Review--Here If You Need Me

Here If You Need Me: A True Story

By Kate Braestrup

When Kate Braestrup’s husband, Drew, a police officer, died suddenly in a traffic accident, he had been planning to enter the ministry. After his death, Kate decided to follow his chosen path herself, in his memory.

Planning to become a chaplain serving police officers, she instead found herself as a Unitarian Universalist minister working as a chaplain for the Maine Warden Service. Accompanying them on searches for hikers lost in the Maine forest, comforting relatives while they waited, being there when the worst possible news arrived, Kate discovered depths of strength and beauty in the world, and in herself.

This is a short but powerful book. Beautifully written, it is by turns poetically eloquent and almost brutally straightforward, all tempered by Braestrup’s sharp, sometimes irreverent sense of humor. Her work brings her face-to-face with the best and worst of humanity, and with unanswerable questions about life, death, and God.

Review--The Gift of Change--Marianne Williamson

The Gift of Change
by Marianne Williamson

Based largely on principals from A Course in Miracles, Marianne Williamson’s latest book offers hope for a new and better world.

Change is good. Change is necessary. Yet we so often fight it, wanting nothing more than to cling to the familiar. Williamson speaks of change as an opportunity to become the people God intends us to be, and to claim the gifts God has reserved for us.

Too many of us, Williamson says, believe we don’t deserve to have goodness in our lives. If we’re not suffering, we’re not on a proper spiritual path. This is not only untrue, but is the polar opposite of what God intends for our lives. By releasing control, worry and doubt, we can turn everything over to God with an expectation of results that will bring blessing to not only ourselves, but to all those around us, and to the world.

This message isn’t new, but Williamson has a way of making it sound personal and, more importantly, doable. Her straightforward presentation of profound, life-changing ideas gives the reader the hope that we can, indeed, embrace the gift of change, and through that acceptance bring about a far better world.

Book Review--Violin--Anne Rice

Violin is one of those books where the author has obviously put so much effort into the language that you keep reading, hoping that at some point there will be a plot, or some strong characterization, or something else that has received as much attention as the poetic words. Then you realize you've read a hundred pages, then a hundred and fifty, and nothing has really happened.

There's really nothing to Violin. Even the poetic language falters, often overwrought, and repeating the same themes to tiresome effect. The motivations of Stefan, the ghostly owner of the titular violin, are never fully explained, and Triana, the heroine, receives similarly short shrift.

Although I've read numerous Anne Rice books that I loved, this book did little for me, and if I hadn't been on a plane reading the book straight through, I probably wouldn't have bothered finishing it.

Audio Book Review: Seventh Son--Orson Scott Card

Seventh Son by Orson Scott Card

My review

rating: 4 of 5 stars
Orson Scott Card's politics give me hives, but these are good books as I recall. I read the first three several years ago and never finished the series. Rereading the first one now, I'm impressed by the alternate history and the general theme of the books, which presents a much less hive-producing worldview.

This was the audio version--very well produced, although the multiple narrators didn't really add much. And the man who narrated Reverend Thrower's sections couldn't decided whether to use a Scottish, Irish or American accent, which was a bit distracting.

Downloaded from local library's mp3 section--an awesome thing to have access to.

View all my reviews.

Acts of Faith

Acts of Faith

The Story of an American Muslim, the Struggle for the Soul of a Generation
Eboo Patel

In Acts of Faith, Eboo Patel, a Muslim of Indian heritage, relates his journey from an angry, displaced college student to the founder of the Interfaith Youth Core. Throughout the book, he asks an important question: How do some young people become violent militants for their religion or other beliefs while others choose a more peaceful and productive path of inclusion and understanding?

Patel sees himself as having narrowly missed the path of the violent militant. As he relates in the book, he had more than a passing acquaintance during his college career with militant groups both religious and political. Had the timing been only slightly different, he could easily have walked the path of the terrorist.

Instead, Patel found another path. Inspired by Dorothy Day and the Catholic Worker Movement, he envisioned an organization where young people of all faiths could work together in cooperation and understanding, while at the same time coming to a deeper, more fulfilling relationship with their own faith. His journey to make the Interfaith Youth Core a reality brought him from the University of Illinois to Oxford (as a Rhodes Scholar), and then to the India of his ancestry, where his venture was encouraged by none other than the Dalai Lama. Along the way, he not only brought this unique organization to life, but came to grips with his own identity as an Indian Muslim, deepening his own faith and coming to a greater understanding of those of other faiths.

Patel tells an involving, moving story, pulling few punches. Much of his theory behind IFYC is that young people are starving for meaning and worth, and if that hunger isn’t fed by compassion and love, then it will be filled by those who wish to turn them to beliefs that lead to violence. Church youth groups can fill this need.

