My Review of Lucas Mann’s Class A: Baseball in the Middle of Everywhere

 Baseball stories mix into town stories mix into stories about love, about shenanigans, about specific moments when everybody in a neighborhood that doesn’t really exist anymore would go from house to house, stopping to sit on lawn chairs out by the street, every door open, the nights endless.

With Class A: Baseball in the Middle of Everywhere Lucas Mann weaves a season, and in passing references, beyond the season, of  real life people and their stories as he reveals the intimate relationship between a baseball team, the Clinton LumberKings and the town it has played in for nearly 60 years, Clinton, Iowa.

The result is a mixture of biography, autobiography, and personal journal as Mann talks about the players- their hopes, dreams, failures, and success at a lower level of minor league play; the core of fans who support the team season in and season out and whose chronicles and memorabilia show a love of a team that has stayed constant though the life and death of loved ones and friends as well as the state of Clinton itself amid the town’s ups and downs. In fact to me it becomes as much a story about Clinton the town as it does Clinton the team.

Overall I liked this book but at times Mann would switch settings and time frames that made it hard to follow. The ending left me up in the air though I think that the references to the unseen buffaloes at the out of the way Buffalo Bill’s farm serve as a symbolic reminder of the talent that has come and gone through Clinton. But it was an interesting read.

I rate this book as a ‘good’ read.

Note: I was given an uncorrected proof via the Amazon Vine review program in exchange for a review. I was not required to write a positive review.

My Review of Dan Mayland’s The Leveling

“When he’d first met Daria, she’d been a young, naive idealist. And he’d been a cynical, burned-out spy. But since then, a leveling of sorts had taken place between them.”

Mark Sava is back and this time he is kicked out of one country, finds out that a friend has disappeared then goes on a search to find him, and leads the reader on chase through two other countries as he and a former colleague and lover, follow a trail of emails, photos and interesting characters to find the out the truth of the disappearance and unravel a plot to provoke the US to attack Iran and enable oil to flow to the east as a corrupt scheme operates in the high levels of the Iranian and Chinese governments.

The result is another fast paced story of politics, greed and power in Dan Mayland’s second novel The Leveling. 

As with his first novel The Colonel’s Mistake the main action takes place in central Asia and features Mark Sava, an ex-CIA station chief who is now teaching at a western university in Azerbaijan. Joining him on the latest adventure is his former colleague and lover Daria Buckingham as they seek to find a colleague who is kidnapped after discovering a plot between elements of the Iranian and Chinese governments over oil. The result is another fast paced novel with lots of action and sub-plots.

In my review of Mayland’s first novel, I described Sava as “not a cerebral and orthodox Jack Ryan of  Red October or Patriot Games nor the sophisticated James Bond. He is a tough, gritty, and cynical and more in the vain of Jason Bourne.” In this novel, Sava is softer and less sure of himself at times while Daria has become more hard edge. But the fast paced action is still there and it makes for a great book.

I liked Mayland’s first novel and I liked this one as well!

I rate this novel a ‘very good’ read.

Note: I received an advanced reader copy of this book from Amazon Vine in exchange for a review. I was not required to write a positive review.

My Review of Erika Robuck’s Call Me Zelda

“”Art is a form of madness, I think,” he said.” 

Spanning a time frame of just over 16 years Erika Robuck in her second novel, Call Me Zelda, creates a fascinating and multilevel narrative of one of American Literature’s most famous couples – F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald. Told through the voice of nurse Anna Howard Brennan, whose care of and friendship with Zelda spans sixteen years, it is a story of love and hate, art – both written and visual and business, of the unresolved past and the troubled present; mental illness and emotional resilience and terrible loss and tremendous gain.

It is also a story of two women – Fitzgerald and Anna, whose husband Ben is MIA after the First World War and whose daughter Katie, died in early childhood and how in helping the one, the other begins to find life again. Woven into the story line are a cast of supporting characters, including F. Scott Fitzgerald, who truly fill out the story.

