If You Want To Walk On Water, You've Got to Get Out of the Boat by John Ortberg

A Great Bible Study

Published 2001 by Zondervan
220 pages.
10 chapters with a Preface.

John Ortberg does not specialize in deep, seminary-level Bible studies. He is perfectly able to operate at that level, I am sure, but that is not the way to reach the common man or woman and this is a Bible study aimed at the regular church-going Christian that feels like he or she should be doing more (whatever that may be) and trusting in God or help in doing whatever that "more" is. The inspiration for the book comes from the story of Jesus walking on water and Peter being so inspired by the sight of it that he leaps out of the boat to join Jesus...for a few steps, anyway.

Jesus walking on water from the 
Codex Egberti (10th century)

For those that are concerned about this being a book about works-righteousness, Ortberg is not teaching that. He is teaching that God has called you to work in his Kingdom and Christians need to take a risk and step out in faith to do whatever it is they are called to do. Ortberg's strength is solid, interesting, often funny writing with a point. He does not waste many words - he gets to his point without bludgeoning or badgering his readers. Each chapter includes review and discussion questions. There is also a workbook and a DVD - both are designed for small group studies and are helpful to create meaningful discussions (I did participate in just such a study).
I rate this book 4 stars out of 5.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: If You Want to Walk on Water, You've Got to Get Out of the Boat

Reviewed on December 29, 2011.

Odyssey of the Gods: The History of Extraterrestrial Contact in Ancient Greece (audiobook) by Erich Von Däniken

More of the same from Von Däniken, but it is still interesting and entertaining.

Read by William Dufris

Duration: 7.5 hours

Published in October of 2011 by Tantor Audio

Unabridged.

Erich Von Däniken’s bestselling 1968 book Chariots of the Gods? helped to popularize what is now known as the “ancient astronaut” theory. This theory was featured in the 1970s NBC documentary In Search Of Ancient Astronauts and has even made it to Hollywood with the X-Files and the latest installment of the Indiana Jones movies. In short, the theory is that humanity, thousands of years ago, was visited by aliens who built gigantic structures such as the pyramids and Stonehenge and were mistaken for gods by our ancestors. They are the inspiration behind much of the ancient mythology around the world and the fantastic beasts included in many of those myths are actually the result of genetic experimentation.

In Odyssey of the Gods Von Däniken looks at three tales of ancient Greece and applies his broader ideas to those tales. The three tales are: 1) Jason and the Argonauts; 2) The Iliad/The Odyssey; 3) Atlantis. A great of deal of time in this audiobook is spent simply reciting these stories (easily one-third of the audiobook) and then stopping from time to time to offer insight based on his theories and fitting them back into his larger theory by noting how some aspects of the stories are similar to other tales from other ancient cultures, such as the Assyrians, ancient India, ancient Israel and even the Mayans, Aztecs and Incas.

As one can imagine, Von Däniken offers an interesting perspective on these stories. All of the creatures and heroes are the result of alien/human crossbreeding or genetic manipulation. Von Däniken allows no room for exaggeration – every tale is taken at face value, especially if it has great detail. He asserts that unnecessary detail in a story makes it less likely to be fiction (because no one would waste their time in creating it), which prompted me to wonder if he had ever read anything about the immense amount of unpublished extra details that J.R.R. Tolkien created just to lay down the backstory for his tales of Middle Earth.

Nonetheless, I did not listen to Von Däniken’s Odyssey of the Gods to look for a fight. As a history teacher, I truly enjoy a multitude of perspectives on history. I really do not take his entire theory seriously but he does, up to a certain point, have a valid question: how did our ancestors build giant pyramids and cities and create entire mythologies when they were literally just a few generations from being unorganized farming villages? It is a giant leap to go from simple farmers to highly organized priesthoods, advanced mathematics and the ability to build with multi-ton stones hauled from far away quarries and right now history has only the vaguest of answers as to how this happened. Throw in historical quirks like the Piri Reis map and the geometric web pattern that he claims covers all of the holy sites of ancient Greece and you have some good reasons to at least give Von Däniken a chance to lay out his theory.

