TIGER CHAIR: A SHORT STORY (kindle) by Max Brooks

Published in 2024 by Amazon Original Stories.

The premise of Tiger Chair is that it is a frank letter from a mid-level Chinese officer to a friend back home. World War III has been going on for a while. It started over the invasion of Taiwan and has now spread around the world. Chinese forces are active on many fronts, including India.

China has also attacked the United States in the mistaken belief that America's racial diversity and political animosities would cause American resolve to crumble and it would be a short war.

This has turned out to be wrong and the invasion has turned into occupation duty and occupation duty has always been terrible. 

I think Brooks has an actual agenda with this book and it is a warning. It is not a warning about China. It is a warning about over-dependence on technology and the foolishness of war. On top of that, it is so easy for one country to think that they have a realistic take on another country's internal politics and culture when they really have no idea at all.

Max Brooks

Brooks lectures in military circles about successful military organizations developing blind spots and becoming incapable of conceiving of strategies that will defeat them (or make it too costly to stay.)

It is an easy thing to observe in recent history. Americans have seen it in Iraq and Afghanistan. In both situations, their governments were deposed and it was assumed that new governments would be formed and the political differences would be worked out. Instead, the different rivalries fought one another with amazing ferocity. But, they also fought the Americans because there was one thing they all agreed on - they didn't want a bunch of outsiders telling them what to do.

It is the same in this story. I'd say that it's been this way forever.

I rate this short story 5 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: TIGER CHAIR: A SHORT STORY by Max Brooks.

MARCH: BOOK THREE (graphic novel) by by John Lewis and Andrew Aydin

 

Published in 2016 by Top Shelf Productions

Written by John Lewis and Andrew Aydin.

Illustrated by Nate Powell.

2016 National Book Award Winner for Young People's Literature

2017 Printz Award Winner

2017 Coretta Scott King Author Award Winner

2017 Sibert Medal Winner

2017 YALSA Award for Excellence in Nonfiction Winner

2017 Walter Award Winner

Congressman John Lewis (1940-2020) continues his life story in book three of the March series, focusing on his struggles in the Civil Rights Movement. The book starts with the 16th Street Birmingham Church Bombing in September of 1963 and ends with the signing of the Voting Rights Act in August of 1965.

These were, by any account, much like the famous Charles Dickens line from A Tale of Two Cities: "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of light, it was the season of darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair..."

It was the best of times in that the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 were passed. It was the worst of times because of these landmark laws were passed due to great sacrifices. As noted on page 91, in the state of Mississippi in the summer of 1964 during an attempt to mobilize and register black voters there were "more than 1,000 arrests, 80 beatings, 35 church burnings, and 30 bombings."

A theme that runs throughout the trilogy is that every success is soured by a violent response. I was particularly struck by an act of pointless violence at the end of the book. When the march from Selma, Alabama to Montgomery, Alabama finally happens (it had been turned back on other attempts by violence and by court order) there is a rally, there are speeches, and a concert given by an amazingly diverse crowd of artists - diverse in race and in musical styles. What should have been a beautiful moment is marred by the murder of a volunteer driver named Viola Luzzo from Detroit. She was shuttling people back to Selma. She was heading back to Montgomery to pick up more people when a car pulled alongside. A single shot was fired and she was killed (see picture.)

This is an excellent trilogy and an excellent way to tell this history. I rate this book and the entire trilogy 5 stars out of 5. 

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: MARCH: BOOK THREE (graphic novel) by by John Lewis and Andrew Aydin.

Click here for March: Book One.

Click here for March: Book Two.

MARCH: BOOK TWO (graphic novel) by by John Lewis and Andrew Aydin

 

Published in 2013 by Top Shelf Productions.

Written by John Lewis and Andrew Aydin.

Illustrated by Nate Powell.

Congressman John Lewis (1940-2020) continues his life story in book two of the March series, focusing on his struggles in the Civil Rights Movement. The book starts in November of 1960 and ends with the 16th Street Birmingham Church Bombing in September of 1963.

The story includes some very harsh responses to attempts to integrate restaurants in Tennessee, the freedom riders (young African Americans were attempting to desegregate bus lines after a court ordered them to be desegregated), and the bus boycott campaign in Birmingham. 

The violent response is horrible and shocking

Infamous segregationist lawman Bull Connor of Birmingham figures prominently throughout the middle of the book. I am pretty well-versed in the major points of the Civil Rights Movement but I was still moved by the portrayal of the Children's Crusade.