Call Me Zelda blends historical fiction with elements of a supernatural thriller which adds to the book. It is interesting that the main setting of the novel takes place in Baltimore and with what I believe is a  nod to Edgar Allen Poe, Robuck uses elements that reflects Poe such as fear and terror when describing Anna’s visit to a former Fitzgerald home that has fallen into disuse:

“When I reached the top of the stairs I saw it. A shadow slipped into the room down the hall. Everything in my body said to run, but instead I strode toward it and opened the door. I gasped when I saw what was inside.

A grand dollhouse nearly filled the room… I knew that Zelda had made it for Scottie… I photographed the dollhouse from every angle, overcome by the sheer enormity of Zelda’s expression of love for her daughter… But the bad thing in the house was back…I started walking swiftly from the room but felt the thing at my back and broke into a run down the stairs, through the hallway, through the kitchen, and out the back door of the house.”

Written with more of an edge than Hemingway’s Girl  and more psychological in tone than her previous work; filled with symbolism that reflected Zelda’s troubled mind, the Fitzgerald’s troubled relationship, Anna’s troubled and painful past, and the trouble times of the 1930′s; Call Me Zelda is good fiction. I liked the book for its historical detail, good characterization, and rich narrative.

I rate Call Me Zelda a ‘very good’ read.

Note: I received an uncorrected proof of this book from Amazon Vine in exchange for review. I was not required to write a positive review.

My Review of Robert Lyndon’s Hawk Quest

“My master said a journey uncompleted is like a story half-told.” “Don’t be ridiculous.

A journey’s a tiresome passage between one place and another.”

With a time frame that spans well over a year…

…a plot of epic proportions

…unforgettable characters which will you will come to love and hate

…attention to historical detail and setting

and a knowledge of history and theology with some foreshadowing of theological issues within the Christian faith that were to occur again and again to this day

Robert Lyndon’s Hawk Quest is a novel that I could not put down.

After I read it it reminded me of  other historical novels that I have read in the past with their long historical time frame. But Hawk Quest  is played out on a grander scale and scope making it an contemporary novel in what I would call an epic vein.

It is also a quest for revenge; of penance, of adventure, for freedom. The human themes of love, hate, faith, doubt, lust, greed, and the like are a part of this novel.

Hawk Quest begins in the Alps in 1072 when Vallon, a Frank knight who is one the run, encounters Hero, a “promising Italian physician,” who is accompanying a diplomat/philosopher on a mission to free a captured Norman knight  imprisoned by a Muslim leader in what is now modern day Turkey.  The terms of exchange for the Norman knight are four pure white gyrfalcons that only could be obtained in Greenland .

The diplomat dies and Vallon reluctantly agrees to take on the task of helping Hero deliver the message and then, again reluctantly, lead an expedition to save him. Thus their adventures begins which take them, and a crew of memorable characters from Norman England up to Iceland and Greenland across the north Atlantic to Norway across what is now Sweden and Finland and south through central Russia into northern Turkey. Along the way the group faces numerous challenges and tests of loyalty and character.

The journey results in a well detailed and interesting account of a falcon competition for which the author of this novel is well known.

Hawk Quest (the initial launch title of Redhook, a division of Hachette Book Group) is simply historical fiction at its best. I liked everything about this book.

I give this book a ‘magnificant’ read.

Note: I receive an uncorrected proof of this book from the Amazon Vine program in exchange for a review. I was not required to write a positive review.

My Review of Sandra Day O’ Connor’s Out Of Order: Stories from the History of the Supreme Court

“I wanted to write about aspects of the Court’s rich heritage that interested and inspired me. Hence this book. Only when we reflect on the Court’s journey as a whole can we truly appreciate the remarkable feat of our Founding Fathers and the remarkable accomplishments of our thriving federal judiciary.”

From the Introduction

Written in a conversational style, retired Associate Justice of the Supreme Court Sandra Day O’ Connor, has provided us with a short and interesting history of the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) highlighting the history of the Court, the early requirements of “circuit riding” which took the Justices away from their families and work for long periods of time, as well as snapshots of some of the men (especially prior to her ascension to the Court in 1981) who sat on the bench since its inception in 1791, and some interesting developments in the location of the court as well as its operational development over the course of its history.

