HOLOCAUST: THE EVENTS and THEIR IMPACT on REAL PEOPLE by Angela Gluck Wood

Published in 2015 by DK Publishing. Originally published in 2008. 

DK Publishing consistently publishes strong "coffee table" type books. Holocaust: The Events and Their Impact on Real People covers a more serious topic than most of their books, but it is immensely readable and compelling.

The text tells the basic history of how the Nazi party took control of Germany, started to implement their anti-Semitic agenda and eventually invaded their neighbors to start World War II. It also tells the story of a series individual Jewish victims as the timeline unfolds.

The book doesn't just cover the Jewish victims of the Holocaust, but goes out of its way to include the other victims as well.

The liberation of Dachau in April of 1945. This picture appears
as a two-page spread in the book. 

The pictures are excellent, the text mostly consists of captions for the pictures or a couple of paragraphs that go with the theme of the page. Considering how disjointed this approach usually is in these sorts of books, this book kept a surprisingly coherent narrative.

There is a foreword by Steven Spielberg of just three paragraphs. It adds little to the book, but it is advertised on the front cover.

I rate this book 5 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: HOLOCAUST: THE EVENTS and THEIR IMPACT on REAL PEOPLE by Angela Cluck Wood.

THE NIGHT FIRE (Harry Bosch #22) Renee Ballard (#3) (Bosch and Ballard #2) Michael Connelly

Published by Hachette Audio in October of 2019.

Read by Titus Welliver and Christine Lakin.

Duration: 10 hours, 4 minutes.

Unabridged.

Michael Connelly has been publishing Harry Bosch since 1992. Harry Bosch started as a grumpy older detective and Connelly has decided to let him age (unlike, say, James Bond who has been basically the same age for almost 60 years). Bosch is now 70 years old and is long past being a LAPD police detective. 

But, he's still on the hunt.

The Night Fire brings back Renee Ballard is a police detective who has been relegated to "the late show" - better known as the nighttime Hollywood beat. It's a world of homeless camps, prostitutes, food trucks and party people going to and from the latest clubs. It's a punishment because she turned in a superior officer for sexual harassment and the old boys network believed the man rather than the woman.

The author, Michael Connelly

This is the second time Ballard and Bosch have worked together. She has the power of the badge and the access to LAPD resources. He has experience and the freedom to work as a free agent - without the restrictions police sometimes have.

Typically, in a Harry Bosch novel there is a serious main mystery and one or two smaller, secondary mysteries. I am rating this book 3 stars out of 5 because all of the mysteries (there are 3) all feel like they should have been secondary mysteries. One of the mysteries lurks on the edges and is resolved in the same way. It could have easily been edited out. I think it would have been better without it. Maybe Connelly is laying the foundation for a future mystery...or maybe not.

The book was read by Titus Welliver and Christine Lakin. Welliver plays Harry Bosch on the Amazon Prime Video show Bosch. Welliver reads the chapters that are primarily about Bosch, Lakin reads the chapters primarily about Ballard. When they converse, each reads the lines of their respective characters. They were quite good.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: The Night Fire by Michael Connelly. 

BEHIND the BLUE and GRAY: THE SOLDIER'S LIFE in the CIVIL WAR by Delia Ray

Published in 1991 by Scholastic.
93 pages of text. 
9 pages of a bibliography, a glossary, an index and picture credits.

Behind the Blue and Gray is a simple introduction to what the average Civil War soldier. I would recommend it for grades 5 and above.

However, saying it is for those grades does not mean an adult interested in starting to study the Civil War would not find this book interesting. It is similar to the introductory books that are published by the National Parks that you can find at Civil War battlefields.

The book follows the progress of a few Civil War soldiers as they enroll in their respective armies, set up camps, train, march and eventually fight. It also explores what happened to prisoners and the injured. At the end, it discussed the aftermath of the war and ends with a photo of elderly former Union and Confederate soldiers at a reunion gathering.

There is not a lot about women in the war as a topic, but there are a few pages about Native Americans and African Americans.

The big names of the war get a passing mention, but they are not the focus.

I rate this book 4 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: BEHIND the BLUE and GRAY: THE SOLDIER'S LIFE in the CIVIL WAR by Delia Ray.

THE FIRST EMANCIPATOR: THE FORGOTTEN STORY of ROBERT CARTER the FOUNDING FATHER WHO FREED HIS SLAVES by Andrew Levy

Published by Random House in 2005.

Robert Carter holds a unique place in American history. He was a massively successful plantation owner in the Revolutionary War generation. He knew and worked with George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and James Madison in the Virginia legislature. He was not particularly effective as a politician, but he was effective at something that all of the above failed at.

He freed his 450+ slaves while he was still alive and managed to keep his fortune and his property.

He did it over a series of years, but he did it. Thomas Jefferson thought that it couldn't be done and often wrote about the quandary he found himself in. A good student of American history will remember that Washington freed his slaves - but that was after the death of Martha Washington. Carter did it while he was alive.

Carter's motivations seem to have been a combination of religious ideals and political ideals, motivated by such things as the soaring rhetoric of the Declaration of Independence.

The problem is that history has forgotten Robert Carter. There is only one little historical marker that marks where he used to live but doesn't mention the emancipation of his slaves. One-fourth of the marker is about a tutor he brought in to teach his children. It's almost like everyone wanted to forget what Carter did with his slaves.

This book was a difficult read - partially due to the lack of information about Carter and partially because Andrew Levy tried to stretch that scant information out far enough to make a book. The book looks bigger than it really is - it has 195 pages of text and 105 pages of acknowledgments, notes, a bibliography and an index.