The book includes all of the negotiations, concerns, and demands before the famed March on Washington. Lewis spoke at the march, followed by the world-famous "I Have a Dream" speech by Martin Luther King. 

And, as often happens in this history, a giant step forward is followed by tragedy. In this case, the book ends with the death of 4 girls in the terrorist bombing of a church in Birmingham. 

I rate this book 5 stars out of 5. It can be found at Amazon.com here: MARCH: BOOK TWO (graphic novel) by by John Lewis and Andrew Aydin.

Click here to see my review of March: Book One.

Click here to see my review of March: Book Three.

HOW the SOUTH WON the CIVIL WAR: OLIGARCHY, DEMOCRACY, and the CONTINUING FIGHT for the SOUL of AMERICA by Heather Cox Richardson

Originally Published in 2020.
Published by Oxford Press in 2022.

Historian Heather Cox Richardson has made herself into a name brand historian with her near-daily first drafts of history in which she writes up the day's political news and ties in similar historic themes or long-running trends. 

How the South Won the Civil War follows along those lines. 

The book looks at two long-standing trends in American points of view in American history that are in constant tension with one another.

This quote from page xv of the introduction gets the thesis of the book pretty well:

America began with a great paradox: the same men who came up with the radical idea of constructing a nation on the principle of equality also owned slaves, thought Indians were savages, and considered women inferior. This apparent contradiction was not a flaw, though; it was a key feature of the new democratic republic. For the Founders, the concept that "all men are created equal" depended on the idea that the ringing phrase "all men" did not actually include everyone."

She continues: "So long as these lesser people played no role in the body politic, everyone within it could be equal. In the Founders' minds, then, the principle of equality depended on inequality."

That is the heart of the thesis - some think that everyone should be able to participate, others think that only the best people should participate because some people cannot handle the responsibility (or just want to do all of the wrong things with the power.)

Richardson goes through history and shows how this has played out over the decades. A big theme is that, in general, the South has believed that not everyone should participate. The North has gone back and forth, but consistently more on the side on equality than the South. 

The Civil War was obviously a major flare up in this ongoing struggle and seemed to end the paradox once and for all. But, the same issues migrated west and the Western states generally joined the South as time went on, especially as the Democrats stopped being the conservative party when it came to race relations after the elections of 1964, 1968, and 1972. Movement Conservatives discovered that racists liked it when they said things like letting states keep their own rules about who gets to vote and being able to create special public schools so that they stay segregated.

Not every Republican followed this line of thought and the mainstream Republican Party denied that this line of thought even had a popular foothold. But, the Tea Party Movement followed by MAGA and Christian Nationalism has pushed the radicals (the old John Birch Society types) into the forefront. Trump didn't create it, but he found it and exploited it.

The MAGA movement and Christian Nationalism continues this cementing of the West and the South and the belief that some people should not have a say. Nowadays, it is not slavery or Jim Crow or forcing people to be IN the closet, but MAGA shows spend an inordinate amount of time on gay marriage, trans people, and the bogeyman of CRT. It's not the same old thing (well, it oftentimes is for the LGBTQ+ folks, especially for trans people) but it certainly rhymes.

The only complaint I have about the book is that the author fails to see that the same type of elitism exists in both parties.  Examples include FDR and his brain trust, a center-left media that laid out a certain world view for 40 years and still tries to (I mostly agree with that view, but I also acknowledge that it existed and still exists in a much weakened state.)

I rate this book 4 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: HOW the SOUTH WON the CIVIL WAR by Heather Cox Richardson.

WINGS of HONOR (Forgotten Fleet Book 1) (audiobook) by Craig Andrews

The premise of this book is not particularly original, but it still enjoyable.

Originally published in book form in 2021 by My Story Productions.

Audiobook published in March of 2024 by My Story Productions.
Read by Shamaan Casey.
Duration: 9 hours, 16 minutes.
Unabridged.

Synopsis:

In Wings of Honor, humanity is at war with an alien insectoid species, much like in the book Ender's Game, the movie version of Starship Troopers, and the 1990's Fox Tv show Space Above and Beyond. In this novel, the bad guys (the bugs) are called the Baranyk. 

The fight ebbs and flows - sometimes humanity is winning, but currently humanity is losing. Humans used to use a fighter/carrier system in which fighter space ships launch from carrier space ships to engage the enemy - much like another classic show and its reboot, Battlestar Galactica. The death rate for fighter pilots were atrocious so the fleet developed a sophisticated fleet of drone fighter ships. If the drone ship gets destroyed the pilot just loads up another drone and rejoins the fight.