As I read, two (among many others) fascinating and interesting facts about the court I did not know prior to reading this book emerged, illustrating the unique contribution of this book to an understanding of SCOTUS. First, from its inception in 1789 until the Evarts Act in 1891 which created the three-tier system of federal courts, all of the Justices who sat on the bench were required to circuit ride across the US to hear cases. The result, by the time of the Evarts Act, was a three year backlog of work not to mention the physically taxing demands of travel (especially in the early days of the Court) on the Justices. Only after a century of existence were the Justices able to focus on their work in Washington. Even now however, there remains Justice O’Connor notes, a desire to see the court get out of Washington and, quoting Yale Law Professor Akhil Amar “sit with fellow federal judges elsewhere in the country in order to make them more attentive to state law and different perspectives in this vast country of ours.”

The second was the transition from being required of Congress to have “a large mandatory docket” to the now practice of “certiorari” which allows the Court to select those cases it will choose to review. The Evarts Act (mentioned above) was the first step, according to O’Connor to help alleviate the overload, but it was not until 1925 and the Judiciary Act of 1925 that the Court was able to establish a more discretionary docket.

I liked this book because Justice O’Connor provides, in my opinion, a varied and interesting look at this vital American institution. This brief book is treasure trove of stories and insights of the US Supreme Court that a reader who is interested in the history of court itself will find fascinating. If you are looking for a more in-depth of the Court from a legal and constitutional perspective this is not the book for you. However, if you are interested in the development of the Court from its inception during the administration of George Washington, this is a wonderful book to read.

I rate this book a ‘great’ read!

Note: I received an uncorrected proof of this book via the Amazon Vine Program in exchange for a review. I was not required to write a positive review.

My Review of Julie Kibler’s Calling Me Home

“The heart is a demanding tenant; it frequently makes a strong argument against common   sense.” Isabelle MacAllister

Julie Kibler’s debut novel is a soul stirring, heart wrenching, and,  how else can I say it, hope dashing story. It made me angry, brought tears to my eyes, raised and dashed my hopes, and reminded me that “the heart IS a demanding tenant.” It is a story about a love that exceeds limits, the fear that comes with putting people in categories and then trying to keep them there or breaking them out of those categories, it is about first, and sometimes lasting, impressions, and it is about a hope that springs eternal, like a rising Phoenix, no matter the circumstance. Ultimately however, it is about friendship across generational and racial lines, because we all have hurts, hopes, loves, and pasts that are universally shared.

It is a novel that you need to buy and read.

The story begins with the introduction of the main characters Isabelle MacAllister, a 89 year old white woman who is characterized by the legendary gentile southern charm with a generous helping of rapier wit and blunt opinion and Dorrie Curtis, her African-America hair stylist, a single parent, who accompanies Isabelle on road trip from Dallas to Cincinnati to attend a funeral. As they drive, Isabelle’s past as well as Dorrie’s past, and her troubled present and uncertain future, is revealed in a wonderful alternating rhythm of both first person and third person narrative as the chapters alternate between Isabelle and Dorrie’s telling of their stories. The result is a rich and bittersweet love story leading the reader back into another time and place and bringing secrets to the light which begins to shape and change the relationship between Isabelle and Dorrie into a deep and abiding friendship.

I believe Kibler does a wonderful job of bringing respect, dignity, and humanity to the two main characters reminding the reader of a common human experience that transcends race, age, and a host of other categories we use to define people in often unproductive ways. She presents historical elements in a fair and even fashion while at the same time pointing to the common human element in us all.

But enough about the story line, narrative style, and character development.

This is a wonderful and moving novel that will stand your heart on end, sideways, inside out, and straight up. It is a story about love and dignity. It is about friendship no matter our skin color or our past. It is our story though with different characters and situations.

I rate this book an “outstanding” read!

Note: I received an advance reader copy of this book via the Amazon Vine review program in exchange for a review. I was not required to write a positive review.

