By Alan
Caruba
My Picks of the Month
A
remarkable book about the roots of environmentalism, Nazi Oaks: The Green Sacrifice of the Judeo-Christian Worldview in the
Holocaust, ($26.35, Advantage Inspirational, softcover, available on
Amazon.com, by R. Mark Musser was first published in 2010 and is now just been
updated and reissued in its fourth edition. It deserves a far wider readership
than it has gained until now because in part it is not an easy read, but also
because it is one of the few books to explain how the Nazi ideology evolved
over the decades to reach a point where it initiated the deliberate
extermination of Europe’s Jews. The most astonishing aspect of this is how
interwoven its belief system was with the environmental “truths” we are still
hearing and reading today. For example, Ernst Haeckel, the father of German
Social Darwinism, was the man who coined the word “ecology” in 1896. The Nazi
“science” that justified racism drew on German romanticism, existentialism, and
nature worship. The Nazis incorporated environmentalism into their lives and
beliefs, abandoning the Judeo-Christian God for “gaia”, the Earth god. Mark
Musser came to his discovery of the inherently evil roots of environmentalism
by way of a Master of Divinity in 1994 and missionary service in Belarus and
Ukraine for seven years. He is a pastor by trade. I cannot recommend reading
this book in strong enough terms because it is a warning that explains why so
much of what passes for environmentalism today carries within it the seeds of
evil that triggered the Nazi era. Having failed to carry off the “global
warming” hoax thanks to the past 19 years of the planet’s cooling cycle, its
advocates are now embarked on a “climate change” hoax, claiming it is “man-made.”
It is not, but the evil that men do is.
In March
2014, in a commentary on my blog, Warning Signs, I wrote “Do you have the
feeling that we no longer have government from the federal to the local level
that is able to function because of vast volumes of laws and regulations that
have made it impossible to do anything from build a bridge to run a nursing
home? If so, you’re right. The nation is falling behind others who do a better
job by permitting elected and appointed officials to actually make decisions.
We are living in a nation where lawsuits follow every decision to accomplish
anything. This is the message of Philip K. Howard in a book that everyone
concerned for the future of America should read; “The Rule of Nobody: Saving America from Dead Laws and Broken Government.”
Happily, a softcover edition has been published ($15.95, W.W. Norton) and, if
you missed the opportunity to read it last year, I strongly recommend you do so
this year. Howard explains why just changing leaders does not change a Washington
which is drowning the nations in laws that often run to more than 2,000 pages
in length. The result is a monstrosity of regulations that tell officials and
citizens what to do and how to do it. A mammoth government renders
decision-making virtually impossible and the result is that our schools, our
health care system, and virtually every other element of life is paralyzed or
unaffordable. There is, in a word, no accountability, no one who need take
responsibility. Putting people back in charge of our government is the heart of
this excellent, entertaining, and frightening book.
Have you
always wished you had an opportunity to read the classics of literature when
you were in school? These days entire generations pass through our schools
without more than a brief introduction to Shakespeare or Chaucer. In contrast
to that, for 28 years in Naples, New York, you didn’t go to college without
passing Alan Griesinger’s Advanced Placement English class. And they loved it.
You’ll understand why when you read his book, A Comic Vision of Great Constancy: Stories about Unlocking the Wisdom
of Everyman ($29.95, Mascot Books). He provides insights drawn from a
reading of “The Knight’s Tale” and “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.” They serve as a
literary framework for Griesinger’s side trips into politics, religion,
psychology, and the general art of being human. His classes were a training
ground for character development, good citizenship, and rigorous thinking. His
book has the same effect and is very likely to make you the smartest person in
the room after you’ve read it.
Improving Your Life
There has
been one genre of books that has been around since books were first being
published. They are books that impart advice on various aspects of one’s life
to help the reader improve in some respect.
It’s Not Who You Know, It’s Who You
Are: Life Lessons from Winners by
Pat Williams with Jim Denney ($16.99, Revell). With more than fifty years of
professional sports experience and already an author of dozens of books on
leadership, Williams shares how he found success in his family and career. He
realized early in life that learning how to become successful meant learning
from those who had. He never missed an opportunity to ask those at the top of
their field what they felt was the key to their success. He has met more famous
people than most of ever will. They include Martin Luther King, Jr., Billy
Graham, John Wooden, Michael Jordan, Colin Powell, and George W. Bush, to name
a few. And he kept notes on what they told him. This is a book about developing
your own character and values because those are ultimately the keys to success.
