WALKING the AMERICAS: 1,800 MILES, EIGHT COUNTRIES, and ONE INCREDIBLE JOURNEY from MEXICO to COLOMBIA (audiobook) by Levison Wood

Published by Tantor Audio in 2018.

Read by Barnaby Edwards.
Duration: 8 hours, 34 minutes.
Unabridged.

Levison Wood is a British explorer/journalist. He has gone on two other hiking expeditions (one to walk the length of the Nile, the other to walk the length of the Himalayas) before this trip. In Walking the Americas he was joined by a Mexican photographer friend from Merida, in the Yucatan Peninsula. Together, they started walking south to Belize, then on to Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama and finally Colombia.

The author, Levison Wood

Along the way, they encounter hidden Mayan ruins, a city overwhelmed by drug gangs, poverty, the aftermath of a hurricane, welcoming people, a few unfriendly people, Native Indians, a horrible rainstorm, mansions, a couple of difficult horses and the remains of a lost colony founded by Scotland in the 1700's.

This was a surprisingly short book considering it spans eight countries. It was an entertaining book with some poignant moments, but not the deepest read. Sometimes Wood is too quick to characterize whole countries as having good or bad character (not a fan of Guatemala, but he really likes neighboring Honduras). It is a fun story of two friends going on an adventure.

I really enjoyed Barnaby Edwards' reading, despite his horrendous pronunciation of Spanish throughout.

I rate this audiobook 4 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: WALKING the AMERICAS: 1,800 MILES, EIGHT COUNTRIES, and ONE INCREDIBLE JOURNEY from MEXICO to COLOMBIA.

THE GENIUS PLAGUE (audiobook) by David Walton

Published by Blackstone Audio in 2017.
Read by Nick Thurston
Duration: 14 hours, 34 minutes.
Unabridged.

Paul Johns is an explorer specializing in fungus. He works his way out of the Amazon rain forest back to civilization and comes home to the United States with a horrible fungal infection. A person traveling with him has the same infection but she passes away.

Neil Johns is Paul's brother and a brand-new employee of the National Security Agency (NSA), specializing in code-breaking and seeing patterns where no one else can. He begins to notice some strange things about Paul and some strange activity deep in the rain forest that Paul just came from...

This book is a great science-based action thriller, much like the late Michael Crichton used to specialize in. It makes you think, it shows you a different way at looking at intelligence and is a heck of a romp. Throw in the likable and believable characters and some moments of real humor and the whole combination is really quite good.

Nick Thurston takes this great book and runs with it and makes it even better as the reader of the audiobook. I took a chance with this audiobook based on a Goodreads recommendation and I glad to say that it turned out to be a great thriller.

I rate this audiobook 5 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: The Genius Plague by David Walton.

EDUCATED: A MEMOIR by Tara Westover

Published in 2018.

Educated: A Memoir was one of the most celebrated books of 2018 and for good reason.

This is not a fun story to read, but it is absolutely engrossing. The writer has an extraordinary ability to write description - both of the physical environment and of emotional pain and confusion.

Tara Westover grew up in rural Idaho on a mountain near a small town. Her father refused to send his children to school, at least not consistently, because school was a plot by the government (and later, the Illuminati). Tara did not have a birth certificate until she was 9 years old and is still not entirely certain of her exact birth date. He also refused any sort of modern medical care or medication or vaccinations for the same reasons. And, he refused to get driver's licenses and have car insurance and to even wear seat belts because those were also a plot. Their home was stocked with weapons, food and fuel for a future Armageddon. Her mother was a midwife and created home remedies for families that couldn't afford modern medical care or refused modern it like her father.

The family was Mormon - but this wasn't Mormonism that most Mormons would recognize. It was an amalgamation of paranoia, fear, anger, ignorance and the need to dominate and control on the part of her father and one of her older brothers. Paranoia reigned in the house. The government was out to get everyone. Practitioners of more permissive strains of Mormonism were accomplices. Family members and friends were constantly being judged if they were loyal to the family or not - and loyalty was more important than anything. An abusive, explosive brother was protected because he was loyal to the family, even if he was beating and threatening other people in the family.

