Mugged, by Ann Coulter

If you're on the political left and need a reason to hate Ann Coulter, read Mugged: Racial Demagoguery from the Seventies to Obama.  This a guided tour of the left's use of race to divide America.  Even if you completely disagree with her, she provides enough ammo that someone who wants to demonstrate the hypocrisies and abuses of the left on the subject of race will have a good argument.

Several of the episodes she writes about were new to me.  How about the ambush of police at Farrakhan's mosque?  This episode should be enough to make him a political pariah, but it is one of many events that show that, at least in certain periods and in certain places, black crime has been given a pass due to concerns about black activism.

Coulter argues that the OJ verdict was a turning point.  It was obvious to everyone that OJ was guilty of brutally murdering his estranged wife.  Yet because one of the policemen was painted as a racist for using "the N word" nearly 10 years before in the context of writing dialogue for a movie (!!!), OJ walked.  The absurdity. . . .

Whatever you think of her, read the history she presents.  The left has used race as a divisive point for too long.  Maybe if the perspective Coulter writes from were taken seriously by more Americans, some racial healing could take place.

The Pleasures of God, by John Piper

John Piper's The Pleasures of God: Meditations on God's Delight in Being God is rightly considered a modern devotional classic.  First published in 1991, it's a book worth revisiting.  It's a book that you may want to revisit immediately after visiting the first time.  Piper set out to "scour the Scriptures to find what God delights in."  It's worth taking time to ponder what he discovered.

God takes pleasure in his Son, in creation, in his fame, in our election and in Jesus' work to make election possible, in our obedience and prayers.  Here's a real key: God takes delight in us.  This truth cannot be emphasized enough. 

The Pleasures of God cannot be summarized easily--at least not by me.  Read it, read it slowly, and take delight in God's delight in you.


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

One Night in Georgia, by Celeste O. Norfleet

In the heat of the summer of 1968 three college girls head out on a road trip, driving back to college in Atlanta.  It's a simple set-up, except that the girls are black, driving in a flashy convertible through the South.  Celeste O. Norfleet's novel One Night in Georgia is a work of fiction, but it contains plenty of "it certainly could have and probably did many times" moments.

These ladies (and their companion, a college student recruited by the narrator's step father to accompany them) take a trip that is as much as snapshot of race relations and history as it is a coherent narrative.  Much of the book is a history lesson, as the ladies have mini-debates about race and the issues of the day.  One lady is from old money, one is very fair-skinned, and the narrator is the daughter of a prominent civil rights lawyer who was beaten to death by police as she watched.  Their male companion is a Vietnam vet.

They encounter lots of stereotypical members of both races in their travels.  The racist whites who lash out in anger that the black people touched their children, just after those same black people saved the children from drowning.  The neighborly white people who stand up against the racists.  The rude white people in the cafe who sling racist remarks.  The white waitress and her father, the sheriff, who defend the students, in part because the sheriff said black soldiers with whom he served saved his life.  The white racist police who arrest the group for no reason and take possession of their car.

All of this leads up to that "one night in Georgia" where everything changed for all of them.  Norfleet illustrates the impossible dilemmas that black people in the South experienced.  When a crime is committed in certain places and circumstances, a black person has no hope for justice.

One Night in Georgia is a passable story with some believable and some melodramatic moments.  The didactic nature of the novel is worthwhile, but frequently seems forced, detracting from the story.  The main character's romantic interest seemed too fast and counter to her nature, and their night of passion was a bit too graphic for a mainstream novel.  The novel is worth reading, especially if you're looking for a window into attitudes black people held about race in the 1960s, but qua novel it's not the greatest.



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

Trump's Enemies, by Corey Lewandowski and David Bossie

Corey Lewandowski and David Bossie had a front-row seat to one of the most unusual and contentious presidential elections in modern America history.  Lewandowski served as Trump's campaign manager from before the announcement through the summer of 2016.  Bossie served as deputy campaign manager.  The two have remained enthusiastic supporters of Trump's presidency.

In Trump's Enemies: How the Deep State is Undermining the Presidency, these two insiders tell insider stories that make the book worth reading.  No matter how you feel about Trump, from a historical and human interest perspective, it's great to read their perspective on some of the events of the campaign, as well as stories that didn't make the news cycles.

The question prompted by the subtitle, Is the deep state truly undermining Trump's presidency?, is more nuanced than the simple retelling of events.  Trump's fans will shout in impassioned agreement; Trump's detractors will be a bit more skeptical.  But there's no question about the authors' interpretation of the tone and specifics of the attacks from the press and from within the government, even within Trump's own offices.  Many otherwise conservative bureaucrats and appointees found it convenient to retain their government jobs or seek appointments from Trump for the mere purpose of opposing and exposing his agenda.  Lewandowski and Bossie shed uncomplimentary light on the manipulation by Washington deep state "swamp creatures."

I'd like to see a Trump detractor read Trump's Enemies with an open mind.  It may not lead to a conversion to Trump support, but consideration of this book will definitely lead to a better understanding and appreciation of Trump, his policies, and the surprising success he has accomplished in the face of opposition.

