LOVE YOUR ENEMIES: HOW DECENT PEOPLE CAN SAVE AMERICA from the CULTURE of CONTEMPT (audiobook) by Arthur C. Brooks

Published by HarperAudio in March of 2019.
Read by Will Damron.
Duration: 6 hours, 55 minutes.
Unabridged.

Arthur C. Brooks was the President of the conservative think tank American Enterprise Institute from 2008 to shortly after the publication of this book in 2019. 

Brooks is deeply worried with the present level of political discourse in America. Debates where the candidates just insult one another. Derogatory comments rather than actual proposals. Look at your typical Facebook political argument. Anonymous posters with names like "Trump_2020_Forever" arguing with "Trumpsters_Suck" and using terms like "libtards" and "conservacunts" while they insist that the other side is nothing but a literal bunch of communists and Nazis.

This is getting us nowhere.

And that is his point in Love Your Enemies: How Decent People Can Save America from the Culture of Contempt.

What we are showing each other is contempt. He quotes a couples' counselor that he can work with all kinds of marital struggles - infidelity, anger, distance, physical issues. But, one thing he can't work with is contempt. If the two partners are rolling their eyes at one another and dismissing everything the other one says, the relationship is over.

The problem is, unlike a failed marriage, one half of the entire country can't just go off and find a new political partner to work with. We have a two party system. We need to work together. We are literally stuck with each other. 

The author, Arthur C. Brooks

Both sides need each other's ideas and both sides need to know that the other side is coming at the problem of governing the country in a sincere, meaningful way. They may have different points of emphasis but they can still work together. One of the more interesting chapters of this book explores the sociological differences between conservatives and liberals. It also shows how they can frame problems in such a way that the other side understands where they are coming from.

In the end, Brooks is advocating for a simple application of the Golden Rule - treat the other side the way you'd like to be treated. He's not saying that you shouldn't advocate for your ideas - he is saying that both sides need to listen, not be rude and look for ways to work together.

I highly recommend this book.

I rate this audiobook 5 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: LOVE YOUR ENEMIES: HOW DECENT PEOPLE CAN SAVE AMERICA from the CULTURE of CONTEMPT by Arthur C. Brooks.

IRRATIONALLY YOURS: ON MISSING SOCKS, PICKUP LINES, and OTHER EXISTENTIAL PUZZLES (audiobook) by Dan Ariely

Published in 2015 by HarperAudio.
Read by Simon Jones.
Duration: 3 hours, 22 minutes.
Unabridged.

The author, Dan Ariely

Behavioral economist Dan Ariely has written a lot of books and articles about his various behavioral experiments. I was not aware that he had a regular column in the Wall Street Journal that functions an awful lot like the Dear Abby column has done in newspapers for more than 60 years. People write in questions about relationships or work concerns and Ariely tries to come up with a concise, humorous answer.

The fact that Ariely is a famous behavioral economist did little to make this collection feel any different than a collection of Dear Abby columns. It was not a bad listen, but not a great one either.

I rate this audiobook 3 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: IRRATIONALLY YOURS: ON MISSING SOCKS, PICKUP LINES, and OTHER EXISTENTIAL PUZZLES by Dan Ariely.

A FAREWELL to MARS: AN EVANGELICAL PASTOR'S JOURNEY TOWARDS the BIBLICAL GOSPEL of PEACE (audiobook) by Brian Zahnd

Published by Oasis Audio in 2013.
Read by Dean Gallagher.
Duration: 4 hours, 58 minutes.
Unabridged.

Brian Zahnd is an American pastor of a megachurch in Missouri. I had never heard of him before I ran across this book. I was intrigued by the topic because the election of President Trump has been an interesting experience for this lifelong member of a religiously conservative church.

Over time, Zahnd has become convinced that pacifism is the way that Jesus would have us go. It is not a popular opinion, but Zahnd makes a strong argument for it.

Zahnd's message is essentially that the church is at its best when it acts like the Old Testament prophet Nathan in 2nd Samuel chapter 12. Nathan comes to David to tell him he had done a great wrong and call him on it.

