ARETHA FRANKLIN: A LIFE from BEGINNING to END (kindle) by Hourly History

Published in 2023 by Hourly History.

Aretha Franklin (1942-2018) was a true music legend. Nicknamed the Queen of Soul, she dominated the charts in the late 1960s and early 1970s and popped in and out of the charts for the rest of her life. She appeared on television, in movies, and, of course, in concert.

Hourly History specializes in short biographies and histories that most readers can complete in about an hour. The reader is not going to get a super-detailed biography, but the reader will get a decent overview.

Some of these biographies are quite good, some read like a well-written Wikipedia page. This book was much more like the latter than the former. It went through the Franklin's life and told all of the details, but you never get a sense of what she was like as a person. 

I was pleased to see that they mentioned her small but outstanding role in The Blues Brothers. I think it is one of the major highlights in a movie full of highlights.

I rate this e-book 3 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: ARETHA FRANKLIN: A LIFE from BEGINNING to END by Hourly History.

THE OTHER SIDE of the WALL: A PALESTINIAN CHRISTIAN NARRATIVE of LAMENT and HOPE (audiobook) by Munther Isaac.

Published in 2020 by ChristianAudio.
Read by Neil Shah.
Duration: 8 hours, 5 minutes.
Unabridged.

I heard about The Other Side of the Wall on The Holy Post podcast. I knew that there were Palestinian Christians in Gaza, but I hadn't given it much thought. Generally, I find the Palestinian/Israeli conflict too intractable to think about. It's not that I don't care, it's that simple solutions (or even insanely complicated solutions) don't even seem to be on the horizon at all and in a world with so many problems close at hand, it's easy not to think about problems half a world away. My bandwidth is just not that big.

But, the interview was good - it came from an unexpected source in this conflict. The podcast host interviewed Munther Isaac, a Lutheran pastor and teacher. He is also a Palestinian from Gaza. There has been a continual Christian presence in Gaza as long as anyone can tell, although it is dwindling as Palestinian Christians opt out of the conflict zone by moving away. 

Isaac brings a long list of observations and complaints. He has reasonable complaints, like his family's farm and home being grabbed by the Israeli government to make space for Israeli settlements. But, he is also bothered by fellow Christians who refuse to let him speak at conferences because he offers a different point of view than the standard American Christian (pro-Israeli government) point of view.

The author

The author is not anti-Jewish, but he is against so much that the conservative Netanyahu government has done over his long time as Prime Minister.

The book was obviously written before the brutal Hamas-led terrorist attacks on Israel on October 7, 2023. Many of the places he mentions in his book were headlines in the Hamas-Israel War as I was listening to the audiobook. Some might say that the book is outdated since those terrorist attacks were a profound pivot point, but I think the book still has tremendous value, especially with his discussions about the applications of Jesus' teachings in a world in a continuing cycle of violence and retribution.

A tough listen, but a very good one.

I rate this audiobook 5 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: The Other Side of the Wall: A Palestinian Christian Narrative of Lament and Hope by Munther Isaac.

THE RISE: A SHORT STORY (kindle) by Ian Rankin

Published by Amazon Original Stories in 2023.

Synopsis:

There has been a murder in one of the newest and most exclusive high rise apartments in London. The night security guard in the lobby was found dead by his girlfriend (she used to sneak in for a little romancing in the middle of the night.)

His head was smashed into the corner of the counter and a fancy electronic door key is missing from the collection of spare keys in the office.

When detectives start asking around it looks like just about everyone in the apartment building could have killed the guard, including the girlfriend.

My review:

The first half of this story was pretty tedious. The way the crime was finally solved was kind of obvious - and I missed it!

I rate this short story 3 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: The Rise: A Short Story by Ian Rankin.

THE RUNAWAY (Peter Ash #7)(audiobook) by Nick Petrie

Published by Penguin Audio in 2022.
Read by Stephen Mendel.
Duration: 11 hours, 35 minutes.
Unabridged.

The Runaway is the seventh book in the Peter Ash series. Ash is a retired Marine with PTSD issues and an intense desire to help people in need. Sometimes he settles down, sometimes he wanders.

In this book, Ash is crossing the country and is near the border of South Dakota and Nebraska. He comes across a broken down car and a very pregnant young lady. She is desperate to get going down the road so he takes her. 

They get a few miles down the road when they come across a truck blocking the road. They turn around and find another truck blocking the road and leaving them nowhere to go. The hitchhiker tells Ash that he is in very grave danger and he should flee...

My review:

For a book full of action, thrills, and mayhem, this book was often tedious. 

********Spoilers********

The pregnant young lady is a victim of gaslighting and, eventually, kidnapping. The process was long and very detailed. I think that there was simply too much emphasis on this part of the book. 