Patel also offers much food for thought. How are we failing our children, our faiths, and our future by drawing lines in the sand that label different faiths and beliefs as “other?” The very fact that Patel is Muslim will turn some people away from this book. Those are the very people who should be reading it. His presentation of Islam is worlds away from the vision we receive every day through oversimplified news reports and fear-based judgment of Christian religious organizations. Patel’s organization leads youth to further understanding of each other—reading his book, spending a few hours inside his head, can lead anyone who reads it to further understanding of Patel, Islam, and the necessity of interfaith understanding.

Faith & Fitness
Diet and Exercise for a Better World
by Tom P. Hafer

I found the title and cover of this book to be fairly misleading, or maybe I just developed incorrect expectations. The book has little to do with a particular fitness program or dietary approach, or keeping motivated while trying to achieve fitness, or anything else that the title would seem to imply. Instead it’s more about how your faith should inform your relationship with the world, leading you to eat better because it’s good for your fellow man and will help preserve the environment and reduce poverty throughout the world.

If I sound cynical or skeptical with that description, it’s not so much because the book doesn’t have good things to say. It’s more due to the tone of the book. One post-chapter reflection question involves what you have to think about to make you feel guilty about your abundance. This doesn’t strike me as a very positive way to approach the topic at hand.

The main points of the book include:

• Our current eating habits are detrimental not only to our health but to the state of the worldwide environment (decimation of the rain forests to support cattle ranching, for example)
• Eating locally grown, in-season produce reduces the use of pesticides and fertilizers, and reduces the need for foreign-grown produce
• Fair trade coffee and other goods helps support workers in underdeveloped countries, reducing poverty
• Our sedentary lifestyle runs counter to how our bodies were intended to function, and thus leads to long-term health issues

All of these are, of course, valid points. And the author’s point that we should approach life with the idea of giving to others is well-taken. But something about his overall presentation set me on edge from the very beginning, making much of what he had to say harder to swallow than it should have been.

Audiobook--Devil Bones

Devil Bones
by Kathy Reichs
Read by Linda Emond

In this latest entry in Kathy Reichs’ Temperance Brennan series, Tempe deals with a variety of “fringe” religions in her attempts to track down a murderer.

The discovery of a human skull in a ceremonial tableau in a cellar, combined with a headless body washing up from a North Carolina lake, brings Tempe and her fellow investigators to suspect a religious cult connection to the deaths. A third body, marked with Satanic symbols, adds fuel to the fire. With local politicians calling for a witch-hunt—literally—Tempe finds herself facing practitioners of Santeria, Voodoo, and Wicca in an attempt to find the killer.

The various religious traditions are presented in an even-handed and educational way—too educational, in some cases, as one of the main suspect’s explanations of Wicca seem more like a reference book entry than realistic dialogue. Overall, this book seems a bit more driven by the info dump than earlier installments in the series. Also, the final solution of the case hinges on Tempe overlooking a detail that seems like something she wouldn’t overlook—I figured out what was going on long before she did, and that always puts me off a bit. After all, I’m not a forensic anthropologist.

Linda Emond, as usual, gives a solid reading.

Audiobook--The Road

The Road
Cormac McCarthy
Read by Tom Stechschulte

Cormac McCarthy's The Road is a powerful and involving book--high praise for a story that essentially has no plot.

The Road is set in an unspecified future, after what appears to be a nuclear cataclysm has devastated the world, or at least the part of the world we're shown in the course of the novel. The nature of the cataclysm is never explicitly discussed, but the description of a distant flash and the ensuing nuclear winter-shrouded landscape makes it fairly clear.

The story itself focuses on a father and his son, never given names, who are traveling "The Road," trying to reach the coast. The holocaust seems to have destroyed all life except human beings. The only available food is canned goods and other stores that they can raid along the way, as well as the occasional edible vegetation, including a memorable apple tree. The man and the boy peripherally encounter elements of the remaining human race, which has largely slid into an animalistic existence. One group keeps people in a cellar for food. Another cooks babies. The main characters discuss what they will and won't to do survive, clinging to their identity as "good guys," but as the story progresses this line seems less and less clear.

My major problems with this book were technical. McCarthy's refusal to supply names to anyone is metaphorically sound, but isn't always executed as well as it could be, leaving room for pronoun confusion that makes the reader stumble (or the listener, in this case). Also, I'm glad I didn't try to read this in book form, or I would have given up after a chapter or so. (God gave us quotation marks for a reason, sir. Use them.) The lack of female characters is disturbing, as well. The mother, shown in flashbacks, committed suicide to avoid the savagery she knew would grow around them. Other female characters are faceless and enslaved, until the very end, and even this nameless woman is barely given shape.

Tom Stechschulte's reading was flawless. Avoiding all the slips and confusions of McCarthy's style, he made the book completely understandable and added a powerful dramatic flair that only drew me in deeper. His treatment emphasized McCarthy's spare prose and added an emotional element that made this a truly dramatic presentation, not just an audiobook.

