THE MOMENT: THOUGHTS on the RACE RECKONING THAT WASN'T and HOW WE CAN ALL MOVE FORWARD NOW (audiobook) by Bakari Sellers

Published in 2024 by HarperAudio.
Read by the author, Bakari Sellers.
Duration: 4 hours, 33 minutes.
Unabridged.

The Moment that Bakari Sellers refers to in his book is the so-called moment of racial reckoning that came with the murder of George Floyd and the protests all around the country that followed.

Sellers discusses a lot of relevant things that lead up to this moment including the murder of 9 African Americans by a young White supremacist in Charleston in 2015 and Covid-19. But, events like the Buffalo shooting of 2022, continued questionable acts of  and media and political-types discussing the Great Replacement Theory from 2017 until the present day have shown that moment of reckoning was not a big a moment that people supposed it was. Or, it demonstrates that the racist elements in America are pushing back hard.

I have run across Sellers as a guest on a couple of different podcasts that I follow and have always found him to be thoughtful and engaging. I have to admit, however, that I was a little disappointed in this book.

To me this book felt like two different books. I think there was too much time spent discussing the effects of Covid-19 on African American churches. Similarly, Sellers spent a lot of time discussing a police shooting case with an African American that he was involved in as an attorney. It is a sad commentary that I can say that I was only vaguely familiar with the case - and I'm not even sure if the case he referred to was the one I was thinking of because there are just so many.

The author

On the other hand, the other half of the book was compelling. He talked about the hope he had (and still has) after the George Floyd protests, his family, and some successes he has seen. 

Because of this wide variation, I am going to rate this audiobook 3 stars out of 5. This book can be found on Amazon.com here: THE MOMENT: THOUGHTS on the RACE RECKONING THAT WASN'T and HOW WE CAN ALL MOVE FORWARD NOW by Bakari Sellers. 

WHITE RURAL RAGE: THE THREAT to AMERICAN DEMOCRACY (audiobook) by Tom Schaller and Paul Waldman

Published in 2024 by Random House Audio.
Read by Ray Porter.
Duration: 11 hours, 2 minutes.
Unabridged.

White Rural Rage is a look at the rural/urban divide in the United States in politics as personified in the MAGA movement. 

The book is broken up into multiple chapters, each with a theme about how rural America is advantaged even though they claim they are put upon by urban elites. Sometimes, the authors have a point, sometimes they are just grinding their axes for no particular reason (like in the pickup truck chapter.)

The book has some excellent points, but it clearly written like an extended opinion hit piece rather than an extended informational piece and that did nothing but hurt the audiobook in my opinion. 

I rate this audiobook 3 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: WHITE RURAL RAGE: THE THREAT to AMERICAN DEMOCRACY by Tom Schaller and Paul Waldman.

ATTUCKS! OSCAR ROBERTSON and the BASKETBALL TEAM THAT AWAKENED A CITY by Phillip Hoose

Published in 2018 by Farrar, Straus and Giroux (BYR)

NOTE: Also published under the title UNBEATABLE!

Attucks! appears to be just a story about a 1950's era basketball team, but it is much more than that.

it is the story of Jim Crow style racism in a northern state. It is the story of an underdog school getting its chance to compete at the highest level. It is the story of one amazing player, a great coach, and Indiana's famous single class basketball system.

First - the single class basketball system. Back in the 1900's, Indiana had a single class basketball system. This means that every team was in the same playoff system together - no matter how big or how small. This was highlighted in the based-on-a-true-story movie Hoosiers. The true story had Milan High School (161 students) beating Muncie Central (1600+ students) in 1954. Usually, it wasn't that dramatic of a disparity, but small town schools did very well from 1911-1954. The biggest city in the state, Indianapolis, won zero championships during that time.