My Review of Intelligent Governance for the 21st Century

“Intelligent governance['s]…chief aim is to seek a harmonious equilibrium in human affairs-between responsibility and personal choice, community and the individual, freedom and stability, well-being and well-behaving, humankind and nature, present and future-based on the wisdom of what has worked best when faced with the circumstances at hand.”

Here in the United States a constant refrain, at least in the part of the country I live in, has been a growing frustration with political grid-lock at the national level yet is also a frustration that is shared across my country and the rest of the world as well. Nicolas Berggruen and Nathan Gardels of the Nicolas Berggruen Institute offer their proposal for ending this gridlock and providing not just the United States but China and elsewhere with essential and intelligent governance with a new book Intelligent Governance for the 21st Century: A Middle Way Between West and East.

Published in 2012 by Polity Press, Intelligent Governance is rooted in the authors’ argument that “good governance must devolve power and involve citizens more meaningfully in ruling their communities while legitimizing the delegation of authority through decision-division to institutions that can capably manage the systemic links of integration.” (Emphasis the authors.) And it is rooted in the reality of stagnation in the West and an emerging China in the east.

Divided into nine chapters, Intelligent Governance, starts with an outline of several key questions in chapter one then on to a comparison of what they call “America’s Consumer Democracy verses China’s Modern Mandarinate” which they define, respectively as “a one-person-one-vote political system aimed at creating the greatest space for personal freedom and free markets in order to best enable the pursuit of happiness-more or less defined in our time as meeting the demand for short-term immediate gratification of the consumer culture,” and as one which “draws on the millennial heritage of pragmatic rule by learned and experienced elites-mandarins-based on merit, not by choice of the public.”

Then moving into chapters three and four, which I found to me the most interesting chapters of the book, they discuss the ‘hybrid possibilities’ between “liberal democratic democracy and meritocracy” as well as the challenges of governance in which the power of social media is clearly illustrated. Berggruen and and Gardels then enter into four chapters in which they lay out a template of intelligent governance and illustrate its application to the current state of affairs in California state government, the G-20, and Europe followed by a concluding chapter.

What I liked about the book was Berggruen and and Gardels’ acknowledgment of the serious issue of gridlock and short-term perspective in American politics which has contributed to the gridlock. I was also very much interested in their assessment of what appears to be an emerging Chinese return to a Confucian base of governance instead of the China Communist Party’s former emphasis on “class struggle.” But if their ‘template’ is for all governments then addressing the military as well as religiously led governments around the world needs to be a part of the discussion as well.

I rate this book a ‘good’ read.

Note: I received a copy of this book via Amazon Vine program in exchange for a review. I was not required to write a positive review.

A Review of Emily Raboteau’s Searching for Zion

Envoys will come out of Egypt; Ethiopia will quickly stretch out her hands to God. Psalm 68:31 (NASB)

“I inhaled, knowing he was right as soon as he said it. At its root, my quest wasn’t about identity. It was about faith.” (Page 76)

Emily Raboteau’s newest work, Searching for Zion: The  Quest for Home in the African Diaspora, is truly a book about the quest for home. It is a raw, angry, hopeful, and frustrated journey that takes the author on a journey to parts of Israel and Jamaica that tourists do not visit or perhaps know about; and to places they do visit – a place of  Rastafari pilgrimage called Shashemene in Ethiopia; to Elmina Castle in Ghana that sits along the Atlantic coast and through which slaves bound for the west were huddled and herded into slave ships; and finally into the American south and a place called Bay St. Louis, Mississippi.

But it is also an inward journey as Raboteau – whose mixed race heritage and light skin causes her to be frequently misidentified and, as she admits early in the book, made her very angry – commences her decade long journey to find a place she calls home, beginning with a trip to Israel to visit a childhood friend whom she had grown up with in Princeton, New Jersey where her father had been the Henry W. Putnam Professor of Religion.

During that journey she discovers that there are Jews who are black and the discovery creates a desire to return and find out more about the black Jews and their history. Finding a unique blend of Judaism in the Negev desert alongside  Rastafari in Tel Aviv night clubs, Raboteau begins to explore the wider themes, events, and personalities as the book’s subtitle indicates “the quest for home in the African Diaspora.” The result is an important addition to understanding the history of  Biblical themes of Exodus, Egypt, and Babylon that is a part of black history and religion.

