southern, but just as tough) because in my mind I always picture Avery Brooks and his precise delivery of lines. But, once I got used to it, it was very good.


Robert B. Parker
(1932-2010)

Now, on to the book. Typical Spenser - wise-cracks, a little violence and a lot of people irritated about him sticking his nose in their business. In this case, Spenser spends a lot of time in Vegas and he isn't very fond of the strip. Susan isn't prominent in this book, but she does her level best to drag down every scene she's in with her incessant discussions about Spenser's character as a man.

Normally, I would give this audiobook 4 stars, but the reading by Reynolds was strong enough that I had to bump it up to 5 stars.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: Chance by Robert B. Parker.

Reviewed on March 23, 2005.

Darwin's Plantation: Evolution's Racist Roots by Ken Ham and A. Charles Ware

Published in 2007.

Ken Ham is a lightning rod of a figure for outspoken atheists, especially for those who use evolutionary biology as the basis for their beliefs about religion. The internet is full of attacks and counterattacks on this topic. Ken Ham gets a lot of attention from people who have really not read his work. Whether you disagree with a person or not, it makes no difference to me, but at least be somewhat familiar with the person's work before you attack it.

Darwin's Plantation: Evolution's Racist Roots, in particular, has attracted some attention, mostly because of its provocative title. So, let me start this review with a general rundown about Ham's theses.

Ken Ham's point in the book is this (made in this quote by a quite famous evolutionary scientist):

"Biological arguments for racism may have been common before 1859, but they increased by orders of magnitude following the acceptance of evolutionary theory." - Stephen Jay Gould (Ontogeny and Phylogeny - 1977)(p. 15)

That's what Ham is saying.

At no point does he remotely excuse the "Christian" excuses for racism that were common in the 18th and 19th centuries.

At no point does he claim that Darwin invented racism.

Ken Ham

Ham correctly notes that scientists used any number of ways to measure human racial groupings and rank them (head size, brain weight, etc.) in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Hitler used those biological arguments to justify his genocides against the Jews, gypsies and everyone else he hated.

In my master's in education program that I completed two summers ago I saw similar research done to explain low achievement rates by African-Americans in school. It was not being promoted by the school, but I found it doing research for a paper. Seriously. I think it's junk -  but this garbage is still out there.

Even the co-discoverer of DNA, Dr. James Watson weighs in with a bit of old-fashioned scientific racism: "There is no firm reason to anticipate that the intellectual capacities of peoples geographically separated in their evolution should prove to have evolved identically. Our wanting to reserve equal powers of reason as some universal heritage of humanity will not be enough to make it so." (October 2007) (p. 55) Search it - I typed in his name and got lots of articles about it.

Science-based racism does exist because of this old line: "Figures don't lie but liars figure." Science generates lots of facts and figures and they can be twisted to say just about anything.

Does that mean all scientists are racists? Certainly not! Ham never claims it.

So, why only the three stars?

Ken Ham and his co-author A. Charles Ware wrote the book in turns - each wrote different chapters. I give the part that Ham wrote 4 stars. It was interesting and I found it to be quite well-written - a lively style with numerous quotes.

Dr. A. Charles Ware

The part written by Ware was tedious to me. Ware is the president of Crossroads Bible College in Indianapolis and his focus was on mitigating the effects of racism in society. He wants the church to recognize and acknowledge racist attitudes that were commonly taught from the pulpit in the past and move beyond them with the grace of God in a spirit of forgiveness.

It was an important topic but full of cutesy lines like needing to move beyond " 'race' relations to the unity of grace relations". (p. 136) He also has lots of lists and constructions like D.R.E.A.M.S. to help you remember how to build a multicultural church. I found myself in the odd situation of absolutely of agreeing with an author wholeheartedly but the text was ... rather bland. Great information but delivered in a way that did not work for me. I give Dr. Ware's section 2 stars, which makes an average of 3 stars.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: Darwin's Plantation: Evolution's Racist Roots.

Reviewed June 20, 2009.

Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival. Resilience, and Redemption by Laura Hillenbrand

Believe the hype - this is a fantastic book!

Originally published in 2010.

Sometimes books, movies, or restaurants get a lot of hype and buzz but really are not what they are cracked up to be.  Unbroken is everywhere nowadays - bookstores, my local grocery store is selling it. I just saw online that there is a movie deal. 

Is it the real deal?



Laura Hillenbrand

Yes, Unbroken is an amazing biography, and it is most definitely the real deal. I plowed right through 450 pages of text in near-record time, devouring chunks of a story that continued to take new twists and turns and lead me to follow Louis Zamperini from the heights of athletic glory in the 1936 Berlin Olympics to the literal pits of despair in a digging out prison camp latrine with his bare hands in order to earn enough grains of rice to barely fuel his ravaged, starved body.

Louis Zamperini grew up as a juvenile delinquent in Torrance, California - a restless kid who, at the urging of his big brother, finally channeled his impressive running skills into something more acceptable than running away from the law. Louis used those skills to earn a spot on the 1936 U.S. Olympic team. He competed well, but expected to do better at the 1940 and 1944 games, which of course were later cancelled due to World War II.

 

Louis Zamperin looking through a
hole blasted through his B-24
on a mission.