Von Däniken is featured in an audiobook-exclusive interview after the book. His rather strong Swiss-German accent does nothing to hide his enthusiasm and infectious nature  – you just have to like him no matter what you think of his ideas. It is also obvious that the reader, William Dufris, strived to catch that aspect of his voice while reading the book. He did a remarkable job of reading the book and making it seem less like a textbook and more like an exceptionally well-presented seminar.

I rate this audiobook 4 stars out of 5.

This audiobook can be found on Amazon.com here: Odyssey of the Gods.

Reviewed on November 22, 2011.

Micro: A Novel (audiobook) by Michael Crichton and Richard Preston

Although it is a collaboration, it reads remarkably like a typical Crichton novel

Published 2011 by Harper Audio
Read by John Bedford Lloyd
Duration: 14 hours

Unabridged.

Michael Crichton died in 2008 and left Micro as an unfinished manuscript. I have no idea how much of this book is actually Crichton's and how much belongs to Richard Preston. To me it felt like a typical Crichton novel.

A typical Crichton novel for me is a mixed bag. It has grand themes - truly big, big ideas with foundations in real science. Grand themes about the dangers of too much innovation without enough ethical considerations, lots of Gee Whiz stuff (think of the movie Jurassic Park where the paleontologists are mesmerized when they first see the dinosaurs) and laughable plot lines with sketch characters (the worst for me was State of Fear in which the big menacing bad guys were wedging themselves into Toyota Priuses as they stalked their opponents - yes, the Prius, the ultimate pursuit car!).

This book has all of that in spades.

The plot revolves around NanoGen, a Hawaiian start up company that has figured out (or stolen) how to shrink full-sized objects down to a very, very small size. People are about one half of an inch tall when they are shrunk. NanoGen claims to be using the technology to thoroughly search the Hawaiian rain forest for biological discoveries that  could be used to help create medicines. Their plan is to search the micro-world bit by bit (literally square foot by square foot) in tiny detail so that even creatures that cannot be seen with the naked eye can be harvested and investigated for possible uses in a bio-technology laboratory.

Micheal Crichton (1942-2008)

But, the bad guy in charge of the project also wants to use these tiny robots as weapons and has made plans to corrupt the original vision of NanoGen's founders. So, murder and mayhem result and soon enough we are following a group of college graduate students who have been shrunken and dumped into the rain forest in an attempt to get rid of even more witnesses (why weren't they immediately squished and flushed down the toilet? The bad guy is so over-the-top in his sadism that he wants to prolong their punishment, which of course eventually backfires.).

So, when our seven college graduate students are dumped in the rain forest (in the micro world as Crichton/Preston usually refer to it) we have several scenes that are reminiscent of Jurassic Park, except we don't have T. Rex and Velociraptors. Rather, we have centipedes, spiders, wasps and ants - all armored and all very dangerous to very tiny people. This part of the book is by far the best - the descriptions of the bugs, their habits, their defenses and their weapons are all fascinating. If it weren't for these details I would have to rate this novel poorly, but the descriptions are entertaining in and of themselves.

John Bedford Lloyd's narration of the book was solid but really did little to enhance or detract from the book.  His voices were solid. To be fair, most of the plot was inane, so it was not like he was working with a literary classic. His deep voice did add a lot to the menacing descriptions of the bugs.

I rate this audiobook 3 stars out of 5.

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

Reviewed on December 27, 2011.

Bully! The Life and Times of Theodore Roosevelt by Rick Marschall

Easily the best biography I read this year.

Published in 2011 by Regnery History.

