Fireproof by Eric Wilson

A great read 

Published in 2009.

No, I don't live in a cave, but I have not seen the movie, nor have I picked up any of the study materials. My wife read Fireproof and recommended it to me. I'm an avid reader but I was really not looking forward to it.

Why not?

Well, let's face it - there's some poorly made/written stuff out there that only sells because it's family friendly or because it is "Christian". So, I reluctantly picked this one up.

Boy, was I surprised. I was hooked from the first chapter and shot through this book in less than 48 hours. I've reviewed hundreds of books on Amazon.com but I am hardly a speed reader - more like a dogged one.

The relationship between the husband and wife characters, Caleb and Catherine, is on the rocks but seems realistic and is not really written in the style of a romance novel. The firefighting scenes are exciting and well-done. Sure, you can see the end coming from 100 miles away but it was still well done.

I did roll my eyes at the "prize" scene at the end of the book - it was too much for my taste, but still a good book nonetheless. Well worth my time.

****Addition - May 1, 2009*****
I have now seen the movie and can definitely say that the book is better. The movie is good, but the book is better.

I rate this book 4 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: Fireproof by Eric Wilson.

Reviewed March 20, 2009.

Character Connections by Robert A. Baggett, Ed.S.

School counseling based on character education with a Christian flavor

Published in 2008.

It has become the flavor of the month in many schools to teach character education. As a teacher in a school corporation that purports to teach character but does not go beyond banners and slogans in the official school letterhead in our effort I found this book to be enlightening.

Baggett is quite open with his religious beliefs throughout the book, which is appropriate - his character is greatly shaped by it. He stresses that it cannot be overtly expressed in his role as counselor at school, but it is present.

Baggett sells the concept of the role of character education in schools quite well. He demonstrates the lack of character in schools and the larger society, identifies several areas that need to be addressed and lays out some general ways to address them along with references to how to address more specific needs.

Throughout the book he includes literally hundreds of inspirational quotes that correspond with each chapter.

I rate this book 4 stars out of 5.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: Character Connections.

Reviewed on April 10, 2011.

The List by Steve Martini

Good vacation book

Published in 1997.

Written in the wake of the Milli Vanilli music scandal , Steve Martini's The List features an unsuccessful female author (Abby Chandlis) who has written a book that under a male pen name (Gable Cooper) in order to make the book more marketable.

So far, no big deal. Lots of authors use pen names. Several female romance authors have used pen names to write detective books and thrillers. In this case, the author actually hires a person to portray himself as the real Gable Cooper - not just in public appearances, but also in all negotiations with the agents, the publishers and Hollywood studios interested in turning the book into a movie. The reason she goes through such elaborate steps is her belief that male authors, especially handsome, charming ones, are marketed much more aggressively.

Steve Martini

The problem comes in the man chosen to portray Gable Cooper. He is a loose cannon, a frustrated author and, even worse, the real author comes to believe that he may be trying to hijack her book for himself. When the only people who knew about the Gable Cooper pseudonym start to die the real author finds herself in the middle of her own real life action thriller.

The List is a great beach or vacation read - it is not too complicated but the characters are sufficiently interesting to keep the reader involved. Throw in a little romance and a whole lot of danger and it fits the bill.

On a confused note, this is the second Martini book I've read this year and the second Martini book with a title that has nothing to do with the book. What list?

I rate this book 3 stars out of 5.

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

Reviewed on April 10, 2011.

The Roar by Emma Clayton

There's a lot of meat to this "tween" novel. Quite enjoyable and discussion-provoking

Published in 2009.

The Roar is a more "kiddie" book than I normally read. This one is aimed at the tween crowd (the book says down to grade 3 but I can't really imagine anyone under the age of 10 getting into it) and I found it to be quite compelling despite being aimed at the younger set and the occasional clunky simile and/or phrase. The Roar has a sequel called The Whisper.

The book is set in a dismal future in which religion is gone (not really mentioned but people say, "My odd!" rather than "My God!") and the environment has been destroyed by mankind in order to kill of the animals. 45 years before the story an animal "plague" caused all of the animals to attack people in a crazed frenzy. So, people retreated to just a few countries (UK, Canada and a few others), became part of a highly stratified society with lots of urban poor forced to live in nasty, poisonous slums and the government wiped out all of the animals by laying waste to the environment and making it a giant desert.

Emma Clayton

Well, that's the official story anyway.

Potential spoiler alert****************************

What we have here is an excellent book for a classroom discussion of the need to investigate for oneself, the dangers of totalitarian government and the dangers of oligarchy.

You also get some Adam and Eve religious themes and a few jabs at the modern environmental movement. Some may read it otherwise but I couldn't help but notice that the main bad guy is a government minister named Mal Goreman (Al Gore?) who helps to manipulate the media to convince everyone that the animals were dangerous and uses the TV and schools to push his agenda. 

Everyone lives in slums in poverty rather than touch nature, which has to be protected for the enjoyment and use of the enlightened elite.

I rate this book 5 stars out of 5.

This book can be found on Amazon here: The Roar

Reviewed on March 22, 2009.

