MATTHEW BRADY: PHOTOGRAPHER of the CIVIL WAR (Historical American Biographies series) by Lynda Pflueger

Published in 2001 by Enslow Publishers, Inc.

Matthew Brady is most famous for being THE photographer of the Civil War, but he had quite the career before the war. He was arguably the most famous photographer in the world before the war and the war cemented him in the historical record.

Every American has seen his team's handiwork - one of his photographs of Lincoln was the model for Lincoln's image on the penny. But, if you are a student of the Civil War, you have seen Brady's handiwork over and over again - such as his picture of Lincoln conferring with McClellan in a tent at the Antietam battlefield, his portrait of Lincoln with his son Tad, and his picture of Robert E. Lee taken right after the war.

This biography is intended to be a supplemental reading in a fifth grade or higher classroom. I am a voracious reader of just about anything about the American Civil War (this is my 100th book I am reviewing with a Civil War theme) and I found this slim volume to be quite informative. The pictures that were chosen for the book were excellent. The book features 110 pages of pictures and text followed by a chronology of Brady's life, a set of end notes, a glossary, suggestion for further reading and an index for a grand total of 128 pages.

Matthew Brady (1822-1896)

The maps in the book are accurate, but I don't think I have ever found a more worthless set of maps in a Civil War history. They are focused so close in to the action that the reader cannot see the larger picture. For example, the map showing McClellan's Peninsular Campaign is so tight that you cannot see how the sweep of the Army of the Potomac's movements and how this would have been a stunning attack on Richmond that would have avoided the bulk of the Confederate Army if it had been implemented more quickly. 

I rate this book 4 stars out of 5 and it can be found on Amazon.com here: Matthew Brady: Photographer of the Civil War. 

CHILDREN of WRATH (audiobook) by T.A. Ward

Published by T.A. Ward Books in May of 2018.
Read by Tom Askin.
Duration: 8 hours, 41 minutes.
Unabridged.

In this science fiction novel, the United States suffered a horrible day of terrorist attacks known as the Day of Destruction in the 2040's. There were nuclear attacks in some places but Philadelphia was attacked by a nerve gas called Obcasus. The gas itself was bad enough, but the side effects are worse. Women who were exposed give birth to children with brain damage that makes them uncontrollably violent - even as infants. They are called inexorables.

The main character of Children of Wrath is Dr. Ethan King, a Philadelphia infectious disease doctor that has treated patients for Obcasus exposure since the Day of Destruction. He is happily married but he and his wife cannot have children.

One day, Dr. King spots a starving, nearly dead Inexorable child as he is leaving the hospital late at night and he decides to take it home...

The premise behind this book was very strong. However, I did not enjoy the presentation very much. There is way too much description in scene after scene. There are also long soliloquies and strange turns of phrase by Dr. King that I can't imagine people actually saying in real life. On top of that, I cannot imagine that no one has figured out the big mystery in this story before now.

I listened to this book as an audiobook. The reader, Tom Askin, has a pleasant voice but reads with a soft tone, like a parent might read a bedtime story to a child. He also makes strange pauses, like William Shatner. It made for an odd listen.

There is a sequel to this book and I will not be listening to it.

I rate this audiobook 2 stars out of 5 and it can be found on Amazon.com here: Children of Wrath by T.A. Ward.

Note: the author provided me with a copy of the audiobook so that I could write an honest review.

EATS with SINNERS: LOVING LIKE JESUS by Arron Chambers

Published in 2017 by NavPress

The title of the book Eats with Sinners: Loving Like Jesus Eats with Sinners: Loving Like Jesus comes from a passage in the fifteenth chapter of the Book of Luke. In the previous chapter, Jesus ate with Pharisees (a Jewish sect that prided themselves on their strict adherence to all of the religious rules of the day) and told them not to be too prideful as they picked their seats for this "dinner party". In Chapter 15, we come across this passage:

Now the tax collectors and sinners were all gathering around to hear Jesus. But the Pharisees and the teachers of th law muttered, "This man welcomes sinners and eats with them."