Darkly Dreaming Dexter--Audio Book Review

Darkly Dreaming Dexter

Jeff Lindsay
Read by Nick Landrum

If you know anything about the TV series Dexter, based on the series of books of which this is the first, you know the basic plot of Darkly Dreaming Dexter. Traumatized by a childhood event he can't remember, Dexter grows up a sociopath with a need to periodically kill. He was adopted by a police officer, however, who recognized his condition and taught him a "code" to use to control it. When Dexter can no longer ignore the demands of what he calls the "Dark Passenger," he kills. But he only kills other serial killers--people who, according to his code, deserve it.

In his more socially acceptable life, Dexter works as a blood splatter analyst for the Miami Police Department. His sister Debra is a police officer desperately trying to gain a promotion to Detective. Her chance comes in the wake of a series of bizarre murders, as she and the rest of the Miami PD try to find a killer who dismembers his victims and leaves their body parts in trash bags, completely drained of blood.

Except Dexter is starting to believe the killer is actually him.

The plot of the television adaptation diverges in several ways from the book, and this is a rare case where I felt the TV version is actually more involving and more fully realized than the book. The book's climax seems incomplete and a bit too pat. The book is definitely entertaining, though, with dark humor and well-written character voices. I look forward to reading more in the series.

Nick Landrum's reading is competent but not especially powerful, though he does a good job with various accents and maintaining suspense through the last act.

The Time Traveler's Wife

The Time Traveler's Wife

Audrey Niffenegger

The Time Traveler's Wife tells the love story of Clare and Henry, whose romance and eventual life together is marred by the fact that Henry time travels randomly. Like Sam Beckett, he travels only within his own lifetime, but he also stays fairly close to home during his temporal adventures. The romance between Clare and Henry is muddled by their braided timestreams, but manages to work itself out, anyway.

While this book dragged me in and held my attention thoroughly for the most part, in the end I had mixed feelings about it.

From a technical standpoint, the book is a tour de force, leaping from time frame to time frame, incident to incident, forward and backward in time in an alternating first person narrative between hero and heroine, without ever leaving the reader behind. But from a character and plot standpoint, I was left not entirely satisfied.

Clare is a seemingly strong, well-developed character through the first two-thirds or so of the novel, until the birth of Clare and Henry's daughter. From this point on, she seems almost like a accessory to the story, as Henry's condition worsens. After his eventual death, the rest of Clare's life is glossed over. There's no indication that she moved on or found another relationship after Henry--as far as we can tell, she simply pined away for the rest of her life, waiting for their final reunion when he time travels far into her future. I would have liked to have seen at least a brief recap and some closure for Clare, rather than have her become just an appendage for the wrap-up of Henry's story.

Henry's story, too, didn't quite work for me. Many hints were dropped that his death would come about due to a complication of his temporal displacement condition, but with one large foreshadowing event indicating it would be otherwise, this was never to develop. Having him die at the mercy of his "illness" would have been much more satisfying to me. As it was, his death was, in my opinion, too mundane.

I didn't dislike the book by any means, and would recommend it, as it's a good read that lingers long after you've reached the end. But it seemed to me to miss the mark--though just barely--that would have made it a classic.

Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil

Published in 1994, Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil is a "non-fiction novel," based on factual events but with these events modified to fit the format of a novel. Bringing in a variety of eccentric characters, author John Berendt paints a colorful picture of the social life of Savannah, Georgia.

For those expecting a novel structure, Midnight takes its time getting around to the action. The inciting event of the plot doesn't happen until almost halfway through the book, though Berendt's fast-moving prose and entertaining introductions to the various characters involved in the story keeps this from being a detriment. The book overall is a fast and entertaining read, exposing the less savory side of Savannah's culture without ever losing the reader's sympathy for the characters or the city itself. With plenty to say about homophobia, racism, and the debilitating effect of social stagnation, Midnight never shoves any of its message down the reader's throat.

Kathy Reichs--Bones to Ashes--Audio Book Review

Reader: Linda Emond

Fans of TV's Bones might be a bit surprised at the liberties taken with Kathy Reichs' original Temperance Brennan character (or vice-versa). But taken as separate incarnations, Book Tempe's adventures are just as entertaining as TV Tempe's.

In this installment of the series, Tempe finds herself facing what might be the remains of a childhood friend. The investigation takes her through a variety of twists and turns, revealing secrets in both the present and in her own past. One particular plot item in this book didn't make sense to me on a character level, but otherwise this is another good installment in the series.

Linda Emond's reading is serviceable, if not exceptional, and better than the readings on a couple of the other books in this series.

Dead Until Dark--Charlaine Harris--Audio Book Review

Reader: Johanna Parker

Dead Until Dark is a solid introduction to Charlaine Harris' Southern Vampire series. With detailed world-building and a plot grounded in the details of rural Louisiana, Harris brings her unique urban fantasy to life. Aside from a few very minor plot quibbles, I found this a thoroughly enjoyable story. Sookie Stackhouse is a kickass heroine, and the Vampire Bill is as intriguing and sexy as a vampire hero should be.

Reader Johanna Parker is practically flawless, providing easily distinguishable voices and an involving, dramatic read that makes this even more engaging than the typical audio book.