Journeying to Kingston, Jamaica and learning about the influence of the late Bob Marley (she would later meet with Marley’s widow in Ghana) and Rastafari, Raboteau begins to encounter themes and issues that she would face again and again in her journey – the effects of the slave trade centuries later, race relations, economic inequalities, the hollowness (perhaps shallowness) of the museums and shrines erected to those who sought to create a new African union and consciousness, and, most importantly, her increasing realization that home is not a place of geography but something deeper. But in her visit to Jamaica she encounters a heart felt desire by many to return to Africa and especially Ethiopia “the Promised Land.”

Her journey to Ethiopia, which is part three of this five part work, takes the reader back into both pre and post colonial African history and reveals a nation’s history that stretches back to Biblical times. But there she sees a disconnection between the hoped for dreams and the reality that surrounds her. After entering a party in honor of Haile Selassie’s birthday anniversary celebration that turns dangerous for her, there is a turning point in her journey, “I was sick of Rastas and Ethiopians as they were of each other. And I was sick of myself.” But it was also a point at which she further realized “there was no such place as Zion; that it was a metaphor at best.”

Her journey then took her to Ghana and there she toured a major Elmina Castle a major departure point for slave ships to the West. But she also was increasingly disillusioned with the disconnect between what she saw in both the native culture and the visiting culture, embodied in the group she toured Elmina with. The result in some notable conversations result in a surprise for Raboteau, “Most of the pilgrims I’d met on my travels through Israel, Jamaica, Ethiopia, and Ghana seemed as focused on the past as on the present. Very rarely on the future. They were shackled by the old stories, as if there weren’t any others to tell. I was ready to go back to America, my nation.”

The result is the book’s final trip with her husband and her cancer-stricken father to the gulf coast of Mississippi and the town of Bay St. Louis, still rebuilding from Hurricane Katrina, the place of her family’s ancestry for a family celebration. While en-route she notes, “I felt now what I’d known from the beginning. Zion is within. I understood that I would forget this and, as with love, or faith, have to learn it again.”

What I like about this book is the meshing of both the panoramic sweep and personal views (author and those interviewed for the book) regarding African history and life. There is a lot to ponder in this book. A second reading might be a good thing because this is a ‘rich’ book. Rich in tone, personality, emotion, and humanity.

I rate this book an ‘outstanding’ read.

Note: I received an uncorrected proof of this book via the Amazon Vine review program in exchange for a review. I was not required to write a positive review.

Review of Bob Griese and Dave Hyde’s Perfection

In their later years, when the Beatles were asked in what period they did their best work and felt at the top of their musical game, they often surprised people by saying it was back before they were discovered, back when they were nobodies, way back when they were humble and hungry and hoping to be discovered.

I never felt this way about this Dolphins team.

Chapter 1, “Are We That Good?”

Using the weekly schedule of that famed 1972 as the chapters for each of the seventeen games, all won and none lost, as a backdrop, Bob Griese, the Miami Dolphins starting quarterback of that team and era, disabled for most of the season with a broken leg in week five and thrust back into play in the second half of the AFC Championship game against the emerging Pittsburgh Steelers in week sixteen, recalls that season, the only perfect season in the current Super Bowl era history of the National Football League to date,  from the inside of the locker room, the playbook, the hotel rooms, and the minds of the team members themselves. Published by John Wiley and Sons, Perfection, is a well written and an even handed presentation of personalities both on the field, along the sidelines, and… in the owner’s suite.

For fans of that day (and I was one of them) and sports historians, this book is a trip back 40 years to a team unknown in many ways (who remembers the names of the ‘No Name’ Defense?) and yet with two unforgettable running backs, Csonka and Kiick, a cerebral and go to wide receiver (and childhood favorite of mine) Paul Warfield,  the coaching of Don Shula, and the steady leadership through the heart of the season by Earl Morrall who replaced Griese at starting quarterback until the Super Bowl game, and yet a team that achieved, well, perfection! For those who were born after that perfect season, this is a good introduction to a different era in American pro football. The common elements of the game today, especially the money side, was coming into play. The frequent million dollar contracts were close to appearing but not yet. Back then though, professional football was different and in 1972 was still emerging from the 1970 merger of the NFL and AFL.