Now, according to Zahnd, the church went from being the accuser of wrong-doing - the one that holds it to a high standard - to being the defense attorney of the government. Zahnd describes it as the church is the chaplain for the government. It cheerleads the government and supports it in everything, including going to war, supporting slavery, supporting genocide and more and it has been this way since Constantine the Great co-opted the Church in 313. 

Why is that? Because the government brought the Church into government and made it a stakeholder. The church provides moral cover because it is complicit with the government.  Look at our current political situation and watch religious leaders who are invested in politics use God to promote whatever cause they are involved in.

Here is a great example: In this article, Pat Robertson demanding that we keep troops in Syria. If we don't, President Trump is "in danger of losing the mandate of heaven." Two questions: 
1) Does God crown American Presidents with the mandate of heaven? 
2) Is Jesus a big fan of military action? If so, that puts the American soldier in the position of shooting people for Jesus, which sounds ridiculous when you hear it - but that is what Robertson is advocating.

I was reminded of this skit by a Christian acting duo known as The Skit Guys. The premise is that a boy wants to see a movie with a little bit of nudity in it, even though he knows his family thinks that it is inappropriate for him. His argument is that it is "just a little bit" of unacceptable content. His dad offers him a brownie he has just made and after he bites into it, he tells him that there was some "dog poop" in the brownie batter - but "just a little bit." Governmental and religious entanglement is a lot like having "just a little bit" of dog poop in your brownies. 

The author, Brian Zahnd

Most people think that religion taints the government, but I think that it is the other way around. A little bit of government makes religion act differently. Religion begins to make compromises and promises that it shouldn't make - it begins to say and do things that go against its core beliefs and mission because it is acting in support of governmental policy instead of its religious beliefs. Just a little bit of compromise goes along way to wrecking the entire message.

This book mostly looks at the topic of war and asks if churches should ever support war in any sort of form. Zahnd's own opinion has changed over time. He spends a great deal of time in this short book looking at exactly where he started and where he is at now. He refers to and quotes extensively from this very short Mark Twain story: The War Prayer (Click here to see Twain's story in its entirety). In it, an old man re-states the eloquent prayer for military victory that a church's pastor had just said during a church service - but he uses blunt terminology to show what the pastor and the church were really requesting:

"O Lord our God, help us tear their soldiers to bloody shreds with our shells; help us to cover their smiling fields with the pale forms of their patriot dead; help us to drown the thunder of the guns with the shrieks of their wounded, writhing in pain; help us to lay waste their humble homes with a hurricane of fire; help us to wring the hearts of their unoffending widows with unavailing grief; help us to turn them out roofless with their little children to wander unfriended in the wastes of their desolated land in rags and hunger and thirst...

...We ask it, in the spirit of love, of Him Who is the Source of Love, and Who is the ever-faithful refuge and friend of all that are sore beset and seek His aid with humble and contrite hearts. Amen."

Zahnd's point is that he cannot imagine Jesus praying the prayer that Mark Twain wrote. But, that is what the church was asking because they had been co-opted into approving everything the country was doing.

This book opens up a lot of intellectual doors but really only looks through a couple of them. It was interesting, though, and I am going to try to check out some more of Zahnd's books.

I rate this audiobook 5 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: A FAREWELL to ARMS: AN EVANGELICAL PASTOR'S JOURNEY TOWARDS the BIBLICAL GOSPEL of PEACE (audiobook) by Brian Zahnd.

MOSES by Howard Fast

Originally published in 1958.
Published in 2001 by ibooks.

Howard Fast (1914-2003) was a prolific author of all sorts of works - poetry, plays, screenplays, essays, short stories, science fiction, fiction, articles for various publication and historical fiction. He literally worked as a professional author for his entire life, publishing his first book at age 18 and his last book at age 85.

I've decided to make a commitment to reading a Howard Fast historical fiction book from time to time after I read his novel about the Battle of Lexington and Concord, April Morning, this past summer. It was easily one of the better books I read last year.

Moses is the story of the towering figure of the Old Testament. It was intended to be a two part story, but as Fast notes in a forward to this 2001 reprint, he literally ran out of time to write the second half of the story. This novel covers Moses life up until the time when he kills the Egyptian beating the Hebrew slave and then flees into the wilderness.