This is where the story of Crispus Attucks High School comes in. Attucks was an all African-American segregated high school smack dab in the middle of the city of Indianapolis. Indianapolis was a late arrival to the Jim Crow practice of segregated education (Attucks opened in 1927.) The school was named for the Crispus Attucks, an African-American and the first person to die in the Boston Massacre and possibly the American Revolution.

Attucks vs. Tech - a massive rivalry. Attucks is wearing the darker jerseys.

Attucks was prohibited from playing in the high school tournament until 1942 because...well, there really was no legal reason so we can just chalk that up to racism.

The book focuses on the development of the Attucks basketball program until it became a powerhouse in the 1950's. It's not just that though. This was the first really good team to come out of Indianapolis. It was all African-American in a highly segregated city. It had style, class, and pride in its underdog status. It had perhaps the best player to come out of Indianapolis ever - Oscar Robertson (no kidding - he was astoundingly good.) They won 45 games in a row and won back-to-back state championships in 1955 and 1956. 

How good was this team? The author tells the story of a game that Attucks won 123-59. A player on the losing team was crying after the embarrassing loss. His father told him, "You might as well stop that crying. Because can't nobody beat them. You ought to be glad you ever played against them." (p. 152)

I rate this book 5 stars out of 5. It is very readable and told the human side of the story very well. It can be found on Amazon.com here: ATTUCKS! OSCAR ROBERTSON and the BASKETBALL TEAM THAT AWAKENED A CITY by Phillip Hoose.

WINGS of MOURNING: THE FORGOTTEN FLEET, BOOK 2 (audiobook) by Craig Andrews

Book version originally published by My Story Productions in 2021.
Audiobook published by My Story Productions in 2024.
Read by Shamaan Casey.
Duration: 10 hours, 32 minutes.
Unabridged.

My Synopsis

Wings of Mourning is the 2nd book in a trilogy about a future war between humanity and an insectoid species. While not a particularly original sci-fi concept, the first book was still entertaining and hinted at all sorts of possibilities. 

Humanity had been winning the war in space by using drone fighter based on carrier ships. The drones were so effective because the pilots would not die if the drone was shot down - they pilot could just switch to a new drone and rejoin the fight.

This was all well and good until the insectoid race (the Baranyk) developed an undetectable way to jam transmissions to the drone fighter ships, leaving the carriers vulnerable to attack. The tide of the war turned against humanity until a retired fighter pilot suggested pulling the old pre-drone fighter ships out of mothballs and put the drone pilots back into the real cockpits. 

The first book of the series, Wings of Honor, focused on the creation of the Forgotten Fleet - the revived air wing with actual pilots in the actual cockpits. 

The second book switches in tone and focus. Rather than focusing on the dynamics of the pilots of the Forgotten Fleet, it focuses on the war. The Forgotten Fleet has been fighting non-stop for six months. They may be young, but they are an experienced and dangerous unit - more than a match to any similar number of Baranyk ships.

The Forgotten Fleet has lost pilots due to death or injury and brand new replacement pilots have arrived to fill in the gaps.

Meanwhile, the Baranyk have changed their tactics and seem to be withdrawing. Are they retreating or are they pulling the fleet together for a big push? The Forgotten Fleet pushes forward to try to find out and suddenly discovers a new weapon in the war...

My Review

I liked the first book in the series quite a bit, but the second one surprised me in a good way. The book changed its tone and focus. Some prominent characters from the first book become minor characters and new characters are introduced. And, it was better than the first book.

The new threat to the fleet is hinted at towards the beginning of Book 2, but I was still very interested in what it all entails when it is finally revealed. The book takes some dramatic twists and turns, including one big twist that I was not expecting at all.

As is common in trilogies, the second act ends with a note of despair, like in the original Star Wars trilogy's The Empire Strikes Back. I am looking forward to seeing how it all works out in the end!

The reader of the audiobook was Shamaan Casey. He also read the first book in the series. He just nailed it.  

I rate this audiobook 5 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: Wings of Mourning: The Forgotten Fleet, Book 2 by Craig Andrews.