The author, Tara Westover, in 2014.

The family business was construction and "scrapping" (recovering scrap metal and salvaging usable parts from cars) - a business made all the more dangerous by lackadaisical safety precautions and improper equipment and training.  

Tara Westover was the youngest child and had never been to school. But, she decided she wanted out and knew from the experience of one of her older brothers that going to college might do that. She studied on her own, sought help when needed and did well enough on the ACT to enter into Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah. 

Educated is, I think, properly understood as the horrible tension between the education she learned on her mountain in Idaho and the education she received at BYU, Cambridge and Harvard as she worked her way towards a PhD. It is the tension between multiple interpretations of the truth and the lenses we use to perceive that truth.

This is not a fun read. As I noted above, it is an engrossing read, but oftentimes it is a distressing read.

I rate this book 5 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: Educated: A Memoir by Tara Westover. 

WAYNE of GOTHAM (audiobook) by Tracy Hickman

Published by GraphicAudio in 2013.
Multicast Performance.
Duration: Approximately 6 hours.
Unabridged

GraphicAudio has been adapting novels into audiobooks that are performed by 20+ people like an old-fashioned radio play for years. In this case, they have adapted a novel by veteran fantasy/sci-fi writer Tracy Hickman. Hickman doesn't usually write about DC Comics characters, his reputation was made writing books related to the Dungeons and Dragons universe. That being said, the if you are going to make that move, going from knights in shining armor in big castles to the Dark Knight in Wayne Manor is a logical move.

The idea behind Wayne of Gotham is a good one - Batman is getting threats and clues relating to his parents and family secrets that would be best kept secret.  The fact that Batman, not his alter ego Bruce Wayne, is getting these threats is significant because it shows that the unknown person knows his secret identity.

While Batman is trying to work this out, it becomes clear that a new villain has arrived in Gotham and this villain has the ability to implant memories into his/her victims and some of those victims are other super villains and they are being made to act on this unknown person's behalf.

More disturbing, Commissioner Gordon has been compromised and Alfred has become shifty and secretive and sometimes confrontational with Bruce Wayne. Batman may be truly alone on this one...

The premise behind this audiobook is solid and some of its luster may have been lost in the adaptation - I don't know because I have not read the original book. For example (*****spoiler alert - skip to the next paragraph), the Commissioner Gordon angle comes up and then just goes away when Batman and Gordon decide that Gordon just has to get over it - and he does.

There are some real strengths however to this book. It makes a nod towards the almost every incarnation of Batman - Adam West's Batman, the 1980's and 1990's movies and the Dark Knight series (it was written before the Justice League movies came out).

 If you are a fan of Batman, certainly give it a listen. I liked that it features an aging Batman who knows that he has limitations. It develops a great origin story for Batman's parents and Alfred's father. The lengthy Joker scene is quite good (the actor who portrays Joker is excellent) and even has some comic elements.  But, it is a hit and miss story with lots of description of the various Batmobiles and Batman's suit technology but not enough of the plot where it really counts. 

The ideas behind this book are strong, but only some scenes are fleshed out and others are just left vague. The book left this listener with the feeling that this was a good story, but it could have been so much better.

I rate this audiobook 3 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: WAYNE of GOTHAM (audiobook) by Tracy Hickman.

A PEOPLE'S HISTORY of the UNITED STATES by Howard Zinn

Originally published in 1980 by HarperCollins. 

Multiple updated editions have been printed.

Howard Zinn's (1922-2010) A People's History of the United States is perhaps the most famous and most controversial history book in publication today. 

I read this book because the former governor of my home state of Indiana and current President of Purdue University, Mitch Daniels, repeatedly criticized it and actually advocated blocking its use in public schools in Indiana, including Indiana University. Governor Daniels used to be a frequent guest on a local newstalk radio station in Indianapolis and this book came up enough times in the conversations that I became aware of it. Before that I had never heard of it - but he certainly put it on my radar. That's not really what he had intended, I am sure.

