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.