Bully! The Life and Times of Theodore Roosevelt is exactly the kind of book that will ensure that printed books will always have a place, no matter how many e-readers are sold. This is an absolutely beautiful book. It has a satisfying heft, it is printed on high quality paper (think coffee table book quality) and is chock full of political cartoons from an era when many political cartoons would have been full color and the size of an entire newspaper page. This book inspires the reader to flip through the pages, browse a bit, admire the art and do a little reading.

A larger, better reproduction of this cartoon appears in the book. 
I included it as a sample of the beautiful artwork.

Fortunately, Rick Marschall's text is every bit as accessible and enjoyable as the cartoons he has chosen to illustrate the hyperactive, hyper-productive, hyper-successful life of Theodore Roosevelt, the 26th President of the United States. Marschall covers it all rom his very early entry to the world of politics (much of this was addressed in political cartoons as well), to his ranching days, his work in the Navy Department, to the Battle of San Juan Hill, his political climb from Governor of New York to Vice President to the Presidency. Not only that, we are treated to his trip to Africa, a European tour, the rain forests of Brazil, the Bull Moose Party controversy and, most of all, his vitality. Roosevelt was a force of nature. All of it was delicious material for the nation's prolific newspapers and their cartoonists and the story is much enriched by their inclusion. It gives the reader a great feel for how Roosevelt was actually viewed by the American public.

This book has completely reformed me from my wayward and youthful outlook on Theodore Roosevelt, a point of view discussed by the author on pages 400 and 401 in the "Acknowledgements" section. He notes that Roosevelt has become symbolic of all that is considered evil today on many of America's college campuses: "Hence, he became a virtual devil in much of academia, especially contrasted to Woodrow Wilson, who was painted as a dreamy internationalist and idealist who, if he had not been thwarted by Neanderthals at home and abroad, would have delivered heaven on earth." That was how I was taught. I was sure that Wilson was not what he had at first seemed (the more I learn, the more I am repulsed) but now I see TR in a new light as well.

My next book on the to-be-read pile was also a biography. Out of fairness to that biography, I am going to have to put it back into the pile and read something else in a different genre- this biography is so strong that I am quite sure that the other one will suffer unfairly in comparison.

I rate this biography 5 stars out of 5.

This book is available on Amazon.com here: Bully! The Life and Times of Theodore Roosevelt.

Reviewed on December 27, 2011.

Need You Now by James Grippando

A readable but uninspired thriller

Published in 2012 by Harper.

Did you ever read a book that was more interesting for the places that the characters went than it was for the characters themselves? Well, this book is one of those.

Not that this is a bad book - it starts with an interesting underlying plot involving a Bernie Madoff type of ponzi scheme and a hint that the government had worked to keep the scheme going long after it should have been discovered. Bring in contract killers, terrorist connections, a dying former mobster in the witness protection program, cell phones infected with GPS tracking viruses, a love story gone bad (but maybe on the rebound?), secret identities, a mathematical genius and a cub scout leader and you would think that you would have the makings of a fine thriller.

Instead, the book just cruises on autopilot. The characters feel a bit shallow. The story bounds from one twist and turn to another but they just felt a bit forced.

Once again, not a bad book - just not a great one.

I rate this book 3 stars out of 5.

Note: I received a preview copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: Need You Now.

Reviewed on December 17, 2011.

Redwall (Redwall #1) by Brian Jacques

The first of a prolific series

Originally published in 1986.

Listed as on Time Magazine's list of 100 greatest fantasy novels.

My 11 year old daughter picked up Redwall at a local bookstore and loved it so I decided to give it a try, figuring that it must be pretty solid considering that there are more than 2 dozen books in the series, including prequels and other side stories.

But, I was not captivated by the story. I did not dislike it, but the grown up in me had some questions that pestered me throughout. The storyline is fairly simple - the peaceful community of animals that lives in and around the Abbey of Redwall is under attack by an army led by an evil one-eyed rat named Cluny the Scourge. The scholars of the Abbey believe that the sword of their ancient hero, Martin the Warrior, will help in the defense and dispatch an initiate into their order (Matthias) to find that sword. The plot follows the progress of he siege and Matthias' search.