You probably won't recognize many features of this story if you are expecting a literal re-telling of the story of the Bible. This 400+ page novel is covered by just 15 verses of the book of Exodus (Chapter 2: 1-15). If you include the setting described in chapter 1, you get to include another 22 verses. That is not much material to write a book with. Even less when you take the supernatural elements out of the story - an interesting choice for a book about Moses. It would have been interesting to see what he had done with the second half of the story - with the plagues and the burning bush and the pillar of fire and so on.

As I read this novel, I did a little research. Fast pulled heavily from non-Biblical traditional stories about Moses and adapted them. I enjoyed the adaptation up until about 3/4 of the way through the book. It was a story about a young, pampered man getting a rough education in love, war, friendship, slavery, and learning how the other 99% lives (you don't get to be any more of a one-percenter than being the son of Pharaoh.)

Howard Fast (1914-2003)

The book takes a turn at that point and Moses seems to realize something that changes his behavior. I am not sure what he realizes but the book seems to meander a bit. Pharaoh's behaviors are pretty random, but Moses acts similarly. For two people that are not related by blood, they sure act a lot like each other.

I think this book is limited by the fact that its ending was never written. Fast was going somewhere with this book and a sequel would have answered a lot of questions.

I rate this book 3 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: Moses by Howard Fast. 

STAR WARS: DARTH PLAGUEIS (audiobook) by James Luceno

Published by Random House Audio in 2012.
Read by Daniel Davis.
Duration: 14 hours, 45 minutes.
Unabridged.

Star Wars: Darth Plagueis came HIGHLY recommended to me from a massive Star Wars fan that I work with who has told me on multiple occasions that this was an amazing book.

If you loved the political intrigue of The Phantom Menace and loved the fact that it was basically the story of a trade dispute that got out of hand, you will LOVE this book.

Let's face it, the problem with this book is that it is very similar to The Phantom Menace - the book actually overlaps with the movie. The problem with this book is that Episode I is generally considered to be the worst of the 11 Star Wars movies and doesn't compare well with the TV shows, either. It's probably better than the Star Wars Holiday Special, but I haven't seen that since it first aired so I can't trust my judgment as a ten-year old viewer.

This book fills in all of the questions that you probably didn't have when you watched The Phantom Menace. Did you wonder why Naboo has a little yellow space fleet? Well, you get to hear all about it anyway. Or, did you want to hear about exactly how the podracing track on Tatooine was financed? Did you ever wonder why Chancellor Valorum of the Senate looked so defeated and tired when he was trying to get things worked out to help Naboo? Well, you will get to hear all about the dirty backroom politics of the leading families of the Republic.

Don't care about the finances of a race track? Well, too bad - you'll hear all about it and how taxation of tax-free trade routes made a lot of people mad. Turns out Darth Plagueis was a banker and he liked to finance race tracks in his bid to take over the galaxy and Palpatine was a politician and he liked to talk about tax policy - so you get to hear about both of them. Also, Plagueis trained Palpatine to be a Sith Lord, but you hear precious little about the actual training and much about their busy schedules as they try to work in training times.

The problem with the book, specifically, is this: a Star Wars book full of spaceships and Sith carrying light sabers gets bogged down in detailed discussion of political and financial intrigues. I liken the experience that are like being forced to watch a Senate hearing on trade policy on C-Span in a Disney Resort hotel room rather than actually leaving the room and going to see Disney World. This is a Star Wars book - turn off the C-Span and bring on the cool Star Wars stuff! This isn't a John Grisham book - and if it were, it would have been a very boring one.

Christopher Lee as Count Dooku.

The only reason this books gets 2 stars from me instead of 1 is because it does go and backfill a giant plot hole from Episode 2 - Attack of the Clones. In Episode 2, Count Dooku just shows up out of nowhere and starts breaking apart the Republic. This book gives the background for Count Dooku, at least. He is by far the most interesting character. It made me wish I had been listening to a Count Dooku book instead. 

Dry exposition. No real antagonist or struggle in this book. It reads more like a super-detailed Wookiepedia entry about Palpatine rather than an actual story. The author goes out of his way to name off as many characters, places and organizations as he can in the Star Wars universe in ridiculously long sentences. I felt bad for the reader who had to just keep reading run-on sentence after run-on sentence filled with the most obscure English vocabulary words. It's like the author was typing away with a thesaurus open on his desk while trying to get in as many obscure character mentions as possible.