I found my copy of A People's History of the United States in a local thrift shop on a half price day, which made this book a true bargain at $1. I decided that, as a good and loyal American I absolutely had to read the book that my state government's former chief executive had decided was "truly execrable" and tried to remove from Indiana University classrooms and see for myself if he was right.

Zinn has a theme that he hits consistently throughout his book and it is that the "haves" are continually using and abusing the "have-nots" throughout American history although, sometimes, the "haves" give in a bit and let some of the "have-nots" get a little more because it ensures their survival at the top. He argues that this was the case during the American Revolution. He would have been a big promoter of the idea of the 1% vs. the 99% that has come into vogue lately.

He also argues that the elites stoke class envy and racial animosities to create internal rivalries among the lower classes so that they fight among themselves and fail to see who their true enemy is. Throughout the entire book, the details change but this is the basic story.

As a history book, this book succeeds fabulously at hitting that one note over and over and over and over ad nauseam. Is he right? Sure - to a point he is right throughout the book. For example, he is right that the founders envisioned limited participation from the common man in the early American republic. But, other arguments sound hollow. 

For example, on page 37 of my 1990 edition he argues that racial animosities were practically created by the elites as a way to control the slaves. It is a clever argument and it is the culmination of a long argument that he had been making in the previous pages concerning the presence of anti-miscegenation laws in the new world. His presumption that, if left to themselves, the lower classes would have not had any racial issues because the passing of these laws shows that the elites were bothered by interracial romance and conspired to stop it before the lower class united and overthrew them. This sounds too organized for my tastes. Also, I have less faith in human nature than Zinn does - the same base thoughts that he despises in the upper class exist across all of the classes.

Strengths:

-The discussion of Andrew Jackson and Indian Removal.

-The discussion of the labor movement during the Gilded Age/Robber Baron era was particularly well-written and flowed well.

-He covers the governmental overreach during World War I well.

Weaknesses:

-He wrote this book as an antidote to the "hero" version of history - the version that teaches about George Washington's battlefield exploits but overlooks the fact that he held slaves. Sadly, in his zeal to set the record straight, he often overlooks the good (or even great) points about heroes that he is out to debunk. 

-The Andrew Jackson section says literally nothing about Jackson's strongest political fight - his fight against the National Bank. I would have appreciated a look at how the defeat of this bank and the subsequent "panic" (economic recession/depression) affected regular Americans.

-Sadly, he often ignores the "people" and creates a new set of heroes to replace the ones he has debunked. But, he does little to debunk his new heroes so the reader is left with, essentially, the same problem. Also, this does not make it a true "people's" history since people like Frederick Douglass and Emma Goldman are so extraordinary that they are, by definition, not stand-ins for the "everyman".

-The sections on the Vietnam War and the 1970's suffer from just being written too close to when the book was originally printed (1980). I think he was so close to the events that he had a hard time determining what was truly important and what was trivia. This made the book bog down with things like his stories of community newspapers printed on ditto machines as a sign that media was changing. When compared to the tsunami of change that the internet brought to media just a few years later, these little stories are quaint and irrelevant. 

-During the Cold War sections, he never addresses what the other side in this Cold War was doing and at least acknowledging that America and its allies had reasons to be wary of the USSR and its allies.

************

As I stated above, Zinn hits one note throughout the book. This note does appear in most mainstream history books, but not in great quantity. So, the book has value in that it does bring that part of American to the forefront. But, since it does not waver from its obsessive focus, it becomes a tool of limited value. To quote Abraham Maslow:   "I suppose it is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail."

Now, to go back to the beginning of my review - would I outlaw this book from being used in a classroom? No, of course not. But, I do not think it should be the only text used in a class. Individual chapters are sold as smaller books and I think that would be appropriate. If it were a year-long class I might have students read the whole thing so long as they were reading lots of other works.

I don't see what the big fuss is on either side, to be honest.

I rate this book 3 stars out of 5.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: A People's History of the United States.

