Conquest, by John Connolly and Jennifer Ridyard

John Connolly and Jennifer Ridyard's Conquest starts out like a lot of sci-fi novels: a more advanced civilization takes over a more primitive Earth.  The Illyri look much like us, and their culture is enough like ours that they blend right in.  This was sort of strange--there were greater cultural and physiological differences between European explorers and some of the natives they encountered than between Illyri and humans.  For the most part, the Illyri are benevolent dictators, sharing beneficial technology and medical advancements, while only killing a few million people and destroying Rome (minor details).

But humans don't like to be invaded.  Once the set-up of the story is complete, Conquest turns to a teen love story that feels like it should be on the shelf next to Twilight or Hunger Games.  The daughter of an Illyri leader gets mixed up with some super-cute teenage boys who are part of the resistance, fighting Illyri occupation.  Then her dad's super mean political rivals arrive from the home world to assert control over Earth.  She has to escape with her new boyfriend and fight the mean Illyri.

Conquest is not so much a book for sci-fi fans as a book for teens.  The tone, the scientific element (lack of), and the overly simplistic story places it squarely outside the realm of serious sci-fi.  Besides the whole star-crossed lovers element, I couldn't stand the melodramatic court intrigue.  It was almost insulting to read the cartoonish villains, like from a bad fairy tail.  And they had to throw in an dash of magic and telepathy to further push it into YA fantasy and away from hard sci-fi. 

If they ever make a movie of this, it might be entertaining.  I don't mind 90-120 minutes of special effects, battle scenes, and cheesy story lines.  But I didn't enjoy reading it, and I certainly won't be reading the sequel(s).  Too many other good books out there.


Thanks to Edelweiss and the publisher for the complimentary electronic review copy!

Radiant, by Traer Scott

If you are a dedicated carnivore, but have a tender heart toward animals, you probably want to avoid Traer Scott's Radiant: Farm Animals Up Close and Personal.  Scott's collection of photographs of a variety of farm animals will make you want to cuddle these animals, not eat them.  As he points out, we don't typically think of farm animals as having personality, but spending time around them he discovered the intelligence of pigs, the friendliness and warmth of cows, and the social nature of chickens.

Many of the pictures are exactly what you would visualize as stereotypical farm animals, but a few, like the llamas and alpacas, won't be in any danger of showing up at the butcher.  In fact, all of the animals in Radiant were photographed at animal sanctuaries, where they can live out their lives without fear of the slaughterhouse.

Scott presents these photographs as a counterpoint to the factory farms so prevalent today.  He doesn't spend a lot of time on factory farms, but it's enough to make you think twice about the meat you eat from the supermarket or fast food restaurant.  Ecological or ethical questions aside, you will enjoy the simple beauty of these animals.  They may not be exotic, but Scott's photography captures their individual looks and unique characteristics in a very appealing way.

Buddy?  Or bacon?

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the complimentary electronic review copy!

#Sad!, by G. B. Trudeau

Unfortunately, the once estimable G.B. Trudeau has come down with a case of T.D.S. (Trump Derangement Syndrome).  In his collection of comic strips #Sad! Doonesbury in the Time of Trump, he covers the months leading up to Trump's election and the first year or so of his presidency.  Like virtually every American comedian, Trudeau has given up humor in favor of bashing Trump.

Occasionally some of the strips poke fun at things like the PC culture, and Trudeau's characters go on with their lives.  So if you're a fan of Doonesbury, this collection might be just the thing for you to enjoy.  But if you're tired of the "Trump is stupid and evil" narrative being passed off as humor, don't waste your time with this book.  Let Trudeau write himself into obscurity.


Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the complimentary electronic review copy!

Every Job a Parable, by John Van Sloten

As a pastor, John Van Sloten has made it his mission to help lay people see the sacredness and service of their own work, whatever that may be.  In Every Job a Parable: What Walmart Greeters, Nurses, and Astronauts Tell Us about God, he helps readers "kindle a new kind of vocational imagination, to help you experience God at work more, and to help you read the parable that is your job."

Van Sloten doesn't just point out the obvious ways in which certain jobs help others, but points to the manifestation of Christ that we can show.  In the medical field, doctors, nurses, and other practitioners can be the healing hands of Jesus.  First responders give a very present help in time of need.

But beyond some of the obvious examples, as the title suggests, every job is a means to demonstrating and practicing love and service for God and for others.  Van Sloten writes, "You are not primarily what you accomplish at work, nor is your value based on the sum of your aptitudes and skills.  Who you are is defined by how you selflessly and humbly relate--how you give, how you receive, and how you image the giving and receiving God."

I really enjoyed Van Sloten's take on vocation.  Even when you're punching a clock at a dead-end job, let Van Sloten change your perspective and see how God can use you there.  It's a word that most people in today's economic milieu need to hear.


Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the complimentary electronic review copy!

White Kids, by Margaret A. Hagerman

Toward the end of her book White Kids: Growing Up with Privilege in a Racially Divided America, Margaret Hagerman writes, "Overall, from my point of view, this has not been a particularly hopeful book."  I would agree, but I would add that this has not been a particularly helpful book either.  Here's a news flash: white adolescents from well-to-do families may not have the most progressive views on race.  In fact, like any adolescent, their views on race (and everything) is fluid, immature, unformed.

Hagerman spends a whole book reproducing her conversations and observations from white kids and their families.  In doing so, she seeks to demonstrate that "white children receive the wages of race from very early ages and well into young adulthood."  That when white parents "fail to acknowledge inequality and racism . . . they are unintentionally complicit in the reproduction of it."  That even when parents "raise children in ways that truly cultivate antiracist praxis" they nevertheless receive "unearned white advantage and the benefits of class privilege."