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

FINISH WHAT WE STARTED: THE MAGA MOVEMENT'S GROUND WAR to END DEMOCRACY (audiobook) by Isaac Arnsdorf

Published in April of 2024 by Little, Brown, and Company.
Read by Will Damron.
Duration: 8 hours, 52 minutes.
Unabridged.

Finish What We Started is a look at the MAGA/Trump movement from a different perspective. There are lots of books about Trump, his children, Roger Stone, Stephen Miller, Bill Barr, Mike Pence, or any of the other big players in the Trump Administration. 

This book is different. It looks at regular people caught up in the movement in official positions and how they reacted. There is a guy who wrote a kindle e-book about the real power of political parties - the local precinct committee person in numbers. The theory is that if you get enough like-minded people in charge of the local precincts, you will control the party.

That author gets the attention of Steve Bannon and his popular podcast and people start buying the book and putting its principles in action. Bannon is the only famous person featured in the book. 

The book chronicles the transition from traditional Republicans to MAGA Republicans and the changes that means for basic retail politics (for example, motivating people to actually go to the polls to vote) and what it means for people who have been working for the Republican party for 20, 30, even 40 years. Some of the stories were compelling.

I rate this audiobook 4 stars out of 5. It can found on Amazon.com here: FINISH WHAT WE STARTED: THE MAGA MOVEMENT'S GROUND WAR to END DEMOCRACY by Isaac Arnsdorf.

THEY CALLED US ENEMY (graphic novel) by George Takei, Justin Eisinger, and Steven Scott

Published in 2019 by Top Shelf Productions.
Illustrated by Harmony Becker.

Winner of the 2020 Eisner Award for Best Reality-Based Work.

Winner of the 2020 American Book Award.


George Takei is most famous for his part in the the original Star Trek series and the subsequent movies. But, over the last 20 years or so, Takei has been on a personal crusade to make sure that the Japanese Internment Camps are not forgotten. 

President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued an executive order in February of 1942 to place all of the Japanese on the west coast of the United States into camps because they could not be trusted not to help the Empire of Japan. This order applied to all Japanese, even if there was absolutely no reason to suspect them of doing anything at all to help Japan. Takei's family was included in this round up and this graphic novel is that story.

The graphic novel format is ideal for the story of a young man caught up in a situation he cannot possibly understand. Takei does a good job of going back and forth from his childhood perspective to multiple adult perspectives (Takei at various points in his life) in order to explain things better.

I rate this graphic novel 5 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: THEY CALLED US ENEMY (graphic novel) by George Takei, Justin Eisinger, and Steven Scott.

Note: This book has been listed on multiple book ban lists - in Tennessee (use the searchable database because the list has more than 1,100 unique titles) in 2025 and in Pennsylvania right after it was published. I suppose that people are scared of learning America's history.

MAYA CIVILIZATION: A HISTORY from BEGINNING to END (MESOAMERICAN HISTORY) (kindle) by Henry Freeman (Hourly History)

 

Published in 2020 by Hourly History.

Hourly History specializes in e-book biographies and histories that take most readers about an hour to read. In some cases, an hour to cover a topic seems about right. For example, I really enjoyed their book on the Cuban Missile Crisis. 

Of course there is a massive difference in the time involved with the Cuban Missile Crisis and the Mayan Civilization - one lasted for weeks, the other for centuries. That makes a big difference with what can be dealt with the series' self-imposed one hour time constraint and that difference really hurt this e-book.

I have zero problems with the facts presented in this book, but I do have a problem with the way they were presented. I found this book to be oddly written. My pet theory as I was reading it was that it was an early experiment with an AI author program - but there is an actual name attached to my kindle e-book - Henry Freeman. Oddly, the Amazon website does not list Freeman as the author. 

I rate this e-book 2 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: Maya Civilization: A History from Begnning to End (Mesoamerican History.