NOTE: Mitch Daniels, the Indiana governor that wanted to literally outlaw the use of this book in any school in Indiana, was appointed President of Purdue University when his term as governor ended by the Purdue Board of Trustees. He appointed most of those members and is widely considered to have appointed himself through that board. In my opinion, this attempt to stifle academic freedom should have made him ineligible to hold any position at a university, let alone be president of one.

THE HERITAGE: BLACK ATHLETES, a DIVIDED AMERICA and the POLITICS of PATRIOTISM (audiobook) by Howard Bryant

Published by Beacon Press in May of 2018.
Read by Ron Butler.
Duration: 11 hours, 17 minutes.
Unabridged.

Howard Bryant's The Heritage: Black Athletes, a Divided America and the Politics of Patriotism takes a hard look at athletes, particularly African-American athletes, using their position to make commentary of social issues. Bryant brings a wealth of experience as a sports writer for ESPN.com, ESPN the Magazine and NPR. 

Tommie Smith and John Carlos in the 1968 Olympics 

Bryant does not come at this topic as a person critical of athletes taking political stances. Rather, he is very much in favor of it since athletes have a very large soapbox that they can climb upon and shout from, if they chose to do so. Some have. Bryant speaks in great detail about Jackie Robinson, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Tommie Smith, John Carlos and especially Muhammad Ali.

Bryant starts, oddly in my mind, with someone who was an athlete (played 15 games in the NFL in the 1920's for teams that no longer exist) but is almost entirely remembered for his singing and acting - Paul Robeson. Robeson was very outspoken (he spoke out so often that he was blacklisted by Hollywood and was investigated by the House Un-American Activities Committee), which fits the model of person that this book profiles, but he hardly fits the model of a professional athlete that the book is focusing on.

Nonetheless, this is an interesting and thought-provoking book. Bryant's thesis is that the norm has been for Black athletes to stand up for other African Americans, either symbolically like early boxers who literally fought against white men, or by speaking up. This is what Bryant calls "The Heritage".

Colin Kaepernick

For about 25 years, more or less, "The Heritage" went away - from roughly the 1970's through the early 2000's. Bryant insists that it starts with O.J. Simpson and follows right through Michael Jordan. The model is "go along and get rich". Keep the controversies quiet and make as much money as possible. I am sure it is more complicated than that. For example, the large legislative pieces were already passed by the time Simpson made it to the NFL so there were few "official" government policies to protest any longer - at least not like before when there were a smorgasbord of racist policies to protest. But, he makes his point well - where was Michael Jordan, the most famous African American of all (except for Michael Jackson) when the Rodney King beating, for example, took place? Or when a host of other similar racial incidents happened? Nowhere.

This brings us up to Colin Kaepernick. This is, without a doubt, the strongest part of the book. Bryant takes us back through the trauma of 9/11 and reminds the readers that lived through it how shocking it was for all of us and how so many police officers and firefighters died in that attack. He reminds us how sporting events became a way for everyone to share in the loss and honor those that died on that day through flag ceremonies and special songs (Yankee Stadium performs "God Bless America" during the 7th Inning Stretch, for example).

But, soon enough, those special healing moments became part of the routine - a routine paid for by the U.S. military. Those honor guards that present the flag? Paid for by the military with taxpayer money (they pay the teams to let them do it). Those special, tearjerker reunion moments where a soldier comes home and his or her child is surprised on the field? Paid for by the military with taxpayer money. Those "shout outs" on the Jumbotron from soldiers in the field that are rooting for the home team? Paid for by the military with taxpayer money. Special "honor the troops" days where dozens of soldiers have seats together at the game and the camera focuses on them a few times and they all wave and say, "Hi Mom!"? Paid for by the military with taxpayer money (it costs more for more camera shots).

These combined to give sporting events a hyper-patriotic, even nationalistic feel that was not there before.