Then Jesus told them this parable: "Suppose one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of them. Doesn't he leave the ninety-nine in the open country and go after the lost sheep until he finds it?  And when he finds it, he joyfully puts it on his shoulders and goes home. Then he calls his friends and neighbors together and says, 'Rejoice with me; I have found my lost sheep. I tell you that in the same way there will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who do not need to repent. (NIV translation)

Jesus makes two points. The most obvious to the modern reader is the story. It is clear that he is saying that you have to reach  out to the lost in order to find the lost. The shepherd does not find the lost sheep by sitting around wondering where it is - he seeks it out. He follows uo with two more stories with the same point, including the famed story of the Prodigal Son. 

But, lost to most modern readers is the complaint: "This man welcomes sinners and eats with them."  Should "good" church people hand out with people that are not "good" church people hang out with people that aren't "good" church people? What was Jesus doing hanging out with the unrighteousness? Why was rabbit eating with them like they were his equals?

Jesus' answer? He told three  stories that make it clear that you have to seek the lost and welcome them when they come back to the fold. That means go out and engage the world where it is. And, those that would be righteous have to remember that they aren't so perfect, either. 

One of the common refrains of the book is that if you want to bring Christ to the people you actually have to go out to the people. Pretty simple, huh? Well, the book goes into more detail than that, but it is still pretty simple. 

Now, how do you do that? Chambers eschews the idea of going out and screaming at people, as some street preachers do (p. 35.) Instead, he looks at the example of Jesus. "Jesus didn't yell at lost people. He ate with lost people." (p. 36) Who listens to people who yell at them without even knowing them? No one. But, you just might listen to someone who sits down with you and gets to know you.

This book is also designed to be used as a Bible study. I think it would be an excellent small group study. It would also be good as a resource to get a an entire congregation to re-think how they approach outreach. 

I rate this book 4 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: Eats with Sinners: Loving Like Jesus. Eats with Sinners: Loving Like Jesus. 

ASIANS and PACIFIC ISLANDERS and the CIVIL WAR by the National Park Service

Published in 2015 by Eastern National

A year and a half ago I visited the Lincoln home at Springfield, Illinois (a great place, by the way) and in the visitors center I found this book. I was intrigued for three reasons: 1) the Park Service books are always beautifully put together, like a National Geographic with lots of color pictures; 2) I knew nothing about any Asian participation in the Civil War - I figured there had to be some because the war was so vast and involved so many people - but I knew nothing about them; 3) This was the physically largest book in the series - even bigger than the books on the Underground Railroad and American Indians in the Civil War - two areas that are well documented.

This book continues in the tradition of being beautiful visually. It is written as a series of articles, each telling a part of the overall story and each article is illustrated with high quality photos. However, the articles are often overlapping, with mentions of some of the same men in multiple articles, sometimes repeating the same information.

I did learn a few things, though. I had never heard of the "Pacific Pig Trade" before this book. It was an attempt to circumvent the official international prohibition on trade in African slaves by bringing in contract labor from China. Many of them went to Cuba. However, many of these laborers did not voluntarily sign these labor contracts and they were bought and sold like the African slaves were. Many were tied up for their trip in the same nets that were used to haul pigs, thus the name Pacific Pig Trade.

There was also a lot of confusion as to how to classify the Asian volunteers that stepped forward. This was a world that categorized everyone by race and nationality, sometimes even measuring people down to 1/64 of African blood in order to properly classify people. Were Asians to be considered people of color, forced to serve in segregated units? Where they white? Did it matter? Turns out, there was no official policy, most likely because there weren't enough Asian volunteers to force the government to make one. So, it depended on the local recruiting officer and the men that the Asian volunteer would serve with.

For me, the most interesting story was that of Chang and Eng Bunker (1811-1874). These brothers were the origin of the term Siamese Twins. After touring the country in an exhibition, they settled in Mount Airy, North Carolina (later it served as the inspiration for Andy Griffith's fictional Mayberry) They married, bought  plantations and had lots of children - two of whom served in the Civil War as Confederate soldiers. Between them, the brothers had 33 slaves and were outspoken supporters of the Confederacy.

