KINGDOM of RAGE: THE RISE of CHRISTIAN EXTREMISM and the PATH BACK to PEACE (audiobook) by Elizabeth Neumann

Published by Worthy Books in 2024.
Read by Erin Bennett.
Duration: 8 hours, 38 minutes.
Unabridged.

Elizabeth Neumann worked for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) in the George W. Bush and Trump administrations. 

During the Bush Administration, the work of the DHS centered around preventing attempts by foreign groups, usually Muslim-based, to commit acts of terrorism on the United States or on Americans abroad. She became an expert on why some Muslims were radicalizing (or self-radicalizing), the signs of what to look for, and things that can be done to prevent radicalization.

During the Trump Administration, she started seeing more and more reports about domestic terrorism, usually coming from self-radicalized ultra-conservatives who are encouraged by media. Two prime examples are the Pittsburgh synagogue shooter and the El Paso shooter. Both issued manifestos that quoted liberally from fringe MAGA Conservative theories, like the  Great Replacement theory pushed by politicians like Donald Trump and media figures like Tucker Carlson. Carlson mentioned the theory more than 400 times on his show.

At first, Neumann thought this was a ridiculous notion. But, as she noticed changes in rhetoric at her own church and with old friends from a former church that she reconnected with, she decided to take a serious look.

What she saw were the exact same trends in some parts of the American Christian community that she had found in the radicalized Muslim community 10-12 years earlier and it mortified her. This was not the faith she knew. She recognized that thought as well - she had heard it so many times when Muslim terrorists were her main worry during the Bush Administration.

Neumann does a thorough job of explaining the process of radicalization and the dangers of flirting with radicalizing comments for political gain. She also demonstrates that "self-radicalization" is much easier with the rise of social media. People prone to radicalization can easily find an online community. They can also watch videos and read texts without interacting with another human being. While this section is thorough, it is often dry and clinical as well. It felt more like a textbook reading or a briefing rather than an engaging text.

Her recommendations section have a similar feel, making the book as a whole highly informative but not particularly engaging.

I rate this audiobook 3 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: KINGDOM of RAGE: THE RISE of CHRISTIAN EXTREMISM and the PATH BACK to PEACE.

RUN: BOOK ONE (graphic novel) by John Lewis and Andrew Aydin

Illustrated by L. Fury and Nate Powell.
Published by Harry N. Abrams in 2021.

This spring I read the MARCH, the three volume graphic novel series about Congressman John Lewis (1940-2020) and the Civil Rights movement. When I finished the series, I thought to myself that it would be interesting to see how John Lewis ran for Congress and the struggles he encountered in an era where the KKK still openly marched.

My Synopsis:

The graphic novel RUN picks up right where MARCH trilogy left off. At the end of the MARCH trilogy, there was a celebration of the passage of the Civil Rights bills - a moment of success. There was also the murder of a volunteer who was helping with the celebration by anti-Civil Rights forces.

RUN explores what happened after the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) had it first taste of success. At the end of MARCH, there was a celebration of the passage of the Civil Rights bills. With that, a long-term goal achieved there was a lot of discussion about where to go next. there were a lot of things to consider, including the beginnings of the Vietnam War.

The discussions soon became arguments and those arguments led people to leave the SNCC and for the movement to fragment. Some pushed for more of the same strategies due to a belief in the power of non-violence and for the simple reason that they had been effective up to this point. 

Others, led by Stokely Carmichael, wanted to pursue separatist strategies. Eventually, this leads John Lewis to leave the SNCC and run for political office.

My Review:

As I look over what I wrote in my synopsis of the book, it sounds boring. It really was not. You normally don't hear much about the Civil Rights movement after the passage of the Voting Rights Act and the Civil Rights Act in 1964 and 1965, so I found it interesting.

Sadly, Lewis died before this book was finished and I doubt there will be more in this series. 

I rate this graphic novel 5 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: RUN by John Lewis and Andrew Aydin.

SLAUGHTERHOUSE-FIVE by Kurt Vonnegut

The first edition cover

Published with the alternate title "The Children's Crusade: A Duty Dance with Death."
Originally published in 1969.