And with sports being a very person oriented endeavor, it is the stories about the players themselves, anecdotes large and small, tension filled and humorous, that fill this book and make it a worthy read:

“As demanding as Shula was, as loud as he could be, nothing shows the relationship he had with his players better than a prank pulled against him… One day [Manny Fernandez and Bill Stanfill] came back with a four foot alligator. The question was how to get the most mileage out of it. While Csonka talked with Shula’s secretary, Fernandez put the alligator in Shula’s shower stall. Bill Arnsparger [the defensive coordinator] walked in to take a shower, saw the alligator, and turned around, saying nothing. When Shula opened the opened the door to take his shower, he screamed. He came into the locker room, saw Jim Kiick, and went up to him for an explanation.

“You should feel fortunate,” Kiick said.

“Why?”

“We had a vote whether to tape the mouth shut. It passed by one vote.”

 

In the days after the AFC Championship Game, Don Shula face another decision. Everyone knew it. No one said anything. When I came out Tuesday for our first practice before the Super Bowl, he watched me closely.

“You come out of the game okay?” he asked.

“Yes, ” I said

…the next day before practice, Earl Morrall was sitting in the rocking chair by his locker when a locker-room attendant told him, “Coach wants to see you.”

As he entered the office, Morrall knew the answer. He could see it on Shula’s face before he even sat down.

“I’m starting Bob in the Super Bowl,” Shula said.

And behind all of these stories and more, interwoven into the text, we get a clear view of Griese’s methodical preparation for the next game. One that earned him the title of “The Thinking Man’s Quarterback.”

This was a ‘great’ read.

Note: I received a copy of this book via the Amazon Vine reviewer program in exchange for a review. I was not required to write a positive review.

 

Review of Shani Boianjiu’s The People of Forever Are Not Afraid

“…when are we going to stop thinking about the things that don’t matter and starting thinking about the things that do matter?” Yael, “Other People’s Children,” chapter 1, page 5.

Shani Boianjiu, native Israeli, IDF veteran, and emerging novelist takes us behind the barriers and into the minds, hearts, and lives of three young Israeli women, Yael, Avishag, and Lea, as they navigate early adulthood as members of their national defense force in her first novel The People of Forever Are Not Afraid published by Hogarth.

The first thing that stands out to me in this work, that I enjoyed reading, was the narrative style. Quite frankly I am reminded of the narrative style of William Faulkner used that at times was cerebral, disjointed, and highly ‘stream of consciousness.’ In fact, the disjointedness reflects the lives of the three main characters, young Israeli women who follow a well worn path of national service in the Israeli Defense Force, before, during, and after their service and who struggle to find meaning and coherence in their lives and that of their personal worlds.

Each of the characters are troubled yet human, harsh and yet compassionate. We see this in such scenes at the guard tower, the check point, Route 433, and in their childhood and adolescent homes and post-service relationships. And while I would not use the term ‘nihilistic’ to describe the tone of the novel, there is a depressive and bleak element present throughout as Yael, Avishag, and Lea deal with death and the potential of death as part of their daily lives.

The novel begins with three of the four chapters each introducing one of the girls, Yael, socially conscious; Avishag, brash and bold, and Lea, opinionated and yet quiet. As the story unfolds, the reader is taken into maelstrom of the conflict which defines not just the lives of the characters and their fellow citizens but which affects the lives of many nations around the world. It ends with the story of Yael’s mother with a flashback to the mid-1970′s and her life as an Air Traffic Controller.

While I enjoyed reading this book, the narrative movement at times threw me into confusion as I struggled to keep up with the characters.

On my rating scale I rate this book a ‘good’ read.

Note: I received an uncorrected proof of the book via the Amazon Vine Review program in exchange for a review. I was not required to write a positive review.