White Cargo by Stuart Woods

Engrossing - pulled me right in

Published in 1988.

There are two Stuart Woods out there, at least in my mind. There's the early Stuart Woods that wrote great books like Chiefs and there's the Stone Barrister-writing Stuart Woods that just writes a formula plot, mail it in and collects a check.

In White Cargo, a wealthy American, Wendell Catledge, is yachting off of the coast of Colombia when he is attacked by pirates and his wife and daughter are kidnapped and end up in the underworld of the narco-traffickers. Catledge goes underground to find his family in Colombia.

White Cargo is definitely an early Stuart Woods book! I found myself pulled into this plot and I just had to know what happened next, despite the fact that the violence and sexual exploitation was a bit too extreme for my tastes. The ending was fairly hokey but the overall strength of the rest of the book more than makes up for that.

I rate this book 5 stars out of 5 and it can be found on Amazon.com here: White Cargo by Stuart Woods.

Reviewed on January 14, 2006.

Life's Little Annoyances: True Tales of People Who Just Can't Take It Anymore by Ian Urbina

(Too) Quick and Fun!

Published in 2005 by Times Books.

Like others who have reviewed Life's Little Annoyances: True Tales of People Who Just Can't Take It Anymore, I first learned about it by way of a piece about it on CNN and I am glad that I asked for it for Christmas.

Full of short vignettes (1-3 pages) about the inanities of modern life and some people's amusing ways of dealing with it, this is the perfect bathroom book, if you know what I mean.

My favorites include:

*the man who dealt with the 'adult' bookstore in his community by giving every customer he saw as he drove by a friendly honk on the horn in an attempt to make the customers wonder if someone they actually knew really saw them patronizing a porn shop.

Ian Urbina

*the man who mailed all kinds of things to the credit card companies in those nifty return envelopes that they include with their offers, including their shredded offers, other junk mail and even strips of metal!

*the guy who has a website that demonstrates the proper way to park a car. He puts business cards with the web address on the windshields of bad parkers.

My only complaint is that the book is just too short. It's great fun, but it's too short.

I rate this book 4 stars out of 5.

This book can be found here: Life's Little Annoyances: True Tales of People Who Just Can't Take It Anymore.

Reviewed on January 14, 2006.

Hornet Flight by Ken Follet

Published in 2002 by Dutton Adult

Sure it's formulaic but it works!

Ken Follett

Ken Follett's Hornet Flight is a rousing World War II adventure full of all of the characters you'd expect in a film noire spy thriller about the Nazis. We have the plucky Englishwoman, spunky high school kids, brave soldiers and a scarred-up German officer who wears the jackboots and everything.

You know how it's going to end even before you start thanks to too much information on the description page, but it's still a rollicking fun ride. It hit me just right during these blasé winter days.

I rate this book 5 stars out of 5.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: Hornet Flight.

Reviewed on February 21, 2009.

Beyond Belief to Convictions (audiobook) by Josh McDowell and Bob Hostetler

Disappointed in the abridged audiobook

Published in 2002 by Tyndale House Publishers, Inc.

Abridged.

I've seen Josh McDowell speak many times and I know that he can be a strong speaker and I do wish that he had read this book. This book has strong attributes, but when combined with the reader (Greg Wheatley) it can be tedious.

The audiobook seems poorly put together at times but I suppose that is due to a poor abridgement.

The reader is very poor, which is surprising since the cover notes that he has a wealth of radio experience. He fails to do basic things like pause. For example, most readers would read like this:

Chapter One
(pause)
It was a dark and stormy night...

This book is more like this (in a monotone):

ChapterOneItwasadarkandstormynight.

Other negatives:

McDowell includes a fictional story of friends at college that are struggling with their faith. Those stories are stilted and read like they were written for ...well, like they were written for a Sunday school book. The people don't talk like kids (I teach high school and those kids spoke more like 60 year olds than teenagers) and the reactions of some are so emotionally secure that it seemed fakey.

Following the climax of the fictional story came a sermon that was not all that hot either. Perhaps it was the reader, but it didn't do much for me.

What was good:

McDowell tells a lot of his personal story in here. If he'd have ditched the fictional people and told more about himself it would have been so much more powerful because his story is compelling and touching.