Hitler Youth: Growing Up In Hitler's Shadow by Susan Campbell Bartoletti

"What can happen to a people whose youth sacrifices everything in order to serve its great ideals?" - Adolph Hitler, October 1932

Published by Listening Library in 2006.
Read by Kathrin Kana.
4 hours, 26 minutes
Unabridged

Susan Campbell  Bartoletti's Hitler Youth demonstrates how the Nazis separated children from the parents, their churches and their senses in an effort to make them loyal to the German state and Adolph Hitler.

Starting with the story of a member of the Hitler Youth who was killed in a bloody street fight with Communist youths, Bartoletti shows the chaos in the streets that enabled Hitler to take over Germany. She also details every step that the Hitler Youth took to monopolize the lives and the attention of its young people in order to completely dominate their lives and their loyalties. The reader is introduced to a number of former members of the Hitler Youth and we are told generalities of how the Hitler Youth operated and the specifics of how these actions affected these young people.

Step by step, the schools, churches and families are infiltrated in order to allow the German state to control these young people through seemingly benign activities such as school, weekend outings, rallies and a sense of belonging to a larger purpose.  Did it work? We hear the disturbing story of a young woman who turned her parents over to the police for being critical of the Fuhrer. Another former member notes: "I was carried away by it all."

As World War II progresses and Germany starts to lose, thousands of Hitler Youth became air raid wardens. Some operated air raid bunkers and others were taught to operate Anti-aircraft guns. Others operated giant searchlights and still more were involved in body recovery efforts after air raids. Later, others were brought directly to the front lines, given rudimentary training and put into the fight. Some were so young that they were not given the cigarette ration given to regular soldiers - instead they were given candy!

This book offers a dramatically different take on the Nazi movement and World War II. Listening to this audiobook gave me a whole new reason to loathe the Fuhrer, the Nazis, and too much concentration of power in the hands of the state. This is a disturbing, difficult and important book.

I rate this audiobook 5 stars out of 5.

This audiobook can be found on Amazon.com here:  Hitler Youth

Reviewed on April 9, 2011.

Note: This book was put on a book ban list in Tennessee in 2025. The article has a searchable database because the list has more than 1,100 unique titles. I don't know what it says about a person that wants to ban a book about how the government can brainwash a whole generation of young people into hating certain groups of their fellow countrymen.

A Painted House by John Grisham

The unabridged audiobook is excellent

Published by Bantam Doubleday Audio in 2001
Duration: 12 hours, 7 minutes
Read by David Lansbury
Unabridged

I am not a giant fan of Grisham's latest legal thrillers but I am becoming a fan of his non-lawyer books, such as Bleachers and A Painted House. Grisham's non-legal novels are wonderful "slice of life" views of rural/small town America.

A Painted House is a rite of passage novel about a 7 year old boy (Luke Chandler) growing up on an Arkansas cotton farm in 1952 with his parents and grandparents. His uncle is off fighting the war in Korea.

It is the beginning of the two month long picking season and his family hires some hired hands to help pick the cotton. They hire a combination of "hill people" (poor whites from up in the Arkansas hills) and Mexicans who are literally trucked into Arkansas in the trailer of a semi as if they were cattle.

Luke learns a lot during this season, including about love, baseball, violence, cruelty, sacrifice, bravery, family pride, television, hard work, floods and failure. If you have worked on a family farm at any time this book will bring back a flood of memories. I was reminded of my grandparents, the massive Sunday meals, putting up hay, shoveling soybeans, riding on the tractor and plenty more. I doubt Mr. Grisham will ever read this, but I'd still like to thank him for refreshing those memories.

The author, John Grisham

The audiobook is about 12 hours in length and is read very well by David Lansbury who gives distinct and realistic voices to everyone. I especially enjoyed the grandmother's voice - it reminded me of plenty of the older ladies' voices at my church as I was growing up.

Kudos all around.

I rate this audiobook 5 stars out of 5.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: A Painted House by John Grisham.

Reviewed March 27, 2009.

1942: A Novel by Robert Conroy

Some really good parts but...

Published in 2009 by Ballantine Books

 1942: A Novel follows up on a simple "What if?" from history. What if the Japanese actually invaded and conquered Hawaii rather than simply attacked it on December 7, 1941?

Conroy's book is very strong up until the point where the Japanese invade. The premise of the book is historically strong, the strategies seem logical, the personalities of the real historical figures are consistent with what we know of them nowadays.

But..

Once the invasion happens, Conroy indulges in exploring the depravities of the Japanese secret police with too much vigor. Yes, I know that the Japanese were brutal, cruel, heartless conquerors that literally raped cities like Nanking, China. He shows a similar brutality in the invasion of Hawaii, which is fine and appropriate - there is no reason to assume the Japanese would have acted any better in Hawaii than they did in China, Korea and the Philippines. But, Conroy insists on showing one brutal act after another - multiple rapes, guttings, hands chopped off, heads chopped off, genitalia mutilated and so on.

It becomes a parade of atrocities and, in my opinion, the story starts to drown in it all, which is too bad because it started so well.

I rate this book 3 stars out of 5.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: 1942: A Novel.

Reviewed on March 27, 2009.