Book Reviews

Tenth of December by George Saunders

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Takeaway: Another short story collection I didn’t like, surprise!

Anyone that has read my blog regularly over the past year or so will not be surprised that I didn’t like another collection of short stories.  That makes me 0.5 of 5 this year.  And it is not that the collections were poorly reviewed or by bad writers.  The collections I have read over the last year were by PJ Wodehouse, GK Chesterton, Dorothy Sayers, and Flannery O’Connor and now George Saunders.  (Technically the Flannery O’Connor was a few days over a year ago.  And it was definitely the one I liked the best of the five.)

Given my general dislike of short stories you as reader are probably tired of me posting about not liking them.  But I keep wanting to read books that are well reviewed and generally loved.  Karen Swallow Prior gave Tenth of December very good review at Books and Culture. And it one the 10 best books by New York Times Book Review as well as winning some other awards.

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The Financial Crisis and the Free Market Cure: Why Pure Capitalism Is the World Economy’s Only Hope by John Allison

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John Allison was the CEO of one of the only large banks that stayed profitable during the financial upheaval that came to a head in 2008. During his 20 year tenure at BB&T, during which he lead based on the principles of Ayn Rand, the bank grew exponentially in its success (from assets of $4.5 billion to $152 billion). During the crisis, the federal government in essence forced BB&T to take bailout money, even though they didn’t want it or need it, and they were literally the very first bank to pay back the money once it was legal to do so.

It’s fair to say that Allison had a front seat to the financial crisis, but from the perspective of a healthy bank. During all the crazed activity in Washington running up to TARP (Troubled Asset Relief Plan””the massive bailout of the financial industry), while the Federal Reserve was propping up banks, insurance and other finance companies and dictating the sale of others, Allison tried multiple times to consult with leadership at the Federal Reserve and the Treasury. But it was in vain–those making such monumental financial decisions weren’t interested in hearing from the healthy banks, just the dangerously overleveraged ones.

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Our Great Big American God: A Short History of Our Ever Growing Deity by Matthew Paul Turner

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Summary: A romp through American religious history with a bit of humor and cynicism, but a lot of serious questions about how Christianity has changed on American soil. This is the third book that I have read by Matthew Paul Turner. The first two were memoirs, of his childhood in a Fundamentalist church and how … Read more

The Man Who Knew Too Much by GK Chesterton

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Summary: A collection of 8 short stories (mysteries) centered around the character Horne Fisher, someone that knows everyone and know why the system usually frames the wrong person.

I have been getting a bit bored with my standard fare lately so I keep switching books in rapid succession trying to find the right book to hit my mood.

The Man Who Knew Too Much was not it.  But the stories are relatively interesting.  I am not a fan of short stories.  I like more character development and a longer story arc.  But I enjoyed Chesterton’s Father Brown Mysteries so I gave this a try.

Horne Fisher is an intelligent, upper crust Englishman.  He “˜knows too much’ about how things work and who is behind them.  So these are a fairly cynical bunch of stories mostly centered around how those with money and power can get away with things that other cannot.

But Horne is there to explain and figure out the solution that sometimes puts the real person back in the spot light, although in the cases that I listened to it wasn’t about putting them in jail or punishing them, but simply identifying them, often because the guilty party is either already dead or in some other method has already received their ‘reward’.  These stories are more about the why something was done than the how of Sherlock Holmes stories (so still a similar different as the Father Brown stories.)

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Mere Christianity by CS Lewis

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Summary: A classic book of apologetics.

I know it is near heretical in some Evangelical circles, but I have never read Mere Christianity before.  As you are reading this I should by Kayaking around a small island in Georgian Bay of Lake Huron.  This is my 20th trip with my guy friends from College.

For the past couple years I have conned them into reading a book prior to the trip to give us something to discuss.  Since I have some influence and there are two pastor’s kids, a missionary, and a hebrew professor in the group we read theology.  We have read Scripture and the Authority of God and The Lost World of Genesis One (which sparked online discussions of The Bible Made Impossible and Incarnation and Inspiration).

This year we decided to read Mere Christianity.  I think only one of us had previously read it.  Prior to the trip I listened to it on audiobook and then re-read it on kindle on the plane ride.

I understand somewhat why it is a classic.  In part, because huge sections of the first part (the more general apologetics section) I have heard in one form or another. So Lewis’ arguments are either standard arguments about God or those that are original have been repeated so much over the past 60 years that they sound standard.

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Citizen Insane by Karen Cantwell

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Summary: A suburban housewife and her two friends find out that their neighborhood struggles (PTA, school year books, crazy neighbors, etc) all might be connected to a much deeper problem than they could have expected.