The ending is very strong with a good dose of Christian apologetics concerning the crucifixion.

Another reviewer on Amazon.com noted that there is another version of this book read by McDowell himself. Search that one out if you have to have this book in audio format.

I rate this audiobook 2 stars out of 5.

This audiobook can be found on Amazon.com here: Beyond Belief to Convictions.

Reviewed on March 10, 2009.

Greeks & Romans Bearing Gifts: How the Ancients Inspired the Founding Fathers by Carl J. Richard

Great book even though it was not quite what I thought it was.

Published in 2008.

So, if it was not quite what I thought it was, what is it?

Greeks and Romans Bearing Gifts: How the Ancients Inspired the Founding Fathers is a very succinct, well-written and entertaining history of the Ancient Greeks and the Romans with a little commentary at the end of each section about how these histories influenced the Founding Fathers. For example, he has seven pages on a history of the Spartans (probably the best short explanation of the Spartans I have ever read) and two pages about the lessons learned. There are 13 pages on the Persian Wars and just one page about the lesson learned.

This book does fill a serious gap in our education nowadays. Unfortunately, in the world of education, it is not uncommon to think of Western history as not important to our lives ("Hey! Ho! Western culture's got to go!" - Stanford protesters in 1988). But, this book demonstrates that the Greek and Romans histories were the foundational documents for the American experiment in self-government. They provided the examples of what worked, what did not work and the pitfalls and dangers of the operation of a republic. Sadly, you will find much more in modern textbooks about the supposedly extensive influence of the Iroquois Confederacy on the Founding Fathers than you will find about the extensive and pervasive influences of Cicero, Cato, the experiences of Athens and the Roman Republic.

The author notes in his last sentence: "Perhaps it is time to learn whatever lessons the ancients can teach the twenty-first century." (p. 181)

Amen to that.

This quick and delightful read is highly recommended.

I rate this book 5 stars out of 5.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: Greeks and Romans Bearing Gifts: How the Ancients Inspired the Founding Fathers.

Reviewed on March 10, 2009.

Don't Look Twice: A Novel (Ty Hauck #2) by Andrew Gross

Much like his mentor, Gross provides a readable, entertaining read

Published in 2009.

Much like his mentor James Patterson, Andrew Gross has written a readable crime novel with plenty of twists and turns, lots of personal stuff thrown in and written in a pleasant, accessible style.

Don't Look Twice: A Novel is the second in a series about Ty Hauck but you do not have to have read the first to follow what's going on in this installment. The story is chock full of short chapters and the trail is complicated, but not impossibly so.

My one pet peeve is the Spanish in the book. It only appears on two pages in my Advance Reader's Edition but it is awful. "Victor no es aqui" is not proper or even remotely adequate Spanish. This is Spanish One material. It sounds like something from a poorly used translator website. C'mon now, Mr. Gross. There are millions of native speakers throughout the country. Find one and have him or her vet your Spanish in the future. It should have been "Victor no está aquí."

I rate this book 4 stars out of 5.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: Don't Look Twice.

Reviewed on March 10, 2009.

Creed (mp3 track) by Rich Mullins

One of the most beautiful songs, let alone Christian songs, I've ever heard


Released in 1993.

Creed is a simple re-tooling of the Apostle's Creed by Rich Mullins into a song. The changes to the creed are minor.

What makes the song so beautiful is Mullins' use of the hammer dulcimer, a wonderful stringed percussion instrument. The music comes out as both wonderfully delicate yet as powerful as any strong drum introduction to any '80s Hair Band metal hit.

Rich Mullins (1955-1997)

I am not a big fan of Contemporary Christian music as a whole. I do not dislike it, but there's precious little that I've heard that is worth my hearing a second time. This song has stayed with me for a long time.

The lyrics as I stated, are based on the Apostle's Creed but the chorus is his and states a powerful concept that struck me as profound when I heard it a decade ago and still strikes me today:

And I believe what I believe
Is what makes me what I am
I did not make it, no it is making me
It is the very truth of God and not
The invention of any man

"I did not make it, no it is making me." Isn't that how all of us should be as we travel through this world on our journey of faith?

I rate this mp3 track 5 stars out of 5. I can be found on Amazon.com here: Creed by Rich Mullins.

Reviewed on March 14, 2009.