Hagerman spends all her time talking to families in a thinly disguised, unnamed midwestern city.  (Based on the descriptions, and based on the fact that she taught at the University of Wisconsin, I'm guessing Madison.)  As a result, her sample size is quite limited.  When one thinks of a broadly diverse racial culture, I'm not sure Madison, Wisconsin comes to mind.  For many of these kids, the only black people they know are from poor and working class families.  In a larger metropolitan area, or in Southern cities, I suspect she'd find a wider array of black families.  (Come to Fort Worth and I'll introduce you to some.)

Despite the limited scope, she makes a few good points.  Many of the white families do value diversity.  They want their children to experience environments where they will interact with children of other races.  As Hagerman points out, though, wealthy white families have the option to choose their experiences.  Poor black families also want their children to interact with other races, but they are often not welcome, by tradition or simply an entry fee, at place or programs where white kids are participating.

White families do face a dilemma: like every family, we want the best for our kids.  But what if our kids have access to the best schools, programs, job opportunities, etc., because of our race, the (white) neighborhood we might live in, the financial status and generational wealth our family has (which black families haven't had an opportunity to have in prior generations), and other structural issues?  Do we then deny our own kids?  That way lies white guilt and racial restitution.  Hagerman's book sparks important conversations, but her whole tone and direction are not hopeful--or helpful.


Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the complimentary electronic review copy!

The Warmth of Other Suns, by Isabel Wilkerson

From about 1915 until well past the middle of the 20th century, a great migration occurred of African Americans from the South into the Northeast, the Midwest, the West Coast.  In the Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration, Isabel Wilkerson tells the stories of three families and the history that surrounds them during this era.

Wilkerson doesn't lie when she includes "epic" in the subtitle.  The stories she tells span most of the century and several generations.  She selected three subjects whose family stories are representative of the experiences, tragedies, dreams, and triumphs of countless black families.

George Swanson Starling grew up picking oranges, but went off to college.  Unfortunately, his father refused to continue to pay his tuition.  He returned to the orange groves and rallied his fellow pickers to demand better pay.  That made him a target, so he left Florida, moved to Harlem, and went to work as a railroad porter.

All Ida Mae Brandon Gladney knew was picking cotton with all the other sharecroppers in Mississippi.  After her cousin was falsely accused of stealing turkeys and beaten badly for his troubles, Ida Mae and her family settled up with their landlord and headed north.  They ultimately settled in Chicago, where she became a pillar of the black community.

Robert Joseph Pershing Foster, like most blacks in Monroe, Louisiana, dreamed of living somewhere else.  His father was the principal of the black high school, his mother was a teacher, and his older brother was a doctor, so it made sense that he would get a good education and go to medical school.  After serving in the military as a doctor, he wanted to practice medicine somewhere besides their small Louisiana town, so he headed to California.  He eventually built a successful practice, primarily serving other black immigrants.

Wilkerson weaves the stories of these three stories together with their families' stories, the stories of other immigrants of the era, and the broader history of black America.  Several things stand out.  First, the sheer numbers of black people who left the South--millions and millions.  Some industries had to shut down for lack of workers.  Whites actively tried to keep blacks in the South, patrolling train stations and preventing people from leaving.

In each of these three cases, in New York, the Midwest, and in California, the migrants were disappointed to find that while they may have left Jim Crow behind in the South, his relatives were alive and well in other parts of the country.  Hotels, clubs, casinos, restaurants, even whole neighborhoods were off-limits to blacks.  White people assumed they were fit only for certain jobs, like hard labor or domestic work.  European immigrants who were arriving during this same period were able to blend in eventually because of their complexion, but blacks stood out, no matter how much education they had or how much they acclimated to their new homes.

Wilkerson masterfully conveys the broad sweep of history that the Great Migration represents.  Many of the stories she tells sound like ancient history, so foreign do the attitudes toward race seem.  Yet some of these immigrants are still alive.  In another sense, she helps to point out the ways that racism was woven into the very structure of many of our institutions.  The Warmth of Other Suns will give you an appreciation for all that this generation of black Americans had to overcome, and gratitude for the much more racially harmonious times we live in today.

What I Talk About When I Talk About Running, by Haruki Murakami

I have often said that the value of a book about running is whether it inspires me to get off the couch and go run.  Haruki Murakami's What I Talk about When I Talk about Running: A Memoir passes that test with flying colors.  Many American readers are not familiar with Murakami, an award-winning Japanese novelist.  He has written dozens of novels and short stories that have been translated into more than 50 languages.  In this running memoir, first published in 2008, Murakami talks about how his work as a novelist, his life, and his running are all a piece of who he is.

Murakami took up running at the time he decided to become a full-time writer.  He knew that sitting at a desk writing or thinking about writing all day would be detrimental to his health.  He began a habit of running an average of six miles a day and training for a marathon each year.  Later on he began competing in triathlons.

At no point does Murakami come off as an elite runner.  But he certainly sets an example as a dedicated, competitive amateur.  His work has clearly benefitted from his activity as a runner.  Most of us will never be famous novelists (or famous anything), but he models for us the habits of life and attitudes that can contribute to our success and overall well-being. 

Murakami's writing is engaging, personal, sometimes funny, and, most of all, relatable.  Not only does he inspire me to prioritize habitual running and racing, but I may also need to check out some of his novels.