Williams is senior vice president of the NBA’s Orlando Magic.
Getting Back Out There: Secrets to
Successful Dating and Finding Real Love after the Big Breakup by Susan J. Elliott ($14.99, Da Capo
Press, softcover) may be just the book for women that you or someone you know
needs to read. As she acknowledges, overcoming a breakup can be a real
challenge and, often, to be successful in the next relationship, we must
understand the parts of us that broke up, too. This involves learning to
recognize, evaluate, and change the negative patterns that interfere with our
relationships, but she says it can be done and her book teaches here readers to
set appropriate standards in the dating world. She does not shy from the fact
that exes, children, and boyfriends with kids are components of the modern
dating scene. Getting back out there may be tough, but says Ms. Elliot,
infinitely rewarding, if done right.
Romancing Your Better Half: Keeping
Intimacy Alive in Your Marriage by
Rick Johnson ($12.99, Revell, softcover) explains why romance and intimacy are
so vital to marriage, how men and women differ in their intimacy needs, and
what steps they can take to enrich their marriage and even bring back the
excitement of when you first fell in love.
He encourages couples to rethink the way they communicate and interact to
keep that excitement alive as a couple in a long-term relationship grows
through shared experiences, sharing difficulties, and maintaining closeness to
one another.
Many
people, including church-goers, still yearn for a deeper experience of God in
their everyday lives. A leading Christian publisher, Thomas Nelson, offers Greg
Paul’s new book, Simply Open
($16.99, softcover) that offers a path to using your five senses, your mind and
heart, to engage in the practice of prayer that can turn an ordinary workday
into a deepening spiritual journey. Paul is a pastor and member of Sanctuary in
Toronto, a ministry for the most hurting and excluded people in the city. He
has authored three earlier books, one of which was a 2012 Non-fiction Christian
Book Award winner. Though Christian in context it has a holistic approach that
other contemplating religions employ.
All About Women
The role
of women in modern societies has been changing for a long time. For example,
the National American Woman Suffrage Association was founded in 1890 and a
number of states had granted it in the first two decades of the last century,
In 1919 Congress passed the 19th Amendment and a year later 36
states had ratified it. Remembering
Inez: The Last Campaign of Inez Milholland, Suffrage Martyr ($14.95,
Graphic Press. Softcover) tells the story of one of the lesser known
suffragettes. Using her own words, edited by Robert P.J. Cooney, Jr., it takes
you back to an era that was as dramatic as any that followed. Ms. Milholland
was a dynamic New York attorney, a young activist who while on a tour of
western states collapsed on stage in Los Angeles on October 23, 1916 and died a
month later of pernicious anemia. She had just turned 30. History is filled
with such remarkable personalities and, though it took nearly a century, it is
good to know that Ms. Milholland is now recognized as well.
Women After All: Sex, Evolution, and
the End of Male Supremacy
by Dr. Melvin Konner ($26.95, W.W. Norton & Company) will surely cause male
readers to feel uncomfortable. The author is a professor in the Emory
University Department of Anthropology and the Program in Neuroscience and
Behavioral Biology. The author of several books, this one looks at the
widespread debate about the future role of women (and men) in human society,
taking a look at the animal kingdom in general and our current patriarchal ways
in particular, predicting that women will increasingly take leadership roles.
He asserts that women are biologically more adept at dealing with the
challenges of the modern world. They are fundamentally more pragmatic as well
as caring, cooperate as well as competitive, and generally more deft in
managing people without putting them on the defensive. They are, he says,
builders rather than destroyers. This is, to say the least, a fact-filled look at
a highly charged topic and one that I am sure many readers will want to
explore.
Behind Every Great Man: The Forgotten
Women Behind the World’s Famous and Infamous ($16.99, Sourcebooks, softcover) takes its title from the
cliché that behind every great man is a woman who contributed to his success.
Marlene Wagman-Geller has taken a look at this and her book features forty
women who were overshadowed by the males in their lives, yet merit their own
place in history. She ranges from the wives of literally figures such as Oscar
Wilde, Ian Fleming, and C.S. Lewis. There are Hollywood wives such Alma
Reville, Mrs. Alfred Hitchcock and Jane Nebel, Mrs. Jim Henson. She notes the
role played by Kasturba Kapadia, the wife of Mohandas Gandhi and Emilie Pelzl,
Mrs. Osckar Schindler. There were some infamous ones as well such as Mrs.