Personal note: I have attended every Indy 500 since 1986. The hyper-patriotic feel has been there throughout that time because the Indy 500 has always been scheduled on Memorial Day Weekend. They have incorporated a playing of Taps, a flyover (they were one of the first to feature a flyover) at least two patriotic songs and had a group of soldiers there representing all of the branches of the military every year. But, when I went to the August 2017 NASCAR Bristol "night" race, it was just as patriotic, including going so far as to feature a recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance. Now, the NFL games are just as reverent as the Indy 500, so much so that the Indy 500 pre-race activities are not nearly as distinctive as they used to be.

So, when Colin Kaepernick decided to protest - in a much less divisive way than Ali (who talked non-stop and even went to jail when he refused to serve in Vietnam, but was publicly mourned when he died) he was excoriated.

Specific criticisms: Bryant strays from sports into popular entertainment from time to time - but not consistent enough to make it a comparison of how African American athletes, musicians and actors approached race-related controversies, with the exception of Paul Robeson (noted above) but enough to muddy the waters. He even brought up the movie Rocky as being racist because it features a white boxer as the protagonist and a black boxer as the bad guy. There are two problems with this: 1) Apollo Creed is not really a bad guy in any meaningful sense. He is overconfident and symbolizes the establishment, while Rocky symbolizes the "little guy". But, he is remarkable for even giving Rocky the chance to fight in the first place and 2) Rocky was inspired by real-life the story of Chuck Wepner, a journeyman boxer who fought for the title Ali in 1975. When you hear Apollo Creed talk about himself he is clearly imitating Ali's style. Stallone saw the fight and then wrote the screenplay (he even settled a lawsuit with Wepner over using his story).

But, despite those criticisms, this was a remarkable book. Not always a fun book, but remarkable nonetheless and certainly an excellent ending to a solid year of reading.

The book was read by Ron Butler. His voice had a sense of authority and his pacing was excellent. He did a great job, even if he could not pronounce the name of the former baseball Commissioner Bud Selig's name correctly.

I rate this audiobook 5 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: THE HERITAGE: BLACK ATHLETES, a DIVIDED AMERICA and the POLITICS of PATRIOTISM by Howard Bryant.

CARTHAGE MUST BE DESTROYED: THE RISE and FALL of an ANCIENT CIVILIZATION (audiobook) by Richard Miles

Published in 2011 by Gildan Media, LLC.
Read by Grover Gardner.
Duration: 14 hours, 9 minutes.
Unabridged.

Carthage has forever been relegated to the second fiddle of the Ancient Mediterranean world - the last power to offer the Roman Republic any sort of serious threat. The also-ran that could have been what Rome became...if only.

But, unlike Rome, no one seems to know much about Carthage except for that they were a sea power, they had battle elephants and Hannibal crossed the Alps leading them in a war against Rome.

Dr. Miles' effort in Carthage Must Be Destroyed is a bit hamstrung from the lack of original sources from Carthage itself - it was looted and destroyed at the end of the Third Punic War. But, he is able to reconstruct a history based on the writings of other countries, including such sources as the Bible, Greek and Roman histories, temples, changes in religious thought architecture and coinage. 

I do appreciate how difficult this must have been, but this book often gets bogged down in multiple long discussions of the coinage (what is on the heads side, what is on the tails side, where the coins were minted, what their exact metallic content was) and other topics that are meant to be supporting of the main story but not the main story itself. I mean, it was like clockwork - 45 minutes has passed, it's time for another extended coinage discussion.

To be frank, the problem with this book is that it simply had no flow. It was often sidetracked into areas that padded its length without adding any additional understanding. It read like an academic text - like one of those textbooks that you HAD to read in school, not like a book that made you want to keep on reading it. I learned a lot, but it was a chore. Too bad, because I picked this one up because I was truly intrigued by the topic.

Award winning audiobook reader Grover Gardner read this audiobook. I generally like Gardner's work, but I was not fond of his folksy style with the academic style of the text. It clearly wasn't a deal breaker since I finished all 14 hours of the book, but I don't think it was a great editorial choice by the producer(s) of the audiobook.

I rate this audiobook 2 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: CARTHAGE MUST BE DESTROYED: THE RISE and FALL of an ANCIENT CIVILIZATION by Richard Miles.