The main issue that I have with the book is that it is very repetitive. There were simply is not enough original material to fill a book of this size so the articles tend to overlap, as I already noted above. This book would have been well-served to have an editor put together articles and make the book tighter.

I rate this book 3 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: Asians and Pacific Islanders and the Civil War.

THE TRUTH ABOUT ANIMALS: STONED SLOTHS, LOVELORN HIPPOS, and OTHER TALES from the WILD SIDE of WILDLIFE by Lucy Cooke

Published by Basic Books in 2018.

Zoologist Lucy Cooke explores some of the offbeat bits of the animal world in The Truth About Animals - a book that shows us that most of us think we know a lot about the animal world, but we really don't. None of the animals featured are obscure - they are all well-known, with the possible exception of the eel (at least in the United States). 

The animals featured in the book are: eels, beavers, sloths, hyenas, vultures, bats, frogs, storks, hippos, moose, pandas, penguins and chimpanzees.

Cooke usually begins with a look at the animal in question in historical texts so that we can see that these misunderstandings have been going on for hundreds, if not thousands, of years. For example, bats have been misunderstood and mis-classified since...well, forever. The struggle to figure out how exactly bats travel at night was especially gruesome, featuring scientists blinding live bats, plugging up their noses and coating their bodies with lacquer in an effort to determine exactly how they can fly so well in the dark.

All too often, these animals are associated with an human-introduced invasive species of some sort. Sometimes, they are the victims of that species (frogs) and sometimes they are that species, as in the case of hippos. Did you know that there is a colony of hippos in Colombia? Four of them were introduced by the drug lord Pablo Escobar as a part of a personal zoo but they escaped when his drug empire fell. Now, there are more than 40.

A surprising example of an invasive species -
wild hippos thriving in Colombia
thanks to Pablo Escobar.

Every animal description has a long description of the sex life of the animal. Ironically, this usually comes after a withering commentary about how Victorian or medieval writers were overly concerned about the sex lives of animals. Sometimes it is interesting and has a larger point (as in the story of the eels), other times it is simply presented in a vulgar manner that detracts from the book. 

For example, when Cooke is discussing Hyenas she spends a lot of time talking about the fact that the genitalia of a female hyena look a great deal like those of a male - so much so that they are often confused for males without benefit of a very close inspection (which would be dangerous for most people). This setup makes it difficult for them to mate and makes giving birth a highly dangerous activity. All of that is interesting information. But, calling them "the original chicks with dicks" (p. 73) is unnecessarily crude and that type of thing occurs throughout the book.

I learned a lot with this book. I learned how storks are making a comeback and how they they were the species that taught us about bird migration. In the section on eels, I learned that we are still uncovering mysteries about common animals - even animals that are eaten by the millions. I learned that the female hyena is a mighty animals and she may be the leader of a very large pack with an exceedingly complex social order and a large territory. I learned all about how the sloth is perfectly adapted to his environment and his slow-moving ways are actually an immense advantage. But I was bothered by its too-crude tone when discussing the breeding habits of the animals. For that, I deducted a star. 

I rate this book 4 stars out of 5.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here:  THE TRUTH ABOUT ANIMALS: STONED SLOTHS, LOVELORN HIPPOS, and OTHER TALES from the WILD SIDE of WILDLIFE.

Note: I received a pre-publication copy of this book as a part of the Amazon Vine program in exchange for an honest review.

HOW SHOULD CHRISTIANS VOTE? by Tony Evans

Published by ChristianAudio.com in 2012.
Duration: 2 hours, 19 minutes
Read by Mirron Willis
Unabridged

Even though How Should Christians Vote was published 4 years prior to the 2016 election, it was surprisingly relevant to the Trump era of politics. Tony Evans is a pastor and also a chaplain for an NFL team. This is important, because he uses a football analogy the referee to describe the role of Christians in the election process.