Julius Rosenberg, convicted along with her husband as a Soviet spy. Imagine,
too, being Althea Leasure, Mrs. Larry Flynt. The short biographies salute the
women who stood behind their men, for better or worse, and helped steer the
course of history.
Getting Down to Business
How to Succeed with Continuous
Improvement: A Primer for Becoming the Best in the World ($23.00, McGraw-Hill) by Joakim
Ahlstrom, regarded as Sweden’s leading authority in creating a continuous
improvement culture. His book is a step-by-step process for any organization
that applies principles such as “keep it simple, stay focused, visualize the
good examples and the program made, create ownership by asking instead of
telling, and be systematic.” He has advised dozens of organizations around the
world to include Coca Cola, Volvo, Ericsson, and IKEA.
From Worry to Wealthy: A Woman’s Guide
to Financial Success Without the Stress by Chellie Campbell ($16.99, Sourcebooks, softcover)
begins by noting that more than nine million U.S. businesses, generating $1.4
trillion in sales, are owned by women. A personal finance guru, Campbell, has offered
“Financial Stress Reduction” ® workshops to help women win at work and in life.
Her advice will prove very helpful to any woman as she teaches how to harness
the four C’s of career success, confidence, charisma, clients, and cash. She writes about earning support from spouses
and loved ones while gaining business knowledge from everything you do. This
includes poker as she is an avid tournament player. This is a book from which
any woman business owner can benefit.
What to Do to Retire Successfully:
Navigating Psychological, Financial and Lifestyle Hurdles ($15.95, New Horizon Press, softcover)
by Martin B. Goldstein addresses some of the scary questions that occur such as
whether you will have enough funds to maintain your lifestyle, will you be able
to adjust to a slower pace, and how best to transition into retirement
successfully. A neuropsychiatrist by profession, his book will prove quite
useful to anyone approaching their retirement years and that includes the 77
million baby boomers that are slated to retire over the next twenty years.
Retirement fears are common and this book addresses them and offers some good
advice; the kind you need now, not ten or twenty years from now when it could
be too late.
Reading History
I love
reading history and one of my great favorites from American history is Thomas
Jefferson. Addressing a group of scholars, John F. Kennedy said “I think this is the most extraordinary collection of talent, of human
knowledge, that has ever been gathered at the White House - with the possible
exception of when Thomas Jefferson dined alone.” One of the enduring discussions about
Jefferson involves his religious beliefs. Some say he was a deist unaffiliated
with any particular religion. Doubting Thomas? The Religious Life and
Legacy of Thomas Jefferson by Mark A. Beliles and Jerry Newcombe ($29.99,
Morgan James Publishing) will put to rest all the doubts raised in the past.
For example, during his presidency, Jefferson attended church at the U.S.
Capitol Building’s Supreme Court chambers where a public service was held. This
is contradiction of the assertion that he believed in a strict separation of
church and state. This book is based on extensive documentation, often
providing little known facts based on his letters, as well as his relationships
and activities with religious communities. It is an absorbing read and it is
supported by The Selected
Religious Letters and Papers of Thomas Jefferson ($29.95, America
Publications) edited by Mark A. Beliles. It offers more than fifty Jefferson
letters and other documents never before seen in print. The enemies of
religious belief and expression in America will not want you to read either of
these books.
Of course, the history of America has its darker moments
and the treatment of the Native Americans is surely one of them. Terry Mort’s Thieves’ Road: The Black Hills Betrayal and
Custer’s Path to Little Bighorn ($25.00, Prometheus Books) tells the story
of General George Armstrong Custer’s expedition of some one thousand troops and
more than a hundred wagons into the
Black Hills of South Dakota in the summer of 1874. A severe economic depression
had spurred hordes of white prospectors to the Sioux Indians sacred grounds and
the trampling of an 1868 treaty that granted the Black Hills to the Sioux. The
discovery of gold was the beginning of the end of their independence and their
resistance set the stage for the climactic Battle of Little Bighorn. The book’s
title gets its name from the Sioux leader, Fast Bear, who called the trail cut
by Custer the “thieves’ road.” It was a time when the settling of Indians on
reservations was betrayed, a corrupt federal Indian Bureau existed, and the
building of the western railroads was transforming the nation. The book makes
for lively reading and considerable insight to this period of our national
history.
