DWD's Reviews

A Classic Sci-Fi Novel Originally published 1912 in a magazine serial. (1917 in book form) Since the movie John Carter is coming out in a couple of months I decided to go back and re-read the original of the 11 books that Burroughs wrote about Mars (or, as he calls it, Barsoom). I originally read the entire series, or at least most of it, nearly 30 years ago, when I was in high school. I must admit, I was struck by the art of Michael Whelen's cover more than anything else when I first picked it up and my circle of friends read at least some of them. I remembered them fondly but found myself very vague on the specifics. I remembered the Princess was very beautiful and there were multiple races on Mars and that some had four arms and that Carter, a former Confederate soldier, traveled from Earth to Mars in some kind of psychic manner and that there was a lot of fighting. Turns out, what I took as a poor memory was actually pretty accurate. The Princess is beaut...

Powerful and dead on. Published 2011 by Thomas Nelson 237 pages, including end notes. David Murrow has put a lot of thought into why men do not go to church. I am in my mid-40s and have gone to church all of my life, with the exception of 2 or 3 years right after college where my wife and I went every once in a while at best.  We have been at the same church for 18 years. We have a great church but we do have wives that come to church without their husbands week in and week out - not many, but after reading this book and being made more aware of the issue I am sure I will notice more. Murrow has studied and interviewed and talked and listened about this topic for years and he has come up with 12 reasons that men do not come to church. Among them are: -I'll hate church, like when I was a kid; -I'll lose control; -If I become a Christian, I'll become soft; -Church is full of hypocrites; -All they want is my money; -I'm jealous (women who idolize the p...

A breezy look at a worthy topic Published in 2011 by Regnery Publishing, Inc. 394 pages including extensive notes and an index. Generally intended as an antidote to the slanted education that many of us have received, the Politically Incorrect Guide (P.I.G.) series is an entertaining series loosely based on the "Idiots Guide..." and the "Dummies..." books. The Politically Incorrect Guide to the British Empire is an immensely readable look at the British Empire - it's origins, its ideals, its controversies and its rather abrupt ending after World War II. The format of the book is pretty simple. Crocker picks an area of the British Empire and than gives a brief (15-25 pages) history of the Empire in that part of the world, from beginning to end. Then, he focuses on several of the personalities mentioned in the brief history with biographies that go into greater detail. Sir Francis Drake (1540-1596) Those personalities are way more interesting than...

  A bit of nostalgia Published 1959 by Random House 180 pages Many, many years ago Random House published a series of more than 100 books called "Landmark Books". These were short histories of a little more than 150 pages that were long on action and short on historical analysis. Francis Marion (1732-1795) The Swamp Fox Nevertheless, these were this history teacher's first introduction to written history. The library in Hope, Indiana had a whole shelf of these books and I happily read about Daniel Boone and the Alamo and John Paul Jones. I happened across this one at a middle school library clearance. The book delivers as I remember - lots of action and not much into the motivations of Francis Marion and the others who hid in the swamps of South Carolina with him and fought the British Army. That's okay, though. It's aimed at middle schoolers/upper elementary students and they don't care much for analysis anyway. Better to get them an appea...

A fun introduction to American history for young children Published June 2011 by Big Tent Books Illustrations by John W. Ewing 32 pages My Best Friend, Abe Lincoln is a children's book (ages 5-8) that creates a fictional account of the adventures of Abraham Lincoln and his best friend as a child in southern Indiana. The best friend, Sam Harding, is entirely made up (as the book makes clear) but the story is based on known details of Lincoln's childhood (for example, Lincoln called the school of his sparse formal education a "blab" school and this book does too) and includes details that would have been common to almost all children of the frontier. The illustrations should be very approachable to all children since the illustrator, John Ewing, is a former Disney illustrator and he uses a familiar Disney-esque style with his characters. I thought his interpretation of young Lincoln's face was interesting - I had never considered how Lincoln's distinctiv...

A little book about a big man (Would you like a little sci-fi with your politics?) Published by Quirk Books in January of 2012. 248 pages. Okay, let's get the ridiculous part of  the book out of the way. Yes, Taft 2012 is based entirely on a silly premise: What if William Howard Taft disappeared from history the day Wilson was inaugurated and arrived in the year 2011 and fired up everyone's imagination to run for president again in 2012? But, setting that aside, what if Taft were alive and well today? What would he think of the United States 100 years after it rejected him for his re-election bid? If you love The Twilight Zone or those Harry Turtledove time-traveling books and you are interested in politics, this one will satisfy. William Howard Taft (1857-1930) I liked the book because I liked Heller's characterization of William Howard Taft. It's not hard for this overweight reviewer to sympathize with our fattest president (he got stuck in the preside...

"Even if the theory of global warming is wrong, we will be doing the right thing." Published in 2007 by Regnery Publishing 366 pages I am a former environmentalist. Quotes like the one in my title (from Tim Wirth, a former Senator and Clinton State Department official) pushed me to be a FORMER environmentalist. Now I am a conservationist. I do believe some wild spaces should be saved. I recycle (A lot!). I coordinate my school's paper recycling program. I own several of those little fluorescent bulbs and I use them every day. I don't spray chemicals all over my yard. I don't dump motor oil down the drain. I pick up garbage when I walk the dog. I go camping. I go to the Earth Day celebration in downtown Indianapolis because it's a great place to get information on clean-up events and they give away free trees! I also love it when they assume that I must be an ultra-liberal just to be there! Now that I've said all of this, let me say ...