I went into this audiobook ready to be irritated - irritated because so many big name Christian leaders have become very political as of late - forgoing the work of God's kingdom for the work of a politician or a political party, in my mind.

Evans is quite clear that Christians should vote and should fully participate in the process - to not do so would be not using one of the tools we have to impact the culture and the country. BUT, Christians should not become blind followers of a politician or a party because they do not necessarily advocate the kinds of laws and policies that are in line with Christian principals. Too often, people get caught up in the game of Team GOP or Team Dems winning and not if what they are advocating goes along with God's word.

He builds on the theme of teams and games and says that Christians should not be for one party or the other. Rather, they should be like the referees in a game, approving of some plays and calling foul on others - in a non-partisan manner regardless of the team. They should not join a team. Instead, they should point out when the teams break the rules and encourage the teams to conform. Also, each Christian will have certain issues that they are called to be especially on the watch for. For example, for some Christians, social justice issues may be at the top of the list while for others it may be abortion. This means that the body of Christ will not be able to vote as one.

Reader Mirron Willis's strong voice made the audiobook version of this book a pleasant listen.

Warning: Evans is strongly against abortion and gay marriage. If this is a deal breaker for you, I wanted you to know before you invested in the book.

This audiobook can be found on Amazon.com here: How Should Christians Vote. 

THOSE TURBULENT SONS of FREEDOM: ETHAN ALLEN'S GREEN MOUNTAIN BOYS and the AMERICAN REVOLUTION (audiobook) by Christopher S. Wren

Published by Tantor Audio in May of 2018
Read by Peter Berkrot
Duration: 7 hours, 4 minutes
Unabridged

I pounced on this history because Ethan Allen and the Green Mountain Boys have always been a mysterious presence in my readings on the Revolutionary War. They show up during the early days of the war and add a zest of mystery and frontiersman derring-do that blunts British momentum. And then...they just disappear from the typical history.

Those Turbulent Sons of Freedom follows the timeline history of the American Revolution, going back and forth between a series of the Green Mountain Boys. My fleeting impression of them was that they were some sort of super-patriotic mountain men. The reality, on the surface, seems more nuanced. But, in reality, I think that I was right. They were super-patriotic mountain men, but their loyalties did not lie with the United States - their devotion was to Vermont and only Vermont. 

Vermont was not a colony when the Revolutionary War started. At best, it was the beginnings of a colony, but it was claimed by New Hampshire and New York - especially New York. Before the Revolution, the Green Mountain Boys were already fighting a low-level insurgency against the colonial government of New York in an attempt to make themselves a separate colony.

When the Revolution began, many Vermonters looked at the confusion of the was an opportunity to break away from New York, especially if Vermont could prove itself useful to the 13 colonies as an ally. But, repeated attempts to officially become the 14th state were rebuffed and some of the Green Mountain Boys began to court the British in an attempt to play both sides against each other. The goal was always the same - an "independent" Vermont. There were three options: 1) become the 14th state, 2) become a colony attached to Canada but with its own government, 3) become an independent country (not seriously considered by many, but it was always a thought on the back burner).

Ethan Allen (1738-1789)

Ethan Allen tried all of these options at one point. Some of the Green Mountain Boys dedicated themselves to just one course, and if their course failed, they were forced to move away or suffer other consequences.

There was not as much detail to the book as I would have liked. Sometimes, it seemed like the author was skimming the surface, bouncing back and forth as the narrative moved forward. 

I "read" Those Turbulent Sons of Freedom as an audiobook. The reader, Peter Berkrot, has a beautiful voice for audiobooks, but his presentation was too dramatic. He made every sentence sound like it was the most dramatic moment of the book - even mundane sentences like lists of supplies that were captured in forts and crops sold by Vermont to Canada. There were certainly plenty of dramatic moments in this book, but the overall effect is weakened when so much of the book is presented as a dramatic moment. It made the book tiresome rather than enjoyable.

I rate this book 4 stars out of 5.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: Those Turbulent Sons of Freedom.