One of the best series around is Visible Ink Press’s
“Handy Answer” books. The latest is The
Handy Military History Answer Book ($21.95, Visible Ink, softcover), by
Samuel Willard Crompton, a captivating, concise, and extensive look at the way
war has been a continual element of history and has often dramatically changed
it. Indeed, one might call peace the brief intervals of time between wars. This
book shows how war creates heroes, along with cowards, spies and patriots were
made, how conflicts shaped borders, policies and politics, society and culture,
always influencing the future. Answering more than 1,400 questions, you will
learn how conquering armies to civil wars resulted in guerrilla warfare,
terrorism, modern weapons, and so much more that fill the headlines of our
times. To understand history, one must know about warfare from the days of the
Roman Empire to the present. This book will do just that.
Reading
About Science
Science is in the news all the time, but much of the time
is devoted to those groups and organizations that lie about it in order to
frighten people from taking advantage of the benefits it offer. The latest
debate about vaccinating children to protect them from measles is one example.
The battles fought to advance science go back to the earliest days of
civilization.
In the Light of
Science: Our Ancient Quest for Knowledge and the Measure of Modern Physics by
Demetris Nicolaides ($19.00, Prometheus Books, softcover) examines the epochal
shift in thinking that led pre-Socratic philosophers of the sixth and fifth
centuries BCE to abandon the prevailing mythologies of the age and, for the
first time, analyze the natural world in terms of impersonal,
rationally-understood principles. This is a look at the vast sweep of history
that led to the birth of science and its advancement by those unafraid to
question tradition. Combining history and science, it makes for some very
interesting reading. From the same publishing house comes Brilliant! Shuji Nakamura
and the Revolution in Lighting Technology ($18.00, Prometheus Books,
softcover), now updated. To celebrate the awarding of the 2014 Nobel Prize in
Physics to Nakamura, author Bob Johnstone profiles the gifted Japanese engineer
who is largely responsible for the coming revolution in lighting technology.
The lighting revolution is likely to replace halogen lamps and have a profound
impact on the world.
Astronaut Ron Garan has authored The Orbital Perspective: Lessons in Seeing the Big Picture from a
Journey of 71 Million Miles ($27.95, Berrett-Koehler Publishers) that is
enhanced by several pages of color photos. Garan tells of the transformative
experience of living on the international Space Station and the lessons he
gained that he believes holds the key to solving our problems here on Earth. He
provides an excellent and interesting account of what it was like work with 15
different nationalities. At the same time, he addresses many of the problems
that afflict people and what must be done to solve them. In his foreword to the
book, Muhammad Yunus, a Nobel Peace Laureate, recommends we “Use Ron’s idea of
the orbital perspective as a way to erase obstacles, boundaries, and resistance
to any problem.”
Kid
Stuff
You may not know who Ernest Thompson Seton (1860-1946)
was, but among his many accomplishments was being a co-founder of the Boy
Scouts of America in addition to writing many children’s books that influenced
an entire generation or more regarding life in the outdoors. The Storyteller ($24.95, Langdon Street
Press) by Leila Moss Knox and Linda L. Knox is not only a wonderful tribute to
Seton, but a wonderful way to get to know about him through excerpts of his
writings that are richly illustrated. It has a foreword by the late songwriter
and singer, Pete Seeger, who like many felt his life enriched by Seton’s books.
This is a great way to introduce him to a whole new generation and I guarantee
they will love this book.
Children’s books are a great way for them to learn U.S.
history and I am happy to report that Alex Bugaeff’s new book, part of his
“Grandfather” series, is American
Amazons: Colonial Women Who Changed History ($14.95, available from Amazon)
in which “Gomps” shares his historical tales with his grandchildren, Hannah and
Carter. It’s good to see them get the attention they deserve. One of them,
Deborah Sampson, fought on the front lines with the Continental Army for three
years and there were others. These days women are part of the Israel Defense
Force and trained for combat like the men. We had such women when it counted in
our Revolution.
Wigu Publishing of Sun Valley, Idaho, has a series you
can learn about at www.whenigrowupbooks.com such as When I Grow Up I Want to Be…in the U.S.
Army or a Nurse! The series also
includes Teacher, U.S. Navy,
Veterinarian and Firefighter. They are available at Amazon.com, Barnes and
Noble, and other major online retailers, and come in Kindle editions as well. Parents
often hear their children express an interest in a particular profession and
this series is well written as stories that a young reader, age 5 to 7 or so
can read and identify with. They are both well researched and entertaining.