I was bothered by many things in this book that caused me to enjoy it less than my non-critical daughter.

1) Why do the creatures of the Abbey look to young Matthais to be the leader of their defense of the Abbey? Vague reasons are offered but they make no sense;

2) Scale. Badgers fight alongside mice. The badger in the book is larger than the mice, but not to the scale it would be in the real world. The scale with almost every animal is off;

3) Why are some buildings mice-sized and some buildings are seemingly built by humans? Where are those humans?

The plot itself is fairly basic and predictable - rookie hero goes off to find the secret weapon and be the hero, the plucky good guys hold off the evil enemies.Unlikely alliances offer greater strength.

My daughter may try to read the rest of the series but I will not.

I rate this book 3 stars out of 5.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: Redwall by Brian Jacques.

Reviewed on December 10, 2011.

Founding Rivals: Madison vs. Monroe, The Bill of Rights, and the Election That Saved a Nation by Chris DeRose

A refreshing perspective on the Founding Fathers

Published 2011 by Regnery History

I am an avid reader of American history and one of my favorite areas to study is the American Revolution and the Founding Fathers. There is no shortage of books about the build up to the Declaration of Independence, the Revolutionary War and Washington, Jefferson and Adams (as of late) but there is a real scarcity of books about the difficulties experienced by the Articles of Confederation government and the debates that led to the creation of the Constitution. Of course, there are the famed Federalist Papers and the lesser-known Anti-Federalist Papers but not much written as a study.

James Madison (1751-1836)

In Founding Rivals, DeRose tells the story as a parallel biography of Madison and Monroe - two Founding Fathers, two future presidents, both close friends of Thomas Jefferson. This is more than a bare bones biography but there were times that I found myself wanting more such as when DeRose discusses Monroe's trips to the frontier. I would have been interested in hearing more about how that influenced his decisions later on in life. For Madison, mentions in one brief sentence that he wrote or co-wrote 29 of the Federalist Papers as part of the debate in New York about the ratification of the Constitution. I would have thought that his essays would have been explored a bit since they do show insight into his political philosophy but there is only the one sentence.

But, the book is not meant to be a complete dual biography, it is the story of one election to Congress and how that election impacted America. That part of the story actually occurs relatively late in the book. Once DeRose has finished demonstrating the weaknesses of the Articles of Confederation and why Madison (known as the primary author of the Constitution) wanted to scrap it (no one had more experience with the deficiencies of the Articles of Confederation than Madison) we are easily two-thirds into the book. Frankly, I was starting to wonder when the "Rivals" part was going to kick in. In a way, it really does not. Madison and Monroe were friends. They respected one another's experiences and opinions and their rivalry seems to have been a gracious one. Interestingly, they did not seem to harbor any ill feelings towards one another during and after the election.

James Monroe (1758-1831)

They strongly disagreed on the new government created by the Constitution. Anti-Federalist Monroe wanted to go to Congress to limit the ability of the Congress to directly tax the people and create a Bill of Rights. Madison wanted to be able to directly tax the people and was one of the few Federalists that also wanted a Bill of Rights. Madison was bothered by states (like his native Virginia) that had an official religion and taxed its residents to pay for that religion and he had a long record of opposing those sorts of laws.

Madison wins the election and is one of the leaders of the movement to add the Bill of Rights to the Constitution. DeRose persuasively maintains that if Madison had not won the election, there would not have been enough support from Federalists to pass the first 10 amendments to the Constitution and that is how this election "saved a nation." It's a strong argument and the book presents an interesting look at the Founding Fathers and the arguments and friendships that created America.

I rate this book 4 stars out of 5.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: Founding Rivals: Madison vs. Monroe.

Reviewed on December 7, 2011.