A Place Called Freedom by Ken Follett

An informative historical adventure

Originally published in 1995.

Follett's A Place Called Freedom was one of the most requested books when I worked at a now-defunct used book store many many years ago. I finally got around to reading it and I can see why it was in such demand.

Follett introduces the reader to the turbulent politics on 1760s England, Scotland and America. He throws in a liberal dose of romance and the reader will be reminded of the Tom Cruise / Nicole Kidman epic movie Far and Away. There are plenty of similarities - both feature poor, rural heroes who fall in love with the landlord's spunky daughter. Nevertheless, it's a great read and unique enough to stand up in its own right.

I recommend it to anyone who is interested in a view of England's politics and turmoil on the eve of the American Revolution - it puts America's arguments for revolution in a clearer context - it even strengthens them. On top of that, the book is a great read.

I rate this book 5 stars out of 5.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: A Place Called Freedom

Reviewed on July 16, 2005.

I Heard the Owl Call My Name by Margaret Craven

A wonderful book - it creates a world for the reader and at the end you are sad to leave it.

Originally published in 1967.

For me, when I read an absolutely excellent novel, I have a hard time getting into another one - you end up rejecting the new one because it's not as good as the last one. This is one of those novels for me. So, I guess I'll be cleansing the reading palate with a few magazines.

I first read I Heard the Owl Call My Name when I was 14 or 15 years old. I haven't thought about it for years until I came across it at a book sale and picked it up on a whim. I approached re-reading it with some trepidation - I was afraid that it would not be as good as I remembered and I would be disappointed.

Well, it wasn't as good as I remembered - it's much better! Age and experience make you appreciate some things more, I suppose.

I shot through I Heard the Owl Call My Name in less than 24 hours - a new record for this slow and steady reader. Granted, it's a short novel (my copy was 159 pages), but it pulls you in an you want to learn more about this native American village and the young vicar sent to minister to them. I teach high school and I have a small library of books in my classroom. From time to time, I am asked by students to recommend a book and this one will shoot up to the top of my list with Of Mice and Men.

I rate this book 5 stars out of 5.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: I Heard the Owl Call My Name.

Reviewed on June 30, 2005.

Killing Time by Caleb Carr

Considering the reputation of this author, I was quite disappointed

Originally published in 2000.

In order to start with positive thoughts - What does Carr do right with Killing Time?

1. His vision of the future, published in the year 2000 about the year 2023, does correctly predict that Afghanistan would be a hotspot for the American military due to a fanatical, independently wealthy, international Muslim terrorist.

2. He predicted that the U.S. would become involved with Saddam Hussein in Iraq over WMDs. (Ironically, in this book, Saddam tries to nuke France in 2006)

3. Carr does an interesting thing by writing a sci-fi book that sounds Victorian.

4. His beginning themes of capitalism gone amuck are interesting, despite their misguided nature.

What does he do wrong?

1. There is little or no character development. Even our main character is minimally fleshed out. He joins a group of anti-information age terrorists with little or no qualms, despite the fact that he knows nothing about them, he's confused by their cause. We learn little about these people except that they know everything about him - and they don't share any of their information with the reader.

2. This team of people is like the supersmart Justice League - they all have wonderful skills and abilities that complement one another - but we know precious little about them or their motivations. Plus, the only skill exhibited by one of these 'super friends' just seems to be that he can cook gourmet meals in a hurry.

3. They have a super airplane/submarine that can make itself invisible. It is nearly untouchable and is practically unbeatable. Also, it gets real boring after a while. There's no challenge that they cannot overcome since they always have their super ship.

4. This book would have been much, much, much more interesting if Carr would have expanded on each of these 'superfriends' and explained their motivations. Carr could have let us see this world through all of their eyes and made it more interesting than the straight-ahead approach he often uses. Carr only approaches this with two characters - what about the rest?

So, if I were giving it a grade, I'd give it a solid 'D' - weak character development and presence of the 'super ship' are offset by initial interesting themes and visions of the future. If Carr were a student in my class, I'd send him back to do a lot of revising.

I rate this book 2 stars out of 5.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: Killing Time.

Reviewed on June 29, 2005.

The Mother Tongue: English and How It Got That Way by Bill Bryson

I was so thrilled with this book - at least I was at first...

Originally published in 1990.

I borrowed The Mother Tongue from my mom - I picked it up off of the shelf and after reading the first 3 or 4 pages I knew that I had to finish it. So, I borrowed the book and was happy with it and its light and humorous telling of the long and occasionally tortured history of the English language.

But...

the mistakes and problems started to pile up. Bryson illustrates a lot of his points by showing the reader how other languages had similar developments. Most often he uses French and German, which is appropriate considering their close ties to English. On occasion, though, he uses Spanish, which is something that I am sensitive to since I teach Spanish. Mr. Bryson's assertions about Spanish accents and pronunciation were wrong more often than right. Too bad Mr. Bryson did not have a Spanish speaker actually pronounce a few of the words for him so he could see that his points were flawed from their inception. It called into question the rest of his pronouncements.

Bill Bryson. Photo by Wes Washington.