Listed in Time Magazine's 100 Best Novels Since 1923.

Slaughterhouse-Five is the most famous, most celebrated, and most controversial novel of Kurt Vonnegut (1922-2007.) 

My synopsis:

The book serves as a memoir to Vonnegut's horrific experiences as a prisoner of war in World War II and as a sci-fi exploration of the concept of time travel. 

Vonnegut's very green unit was rotated to the front in December of 1944 in order to give experienced combat troops a break. The weather was bad, the terrain was bad, and the Germans had been retreating regularly. It was presumed that the Germans would be content to settle in to winter quarters, rest, refit, and pick up the fighting in 1945. 

Instead, the Germans launched a surprise offensive and what followed was the Battle of the Bulge. Lots of Americans were captured and taken back to Germany to be prisoners of war, including Kurt Vonnegut. Eventually, Vonnegut was taken to Dresden to work. The main character of this novel, Billy Pilgrim, was also captured and eventually taken to Dresden.

At Dresden, in February of 1945, Billy Pilgrim and Vonnegut were firebombed along with the rest of the city. The prisoners of war survived because they were being housed in partially underground slaughterhouse for hogs (the hogs had long ago been consumed.) They were in slaughterhouse number 5. 

Where Pilgrim and Vonnegut's stories separate is the sci-fi portion. At the beginning of the book we are told that "Billy Pilgrim has come unstuck in time." 

Pilgrim is sliding back in forth in time along his own timeline. He can do nothing to change events, he just keeps sliding back and forth. 

My review:

Vonnegut graded his own books in his book
Palm Sunday. I agree with his assessment of 
Slaughterhouse-Five.

This is the second time I've read this book. This time around I really paid attention to the non-science fiction parts of the book and looked for the connections to Vonnegut's own life. Chapter One practically screams for the reader to do so, but I did not the first time around.

This time, I could really see that Vonnegut was working through his wartime experiences through the story of Billy Pilgrim and his own story as the narrator. 

I was struck by the passage describing the condition of the American prisoners of war as their overloaded train car waited on the tracks for a turn on the tracks:

"Even though Billy's train wasn't moving, its boxcars were kept locked tight. Nobody was to get off until its final destination. To the guards who walked up and down outside, each car became a single organism which ate and drank and excreted through its ventilators. It talked or sometimes yelled through its ventilators, too. In went water and loaves of black-bread and sausage and cheese, and out came shit and piss and language.

Human beings in there were excreting into steel helmets which were passed to the people at the ventilators, who dumped them. Billy was a dumper. The human beings also passed canteens, which guards would fill with water. When food came in, the human beings were quiet and trusting and beautiful. They shared."

Vonnegut in 1965.

What struck me was that there in the middle of the most destructive war in human history, enemies were taking care of their enemies like decent people. Later in his career Vonnegut would make the same point with this comment in his book A Man Without a Country:  "A saint is a person who behaves decently in a shocking indecent country."

Vonnegut's trademark humor and clever new ways of saying the same old things abound in this book. Here is his commentary on a female character: "She was a dull person, but a sensational invitation to make babies. Men looked at her and wanted to fill her up with babies right away."

And there it is in a nutshell. This is Vonnegut's masterpiece. It is profoundly sad. It is funny. It is a memoir. It is sci-fi. And so it goes.

I rate this book 5 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut. 

Note: This book has been challenged multiple times over the last 50 years for sexual content, foul language and teaching principles contrary to the Bible. Amazingly, it has stayed on "banned books" lists for more than 50 years. At one point, it was referred to a prosecutor to see if the school was distributing pornography to students. The prosecutor said that it was "not in violation of criminal laws." See this site for more information.

Note: This book was put on book ban lists in Tennessee in multiple counties in 2025. The article has a searchable database because the list has more than 1,100 unique titles

To its credit, the Vonnegut Museum in Indianapolis has a history of sending free copies of Slaughterhouse-Five to students at schools where the book has been banned.

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.