That system worked out great and was used to push back against the Baranyk - literally turning the tide of the war in favor of the humanity. That is until the the Baranyk developed a jamming system to block out the signals to the drones, leaving the space fleet without its first and best line of defense. 

This book is about the plan to convert the best drone pilots into fighter pilots and all that it entails. There are lots of clashes between pilots with big egos, a demanding commanding officer, and the difficulty of moving from a video game type of system to really being out in the flight vehicle.

My Review:

As I stated in the title, the premise of this book is not a unique science fiction concept. That being said, the author took it and decided to really delve into the characters of the trainees and the nature of the training. I found the book to be interesting and engaging if not always riveting.

The audio reader was Shamaan Casey. His voice was perfect for the commander of the "Forgotten Fleet" - the new squadron of manned space fighters. He did a very good job and helped to make this an enjoyable audiobook. I would be interested in continuing on with this series.

I rate this audiobook 4 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: WINGS of HONOR (Forgotten Fleet Book 1) by Craig Andrews.

My review of the second book in this trilogy can be found here: Wings of Mourning.

Note: A copy of this audiobook was provided to me by the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

LIFE AFTER POWER: SEVEN PRESIDENTS and THEIR SEARCH for PURPOSE BEYOND the WHITE HOUSE (audiobook) by Jared Cohen

Published by Simon and Schuster Audio in 2024.
Read by Kevin R. Free.
Duration: 14 hours, 4 minutes.
Unabridged.

In Life After Power Presidential historian Jared Cohen looks into the post-Presidential lives of seven Presidents and their quests for some sort of meaning after having one of the most important jobs you can have.

Some Presidents fade away due to health reasons, like Reagan. Others are eager to resume their former lives, like Washington. But, others still feel like they have something more to offer or have unfulfilled goals.

The seven Presidents he looked at are: Thomas Jefferson, John Quincy Adams, Grover Cleveland, William Howard Taft, Herbert Hoover, Jimmy Carter, and George W. Bush.

I have enjoyed hearing about John Quincy Adams' post-Presidential life ever since I first read John F. Kennedy's Profiles in Courage 30+ years ago. I've read more than one book about him and this re-telling is quite good. 

A photo of John Quincy Adams 
taken in 1844.

Jimmy Carter's lengthy post-Presidency is remarkable for how amazingly hard-headed he has been. Carter follows his conscience and lets the political consequences be damned. Cohen notes that Carter did not actually found Habitat for Humanity - he just joined it early on and is easily its most famous and perhaps longest term volunteer.

George W. Bush has done almost the opposite. He lived a very public life for years and has since retreated into more solitary pursuits such as painting. He has said almost nothing about politics in the almost 16 years since he left office.

Each of these men had a different reaction to leaving office. Some left after 2 successful terms, some after experiencing disappointment and 4 of them were defeated after just one term (this is what inspired Cleveland's determination to run again - and win.) I found some to be more interesting than others but, taken a whole, this is a solid set of mini-biographies.

I rate this book 4 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: LIFE AFTER POWER: SEVEN PRESIDENTS and THEIR SEARCH for PURPOSE BEYOND the WHITE HOUSE by Jared Cohen.

PRINCESS DIANA: A LIFE from BEGINNING to END(BIOGRAPHIES of BRITISH ROYALTY) (kindle) by Hourly History

 

Published in 2022 by Hourly History

This was a very odd choice for me to read for a couple of reasons:

1) I don't normally enjoy the gossip magazine type of stories.
2) I don't follow the modern English royal family - I find them to be annoying.
3) I don't really follow the English royal family in the history books, either.

Here's how we got here. Hourly History offers several free e-books every weekend and I picked up the book on Princess Diana for some unknown reason. And, six months later I accidentally picked the Princess Diana book with my fat thumb while using my e-reader app on my phone. I could have removed the download, but I decided to just go with it. Turns out, this was a happy accident.

I am not going to go over Diana's life story in this review. I will just say that this rather short biography (the publisher intends that its books take about an hour to read) was interesting and pleasant to read. A lot of it was information I remember just from being alive when all of this story was going on, but it was well-written.

I rate this e-book 4 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: PRINCESS DIANA: A LIFE from BEGINNING to END(BIOGRAPHIES of BRITISH ROYALTY) by Hourly History.