The book itself was not particularly well-written. I was immensely interested in this topic and it still felt like it was a slog.

I rate this book 2 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: THE FIRST EMANCIPATOR: THE FORGOTTEN STORY of ROBERT CARTER the FOUNDING FATHER WHO FREED HIS SLAVES by Andrew Levy.

GONE TOMORROW (audiobook) (Jack Reacher #13) by Lee Child

Jack Reacher vs. The Patriot Act

Published by Random House Audio in 2009.
Read by Dick Hill.
Duration: 14 hours, 47 minutes.
Unabridged.

In Gone Tomorrow, Jack Reacher is in New York City, riding the subway after taking in a late night show in a bar. He notices a woman who is exhibiting all of the signs of being a suicide bomber that he learned years ago while being trained in Israel. When Reacher intervenes, he gets way more than he bargained for and gets sucked into a complicated mess and discovers that the powers granted to the federal government by the Patriot Act are not to be trifled with.

The audiobook was read by multiple award-winning reader Dick Hill. He is my favorite reader of the Jack Reacher novels. But, even Dick Hill couldn't save some of the convoluted dialogue that comes from the villain's mouth as the book progresses. I was reminded of the famous line from Harrison Ford as he was filming Star Wars. He told George Lucas, " George! You can type this s***, but you sure can't say it!" 

The villain's lines are so convoluted, so wordy and so long-winded that I can't believe anyone would actually hang around to hear them delivered. There was no way that the author, Lee Child, actually read those lines out loud to see if they worked. I felt sorry for Dick Hill getting ambushed with them.

Nonetheless, the story was good enough to justify 4 stars out of 5.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: Gone Tomorrow by Lee Child.

THE TIPPING POINT: HOW LITTLE THINGS CAN MAKE a BIG DIFFERENCE (audiobook) by Malcolm Gladwell

Original edition published in 2000.

Updated edition published by Hachette Audio in 2006.

Read by the author, Malcolm Gladwell.

Duration: 8 hours, 34 minutes.
Unabridged. 

Malcolm Gladwell's first book is about "tipping points" - that moment where an idea, a fad, a political candidate, a disease (or whatever) catches on and spreads like wildfire.

Gladwell looks into the human factors that contributes to spread of all of the things I mentioned in the first paragraph boils it down to three types of people that are needed. He details those personality types, describes why they are important and provides real world examples of those personality types. For example, he goes into a lot of detail into why Paul Revere was absolutely necessary for the success of his midnight ride. There was another rider, but he achieved little.

Paul Revere, on the other hand, was wildly successful for a number of reasons related to how well-connected he was. His ride resulted in the Minutemen coming out to fight and the victory of the Minutemen over the British in the Battles of Lexington and Concord. Without those early victories, there may not have been a Revolutionary War. Who Paul Revere was made him the tipping point. He delivered the same message, but it had much more of in impact coming from Paul Revere.

As with all social sciences, there is never a perfect answer to anything because human behavior is so hard to definitively quantify. But, this book is immensely interesting and there are lots of good things to think about. Plus, Gladwell's voice is quite pleasant to listen to.

I rate this audiobook 5 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: THE TIPPING POINT: HOW LITTLE THINGS CAN MAKE a BIG DIFFERENCE by Malcolm Gladwell.

TURTLES ALL the WAY DOWN (audiobook) by John Green

Published in 2017 by Listening Library.
Read by Kate Rudd.
Duration: 7 hours, 12 minutes.
Unabridged.

High School students Aza and Daisy are best friends living in Indianapolis, Indiana. They are also investigating the mysterious disappearance of a billionaire who lives on the other side of the White River - the rich side of the river that doesn't flood.

Well, they investigate when they aren't going to school, eating at Applebee's, studying, working (Daisy) or keeping appointments with the therapist (Aza).

Aza has obsessive thoughts - they crowd out everything else when they come, and lately they've been coming at her hard and fast.

It turns out that Aza knows the son of the missing billionaire and when she and Daisy run into him while they are investigating, it seems like there might be a spark between this boy and Aza...

John Green is one of my favorite authors, which is weird because I have only read two of his books (this one and The Fault in Our Stars). But, I've seen multiple interviews with him since his adopted hometown is my adopted hometown - Indianapolis. I love the fact that he lives here to be an anonymous dad in the crowd. I also love the fact that he puts out entertaining educational videos with his brother and I love the way that he conducts himself professionally. 

The author, John Green

And, I love the fact that he wrote this book about a character with a mental illness. He wrote it because he shares a lot of the struggles that his character Aza has.

But, reading about Aza is exhausting. It is informative, but sometimes a struggle to get through this book.

Also, this book seemed like a weird mish-mash. It is partly a mystery, partly a romance, partly a coming-of-age friendship book and largely seeing the world through the eyes of a person with obsessive thoughts. But, the mystery in the story seems forced - very contrived.

A real positive, though, are his accurate descriptions of Indianapolis and its geography. There really is an Applebee's where he puts it in this story. The White River really is in trouble because of sewage and Indianapolis is currently building a giant sewer overflow tunnel to deal with it. Also, his Star Wars references are spot-on. And, Aza's mom is a teacher and she always seems to be grading papers. This teacher appreciates that bit of reality in a novel.

Still, despite all of this positives, this one gets just 3 stars out of 5 from me. 

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: TURTLES ALL the WAY DOWN by John Green.

Note: This book showed up on a "banned book" list in Texas. Ugh.
Udpate: It also was placed on a banned book list in Florida.