The reader, Daniel Davis, did a good job. He did a good job with all of the accents and established character voices from the movies. But, an excellent reading does not make up for a poor text.

Note: the audiobook does include music from Episdode IV. The music is generally used well. It also includes sound effects, but they are used less judiciously. Often the same sound effect is played over and over again in the background - just a little too loud.

I rate this audiobook 2 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: STAR WARS: DARTH PLAGUEIS (audiobook) by James Luceno.

NAVAJO AUTUMN: NAVAJO NATION MYSTERY, BOOK 1 (audiobook) by R. Allen Chappell

Published in 2016 by Tantor Media.
Read by Kaipo Schwab.
Duration: 3 hours, 45 minutes.
Unabridged.

A couple of years ago I requested my library order the audiobook of Navajo Autumn. Honestly, I asked for it because I was looking to find a little bit of that Tony Hillerman magic in a new book series.

But, just because a book is set in the same place as another book series and has a similar theme to another book series doesn't mean it is anywhere near the quality of the other book series.

I finished this audiobook because the library paid for it because of me and I felt I owed it to them to give it an honest listen. Plus, it was short at just 3 hours and 45 minutes.

So, what was wrong with the book. Technically, nothing major. The mystery was okay, but not great - kind of like a real-life mystery. An Bureau of Indiana Affairs investigator from Washington, D.C. comes to the Navajo Reservation to look into some problems with some water rights contracts that Reservation leaders have signed. She is found dead at the side of a river on the Reservation. Want to guess who had her killed?

Well, the cops in the book accuse a habitual drunk without a violent record who just happened to pass out in his normal place - pretty close to where they found the body. Don't worry - there were no spoilers in the previous sentence - all of that happens in the first 10 minutes.

The book is simply too fast-paced and the reader also reads at a fairly quick pace. Easy to understand, but a tad too fast. Also, the mystery was pretty obvious. All of these things just add up to a subpar audiobook experience.

I rate this audiobook 2 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: NAVAJO AUTUMN: NAVAJO NATION MYSTERY, BOOK by R. Allen Chappell.

IN the FOOTSTEPS of ST. PAUL (audiobook) by Richard Rohr

Published in 2015 by Franciscan Media.

Read by the author, Richard Rohr.

Duration: 7 hours, 34 minutes.

Unabridged.

Richard Rohr is a Franciscan Friar from Kansas who comes at Christianity with a little bit of a different take than most. He would argue that it is a truly Franciscan take, and it might very well be. I would not know because I am not a Catholic - but I did find this work to be very intriguing. He does not approach the text from a purely Catholic point of view - he praises and criticizes typical interpretations from Catholic, Protestant and Orthodox perspectives.

The audiobook In the Footsteps of St. Paul is actually a series of lectures given by Rohr as part of a tourist cruise of Greece. In reality, it should have been called "In the Footsteps of St. Paul and St. John" since they do make a stop at Patmos and see where St. John purportedly spent many years in exile. Nevertheless, Paul's writings and Rohr's take on them dominate the lectures.

One of the more interesting observations was his take on the Trinity. He takes seriously the Catholic view that Father, Son and Holy Spirit are three distinct persons and also one. He makes a powerful point that this is in itself one of the most important teachings of Christianity - the importance of relationships rather than just an orthodoxy checklist.

The author, Richard Rohr

I found Rohr's style and take to be welcoming and enjoyable. Sometimes, he is a little repetitive, but that is to be expected when recording a series of lectures given over a week. I heard them all in the course of 3 days, so the repetition was more noticeable to me.

I don't know where I heard about Richard Rohr - I requested the audiobook be purchased from my library almost 3 years ago. I have no idea why I did. Just this month they purchased it and forwarded it to me and I am glad they did. It was a refreshing change of pace from my normal listens and I am very pleased to see that Rohr has lots and lots of other books for me to explore.

Note: This book is only available as an audiobook.

I rate this audiobook 5 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: IN the FOOTSTEPS of ST. PAUL (audiobook) by Richard Rohr.