I am very careful with my purchases of books.  Because I aways have a few (hundred) books that I could fall back to reading from my library, I tend to only buy books when they are on sale or I really have a specific interest.  But I also tend to always pick up free Audible credits or promotional books.  Recently there was a $10 promotional credit for Audible.  And I used it to buy audio companions to books that I already had on Kindle, but I had not ever gotten around to reading.  I try to be adventurous because after all I didn’t pay for the credit, I might as well go out of my standard reading practice.

As I have said recently, nothing lately has really been pricking my interest.  Usually when I get in this mood I need to find something funny.

Citizen Insane was billed as a funny cozy mystery.  It is about Barb, a suburban housewife, mother of three and wife of an FBI agent that is a dead ringer for George Clouney.  This is the second book in a series (didn’t realize that when I picked it up, but the first book, Take the Monkeys and Run is free on Kindle). The books in this series are relatively short (less than 200 pages) and funny (almost farcical) look at suburban life.

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Ignorance: How It Drives Science by Stuart Firestein

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Summary: It is ignorance, not knowledge that really drives science.

Stuart Firestein is a professor of Neurobiology and a researcher.  At one point he realized that he loved doing research and coming up with new things to research and questions to ask.  But when he taught his upper level undergrads about Neurobiology he tended to focus not on the questions and what was unknown and where the science was going, but on the facts.

He realized that this gave students the impression that what was important was gaining a foothold in the facts so that they could grasp the concepts of the field.  But what he needed to be teaching them was not the facts (although they did need basic information and concepts that were important), he needed to be teaching them wonder and sparking the creative ideas of his students and helping them understand that no matter how much we will learn, that the very fact of learning opens up new areas of ignorance so that there will never be a point when science has solved all the questions of particular field.

The book is split into two large sections, the first is a description of what Ignorance is all about. Eventually, Firestein started teaching a class on ignorance. He would bring in prominent scientists in their field and talk about what was unknown, what areas were driving their research, what things that scientist would love to know, but can’t because of limitations of equipment or observation.  Essentially, the scientists talked about all the areas of their field that they were ignorant of and how that was driving their science.

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Waterfall: A Novel by Lisa Bergren (River of Time #1)

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Summary: A surprisingly prepared 17 year old gets sent back into time to 14th Century Italy.

I have a pretty high tolerance for cheesy stories. But Waterfall really pushed the cheesy factors. I was pretty tired of all the teen slang that felt like it was included to try and be more authentic, but ended up being annoying and making the book feel younger and less professional.

Gabi is a 17 year old daughter of a pair of archeologists. Her father recently died and she and her sister and mother are on site in Italy trying to excavate an ancient tomb. While exploring the tomb, Gabi and her sister touches the wall and somehow Gabi gets sent back to 14th century Italy. When she walks out of the tomb she is in the midst of a small battle between two neighboring keeps (and her sister is no where to be found.)

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Time’s Echo by Rysa Walker (Chronos Files #1.5)

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Time's Echo by Rysa WalkerSummary: A short novella (about 100 pages) from an alternate perspective to keep interest in the series until the next book comes out later this fall.

I really do feel for authors.  It used to be that authors could write a book a year, or maybe even a book every couple years.  But these days that does not seem to be enough for many.  Publishers and fans seem to want authors to put out a couple books a year or at least have the first couple books ready to published is quick succession.

Timebound was a KindleFirst book in December, but was officially published in January 2014.  Then Time’s Echo is a novella that was published at the end of April.  And Time’s Edge is the second full length book scheduled to be released Oct 21, 2014.  So two full novels and a novella published in the span of just 10 months.

The Chronos Files is a young adult time traveling series.  Kate is a high school student at the beginning of the series and she finds out that her long lost grandmother is actually a time traveler from the future.  And Kate has to learn how to use the time traveling medallion to stop her grandfather and aunt from changing history and maybe making her family cease to exist.

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Mercury Falls by Robert Kroese

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Summary: Did you read Good Omens by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett? Well this is basically the same plot.

I am trying to give KindleUnlimited a good shot.  As I am posting this, I have finished nine KindleUnlimited books since it was released a bit over three weeks ago.

What is good about a program like KindleUnlimited is that it have a very low threshold to try something new.  There is no cost for the individual book, just the monthly subscription.

Mercury Falls is one of the better reviewed fantasy books on KindleUnlimited and it has free audiobook narration included.

The bad part of subscription book programs is that there is a lot of junk you need to sort through in order to get to the good stuff.

Mercury Falls is not a bad book. I actually enjoyed it, but if you have read Good Omens, it really is basically the same book.  (My review of Good Omens.)

In both Armageddon is about to happen. In Good Omens, an angel and a demon work together to stop it from happening.  In Mercury Falls, an Angel (Mercury, he also was mistaken for a god by the Greeks and Romans) and a human reporter (Christine) decide to try and stop Armageddon.

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