To make it worse, this normally breezy, fun book gets seriously bogged down about halfway through - but it does pick up rather nicely - only to get mired down again at the very end with a seemingly endless discussion of palindromes and crossword puzzles.

I do recommend the book - with reservations. There are lots of wonderful things to be read in it - just bring along your grain of salt, and occasionally your ability to skim!

I rate this book 3 stars out of 5.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: The Mother Tongue: English and How It Got That Way.

Reviewed June 26, 2005.

What's So Great About America by Dinesh D'Souza

Fantastic!

Originally published in 2002.

D'Souza starts Whats So Great About America with a thorough indictment of America. In a 30 page chapter entitled "Why They Hate Us" he honestly and thoroughly lays out all of the arguments about why America is reviled by so many. By the end of the chapter the reader begins to wonder if there really is anything so great about America.

The balance of the book is spent answering every charge leveled in the first chapter. I have rarely read a book on contemporary politics in which I agree so thoroughly with his analyses. I may be just a high school history teacher but I do a lot of thinking about history and a lot of reading. The big ideas such as those of Locke, Rousseau and Jefferson fascinate me and I like to think about what their philosophies mean for us if implemented in the real world.

D'Souza's comments on the West being an inheritance from both Athens and Jerusalem (pp. 60-61) closely mirror a conclusion I came to myself one day when discussing Ancient Greece with a class. I guess that makes the Book of Acts the actual document that founds the West...hmmm.

Dinesh D'Souza

I loved this quote from a friend of D'Souza that wanted to immigrate to the United States from India very badly: "I really want to live in a country where the poor people are fat." (p. 77)

D'Souza's analysis of Lincoln, slavery and the rigmarole that he went through to finally get rid of it is so brilliant that I will refer to it next time I teach it in history class. (pp. 116-8)

At no point does D'Souza deny that America needs improvement. He does not claim it is a finished product. But, he does assert that for all of its warts and imperfections it is, as Lincoln put it, "the last, best hope of Man on Earth."

The book is a bit dated, even though it is only 7 years old. The War in Iraq, the election of Barak Obama and other events came to mind as I read the book. I hope that D'Souza offers a revision with additional commentary. Perhaps discussion pages at the end, too? It comes to mind because my edition is from Penguin Books and they do that with many books.

I rate this book 5 stars out of 5.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: What's So Great about America.

Reviewed on May 23, 2009.

Note: I wrote this review nearly 14 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 don't know what I would rate the book nowadays, but back then it was a 5 star read for me, so it maintains that rating.

Feathered Serpent: A Novel of the Mexican Conquest by Colin Falconer

Wonderful historical detail, too much sexual detail.

Published in 2002 by Crown.

In my mind, the Aztecs have been short-changed by modern authors. There has not been enough attention to them and their interesting story. And Cortes! If ever anyone should get high marks for having ambition and bravery in spades, it's him.

Anyway, the historical details are well done in Feathered Serpent. Falconer almost makes you feel like you are there with the Spanish as the arrive at the Aztec city of Tenochtitlan. He has created a multi-dimensional Cortes, rather than the stereotypical 'evil conqueror' Cortes (although, at the end I lost the feel for Cortes - I don't know if Falconer lost interest or he also lost his feel for the man). In most books and texts Cortes is portrayed as a gold-crazed, land-crazed conqueror - but his motivations are far more complex - including a complete disgust with the Mesoamerica's fascination with human sacrifice and the cannibalistic consumption of those sacrifices.

Hernan Cortes (1485-1547)

Unfortunately, Falconer's obsession with adding graphic, detailed sex scenes to his book just gets in the way. Another reviewer commented that there's one about every twenty pages - and I'd agree. We get all of the detail that adds nothing to the plot. I'm not trying to be a prude here - after all the main characters were considered to be the first to have a mestizo (mixed European and Native American) child so there's got to be some sex - but it was given such a prominent place in the book that I feel that it detracts from the work as a whole.

I rate this book 4 stars out of 5.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: Feathered Serpent: A Novel of the Mexican Conquest by Colin Falconer.

Reviewed June 18, 2005.

Byzantium by Stephen R. Lawhead

The best description that I have for this book is that it is like a roller coaster

Originally published in 1996.

Why is it like a roller coaster?

A roller coaster is slow when it starts out and climbs that first big hill. Byzantium is also slow while Lawhead lays the groundwork and has the reader join with an enterprising group of 13 monks from Ireland and Britain that head off for a pilgrimage to Constantinople.

Like a roller coaster, once this book finally gets moving (around page 90 or so) the pace never stops and the reader is drawn into a wonderful world and is exposed to four cultures (Irish, Viking, Byzantine, Arab), as the main character is taken into slavery, lives the life of luxury, suffers from religious doubt, climbs to the heights of faith, fights corruption, is betrayed, and also travels the world in a whirlwind fashion.

This wonderful story, based on a composite of Irish monks from the 9th and 10th centuries, is a joy to read.

Bravo!

This is my first Lawhead book but it won't be my last.

I rate this book 5 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: Byzantium by Stephen R. Lawhead.