Fall; or, Dodge in Hell, by Neal Stephenson

Some of my favorite books have been written by Neal Stephenson.  At times, his writing borders on brilliance.  But every writer has an occasional down day.  Stephenson had a down year while he was writing Fall; or, Dodge in Hell.  Some of the ideas that start the book are great, potentially.  Fans of Stephenson's prior work will be pleased to see the return of Richard Forthrast, his niece, Enoch Root, and others from Cryptonomicron, Reamde, and other books.  But once you're used to the new manifestations of these characters, and the ideas play themselves out, the bulk of the book is left, and let me tell you, it's a drag.

Stephenson's cool ideas: a fake nuclear attack on a remote American town, orchestrated and reported by social media, triggering panic and leading to a transformation of the internet; the technology of downloading one's mind to a computer; and the core of the story, the creation of a computer-based society for those downloaded mind/souls.

The story turns into a ridiculous recreation of human society with nods to ancient mythology and biblical stories.  Stephenson creates this new history and mythology in this online computer world.  It is so dull it's unreadable.  This history drags on and on, with fewer and fewer looks into the land of the living.  Even the land of the living becomes ridiculous, as the entire power grid becomes strained supplying the power to run the computers to which everyone is getting downloaded.

I kept reading for one reason, as painful as it was: Stephenson has been a great story teller, sos I kept waiting for the payoff.  But 880 pages later, it was nothing but let down.  I couldn't stand it.  But the fact is, next time Stephenson publishes a book, you know I'll read it.  As bad as Fall is, I am not prepared to give up on Stephenson--yet.


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

Finding Ultra, by Rich Roll

I know it's a generalization, but triathletes are typically type-A, arrogant, insufferably vain, number-obsessed athletes.  Rich Roll is all that, times ten.  Of course, in the case of competitive triathletes, and ten times in Roll's case, these qualities directly impact their individual success.  In Finding Ultra: Rejecting Middle Age, Becoming One of the World's Fittest Men, and Discovering Myself, Roll tells the story of rise to high levels of competitive swimming, the lows of alcohol abuse, and the highs of ultra-distance triathlons. 

Roll serves his story up with a healthy dose of ego.  He's the kind of guy who makes most guys absolutely sick.  He had privilege and athletic gifts, and squandered it with partying.  While attending an elite prep school in D.C., he joined an exclusive swim team and became nationally ranked.  He turned down an offer to swim for Harvard, choosing to head east to Stanford instead.  There his partying increased and his performance suffered.  His alcohol habit caused him to miss out on Stanford's national championship meets.

Fast forward through many years of alcohol abuse and, paradoxically, professional success, and Roll decides he needs to get in shape.  Like a true addict, he doesn't do anything half way, and begins triathlon training.  All the Ironman triathlons are booked for the next year, so he talks his way onto the starting line for the Ultraman, a three-day race that is double an Ironman.  Later, he and a friend do the Epic5, five Ironman-distance triathlons on five Hawaiian islands in seven days.  I have to admit, his accounts of these races tempt me to try triathlon racing, in Hawaii or elsewhere.

On the one hand, Roll's story is the inspiring story of a guy who didn't reach middle age and give up on reaching for audacious goals.  He doubled down on aging and proved to himself that he could go faster and farther.  He was, in fact, named by a health magazine as one of the fittest men in the world.  On the other hand, it's the story of a prep school kid who blew opportunities, who got away with partying through school and still getting a degree, goofing off through a legal internship and still getting into an Ive League law school, drinking his way through the prime of his life and still achieving a level of athletic performance most men can only dream of.  He's a guy who prioritizes his training over his family and law practice, travels to Hawaii to participate in races to stroke his ego, and still manages to come out on top.  Yeah, he worked hard to become competitive in ultra racing, but he comes across as a groan-inducing braggart.


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

The Gentle Giants of Ganymede, by James P. Hogan

On the heels of James P. Hogan's first novel, 1977's Inherit the Stars, Hogan published The Gentle Giants of Ganymede in 1978.  In the first book, the discovery of a 50,000-year-old human corpse on the moon leads to more discoveries about a race of beings who lived in our solar system millennia in the past.  In Gentle Giants, a space ship from those millennia past shows up, beginning a new friendship between modern humans and their ancient, giant forebears.

Thanks to the Ganymeans' sophisticated AI, like Siri only much, much more powerful, the language barrier is quickly breached.  The Ganymeans confirm much of what the human researchers had pieced together, and a friendship bond between the few hundred Ganymeans and the humans develops.  The humans welcome them with open arms.  I like the fact that Hogan doesn't rely on melodramatic scheming and plotting between or among the different races.  Maybe it's a utopian dream that races and species can have first contact without a conflict, but I enjoyed what Hogan did with this story.

Hogan works in legit science with anticipated alien science, all while anticipating future science.  Like other great sci-fi writers (yeah, I would consider Hogan one of the greats), he doesn't let the science bog down the story but includes it almost like a character in the story.  Gentle Giants is even better than Inherit the Stars and is a great set up for book 3.