I don't know if it was intentional, but it is worth noting that literally every male character was a criminal, a murderer, a misogynist, or simply incompetent except for Peter and his friend Lewis. I doubt it was intentional, but it just seemed like the entire Great Plains countryside was full of literal bad guys.

*********End Spoilers*********

Sadly, this series has gotten weaker for me. I rated the first five books 4 or 5 stars, but I have rated the last two books as 2 stars. I will move on to the next book and hope for the best. 

One last thought. Despite what you will read in this book, healthy, well-fed coyotes do not hunt humans. 

I rate this book 2 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: The Runaway by Nick Petrie.

PANCHO VILLA: A LIFE from BEGINNING to END by Hourly History

Published by Hourly History in 2021.

I think this is the third book I've read in the last few years that is at least partially about the Mexican Revolutionary Pancho Villa (1878-1923). I read two that were basically about American responses to Villa's cross-border excursions  (and near misses) into the United States for money and supplies.

Each entry in the Hourly History series is, by definition, a short book. Each entry is supposed to be read in about an hour.

This biography was neither bad nor good. It did tell the basically outlines of his life without giving the reader much a sense of the man. Even worse, Villa will forever be associated with the Mexican Revolution but this book did a pretty poor job of explaining the complicated politics that Villa tried to navigate. It seemed that he was an insider one week, on the outs the next week, and running for his life the week after that and I had no understanding as to why that was.

A good basic intro, but nothing more.

I rate this e-book 3 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: Pancho Villa: A Life from Beginning to End by Hourly History.

ROAD RAGE (audiobook) by Joe Hill, Stephen King, and Richard Matheson

Published in 2009 by HarperAudio.
Read by Stephen Lang.
Duration: 2 hours, 25 minutes.
Unabridged.

My Synopsis:

In 1971 a relatively unknown director made an ABC made for TV movie called Duel. The plot was simple enough - a traveling salesman is harassed by a semi-truck on a nearly empty desert highway. Spielberg took this opportunity and turned it into the movie that made his career. Now, Duel is a cult classic.

Before the movie was made, there was  the short story of the same name. Richard Matheson wrote the short story and the screenplay.

Joe Hill and Stephen King added a second story called Throttle to this collection. It features a motorcycle gang trying to decide their next steps after a botched attempt to find some missing money that resulted in a brutal murder. Suddenly, a semi-truck catches up to the gang and begins to pick them off one by one.

My Review:

Duel was a very good short story. It draws you in and keeps you involved to the end. 

Throttle is told well, but I found it very hard to identify with any of the horrible characters. The drama is hurt by the fact that I really didn't care if the gang members were hurt.

I rate this audiobook 3 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: ROAD RAGE by Joe Hill, Stephen King, and Richard Matheson.

THE OUTSIDERS (audiobook) by S. E. Hinton

Originally published in 1967.
Audiobook published in 2004 by Listening Library.
Read by Jim Fyfe,
Duration: 5 hours, 9 minutes.
Unabridged.

Listed on BBC's list of 100 Most Inspiring Novels in 2019.
Author is the winner of the inaugural Margaret A. Edwards Award for YA 

Synopsis:

This is a true YA classic. Some consider this to be the book that invented the YA genre. Written by a high school student in the 1960's, The Outsiders is the story of a group of "greasers" in Tulsa, Oklahoma. 

Greasers are poor teens who grow up on the tough side of town. Adult supervision is pretty lax and they spend their days smoking, flirting with girls, and working. They join loose gangs and fight among themselves, but they all unite when their biggest enemies come around. Their biggest enemies are the rich kids who cruise the poor side of town looking for a fight.

The main character is the oddly-named Ponyboy. Ponyboy's deceased parents liked to give their children odd names. Ponyboy and his two older brothers live together in their childhood home and somehow scrape by.

One very late night, Ponyboy and his oldest brother have an argument. Ponyboy runs from the house, finds one of his friends, and they wander the neighborhood. They are sitting in a park when a car full of the rich kids finds them and decides to make an example of them...

My review:

It's been a long time since I read this book, but I read it several times when I was in upper elementary. I came back to this book thinking it was going to be would be lightweight and that I had overestimated its quality when I was a young adult reader.

Turns out that I was pleasantly surprised. While the writing style is pretty simple, this is not a simple book. It has layers and complexity and was an astoundingly good novel, especially when you consider that it was written by a high school student.

I am glad I re-read it as an audiobook. Jim Fyfe did a good job with voice characterizations.

I rate this book 5 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: The Outsiders by S. E. Hinton.

Note: This book has often been placed on banned book lists over the years, especially in the 1970s and 1980s. I have tagged it with the MAGA Censorship List tag because, more recently, it was challenged in Williamsburg, Iowa  and was put on a book ban list in Tennessee. The last linked article has a searchable database because the list has more than 1,100 unique titles.