Instead of running in the Olympics, Louis found himself training to be a bombardier on a B-24 and heading off to fight in the Pacific Theater.  On a search and rescue mission in 1943, his plane went down and only Louis and two crewmates survived. After floating at sea for 47 days (and losing a raftmate), Louis and his pilot Russell Phillips were picked up by Japanese soldiers and eventually transferred through a series of POW camps, each new one more horrific than the last until the end of the war, including one horrible guard nicknamed The Bird.


Hillenbrand 's descriptions of the terrible torture of floating at sea, the humiliations he suffered in the POW camps, the incredible kindness showed by a precious few guards are exquisite. Her descriptions of his post-traumatic stress disorder and his difficulties in adjusting to civilian life after the war are painful but it is a joy to see him turn his life around, discard the justifiable and understandable anger and move on to make his life count in the best ways he knows how.

This is a fantastic book. I rate it 5 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival. Resilience, and Redemption by Laura Hillenbrand.

Reviewed February 1, 2011.

The Darkest Evening of the Year by Dean Koontz

Not very complicated plot, lots of info about rescue dogs

Published in 2007.

I have not read a Koontz book for over five years, but a relative passed The Darkest Evening of the Year off to me in an informal family book exchange and it didn't sit in my to-be-read pile for very long

What did I think?

Having just added a rescue dog to our family the week I started reading this book I had some interest in one of the overarching theme of the book: the tragedy of wasting the lives that fills our world, especially those of our pets.

Koontz hits his other basic themes such as good vs. evil and the good cannot flee evil - they must confront it.

But, was it a good book?

Yes and no.

I read it quickly - Koontz's writing style remains breezy and easy to digest. But, the evil sociopaths were so over the top that I felt that they weren't even interesting. Their prisoner is so saintly that she is equally over the top.

Dean Koontz

The extended lecture on the need for adopting dogs gets old after a bit. Maybe it's a preaching to the choir thing, but I was already converted to this concept before I picked up the book.

The most interesting character by far is a post-modern hitman who names himself after a series of postmodern characters and writers (Billy Pilgrim, Tyrone Slothrop and others).

So, in sum, same old themes, one really interesting character and a lot of info on dog adoptions.

I rate this book 3 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: The Darkest Evening of the Year. 

Reviewed June 29, 2009.

Joker One: A Marine Platoon's Story of Courage, Leadership and Brotherhood by Donovan Campbell

An enthusiastic 5 stars! A fantastic book.

Published in 2009.

I was offered Joker One as part of the Amazon Vine program and I decided to take it because I am a history teacher and I decided I needed to read a book about the Iraq War just to have a greater sense of what was/is going on and to be able to speak more intelligently about it to my classes.

So, I picked Joker One and I let it sit on my pile of books. I let it sit and sit because I was afraid it would be preachy, depressing and difficult.

Finally, with classes over I picked up Joker One and I was hooked by page 2 with Lt. Campbell's description of an explosion that he had just avoided. It was filled with honest emotions, including a bit of honest, self-deprecating humor.

I shot through Joker One. I carried it everywhere I went. I read passages to my long-suffering wife. I told her shortened versions of the stories. Literally, I laughed (his account of their first night mission and the pack of dogs is hilarious!) and I teared up multiple times, especially at poignant moments like after their first serious day of all out fighting when Campbell is asked, "...do you think we fought well today, sir? I mean, that was our first big fight. Would the Marines who fought at Iwo Jima and Okinawa, you know, be proud of us?" (p. 178)

Donovan Campbell

I guess I identified with Campbell - a married college graduate who is likely to think too much, feel too much and questions himself. Campbell is a Christian and his faith is lightly woven into the text throughout.

Campbell offers no answers to what is going on in Iraq. He barely mentions Bush administration policy, except for his stated dislike of the Coalition Authority government. His concerns are the survival of his men, not winning the war by re-writing policies and strategies.

His descriptions of battles are gritty and can be bewildering - not due to poor writing but rather due to an accurate portrayal of the fighting as he lived it.

The book was mostly created as part of a veteran's writing project class at the Harvard Business School. To me the book has the feel of being crafted - being re-written many times and being thoroughly discussed. I think the writing pulls out the best out of Campbell's story. For example, his story of his battle-hardened Sargeants watching the DVD of The Notebook in the NCO room with tears streaming down their faces is priceless.

The day of reckoning is April 6. "Golf Company knew that something was wrong, because for the first time since our arrival we knew exactly what each mosque was saying during its call to prayer. From every minaret in the city, the same word rang out, over and over, in short, chanted blocks:  JIHAD, JIHAD, JIHAD...JIHAD, JIHAD, JIHAD...JIHAD, JIHAD, JIHAD...Every single muezzin in Ramadi was calling for a holy war against the Marines." (p. 156) Campbell effectively expresses how completely alone this little cluster of Marines were. I got chills up my spine as I read and re-read these pages.

Pages 299-302 are as beautiful a description about the nature of love - sacrificing love - as I have ever read. Those pages are an extended play on the faith, hope and love verse in the Bible (1 Corinthians 13:13) and are brilliantly written - masculine, yet tear-evoking. Good stuff. Makes you proud of those men and grateful that Campbell can bring their story to us.

The best book I read in 2009.

Highly recommended.

I rate this book 5 stars out of 5.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: Joker One.

Reviewed June 30, 2009.