The odd thing about “Miss Peregrine’s Peculiar Children”
when it was published in 2011 is that, although aimed at a younger audience of
readers, ages 13 and up, it attracted so many older ones that it stayed on The
New York Times Best Seller list for more than 80 weeks. In February its sequel,
Hollow City by Ransom Riggs ($10.99,
Quirk Books, softcover) was published and it picks up where the first left off
as the reader follows the story of Jacob and his friends as they encounter a
menagerie of odd animals, a band of gypsies, and more peculiar children. Jacob
and friends are on the run from “wights” who have turned Miss Peregrine into a
bird. They are hoping to find a cure in London. The book is illustrated with
photos from earlier times, but it is the characters like Emma Bloom who can
make fire with her hands, Millard, an invisible boy, and Olive who is lighter
than air that are not only peculiar who inhabit a story that includes Alma
LeFay Peregrine who is a shape-shifter and manipulator of time, as well as the
headmistress of Cairnholm’s loop. It’s delightful. This one is headed for the
best seller lists too.
Lauren Oliver has gained an international reputation for
her five young adult novels as well as her other books. She is published in
thirty languages and no doubt Vanishing
Girls ($18.99, HarperCollins) will keep her on the bestseller
list for those ages 14 and up with her story of Dara and Nick. The two sisters
used to be inseparable, but that changed when Dara’s beautiful face was scarred
by a car accident, leaving them estranged. When Dara vanishes on her birthday,
Nick thinks Dara is just playing around. Another girl, nine-year-old Madeline
Snow, has vanished as well and Nick becomes convinced that the two
disappearances are linked and feels compelled to find her sister before
it’s too late. The readers, too, will feel compelled to see how this novel
proceeds and how it ends.
Novels,
Novels, Novels
March 8 makes the first anniversary of the disappearance
of Malaysian Airlines flight MH370 that went down without a clue. I am a fan of
Lior Samson, the pen name of the author of two dozen books that include seven
novels like“Bashert”, “The Dome”, and “Web Games.” He is now back with Flight Track ($16.95/$2.99 Kindle, Gesher
Press, an imprint of Ampersand Press, Rowley, MA), a novel that provides a
scenario of what might have happened and why to flight MH370. In the novel it
is the inaugural flight of Pacificano Transocean’s over-the-pole non-stop
service from Singapore to Chicago’s O’Hare. It’s all celebrating and champagne
until flight PT20 veers off the radar. This is the kind of thriller that fans
of Samson have come to anticipate and enjoy. In this story, an elite team of
brilliant young nerds is called upon to help find the missing plane and their high-tech
pursuit of what happened turns into a life-or-death race to discover who is
behind the disappearance, to understand what’s at stake, and to find a solution
against seemingly invincible forces behind it. Like all his novels, it’s not
one you will put down until you get to the last page.
Another novel straight out of the headlines is David
Thomas Roberts’ A State of Treason($31.50,
www.defiancepress.com) in
which a President who hates the Tea Party sets in motion a confrontation with
the Governor of Texas when he seizes a member of the Party in an
unconstitutional way. The Governor authorizes a Texas Ranger to free him and
his family. The confrontation escalates when the Governor puts the question of
independence from the federal government on the ballot and the President
declares martial law, sending in armed forces to deny Texans the right to
decide whether they want to continue as part of a corrupt government, a
do-nothing Congress, and an administration plagued by scandals.
A number of other softcover novels will provide hours of
entertainment to rival anything on the TV and you don’t have to be bothered by
commercials. Plucked from the headlines being generated by the Islamic turmoil
of the Middle East, Lucy Ferriss, the author of A Sister to Honor ($16.00, Penguin) journeyed to northern Pakistan
in 2012 to learn about their culture of honor. It is a novel about Pakistani
people in America. Afia Satar is studious, modest and a devout Muslim. The
daughter of a landholding family, she has enrolled in an American college with
the dream of returning to her country to serve as a doctor, but when a photo of
her holding hands with an American boy surfaces online, she is suddenly no
longer safe, even from the family that cherishes her. It is rising sports star Shahid Satar who has
been entrusted by her family to watch over Afia and now he has been ordered to
cleanse the stain of her shame. This is the classic clash of cultures and quite
relevant to the issues and times in which we live.
The Eliot Girls by Krista
Bridge ($22.95, Douglas & McIntyre, softcover) is set in the George Eliot
Academy, a private school for girls that prides itself on being on the vanguard
of learning. For years Audrey Brindle and her mother, Ruth, have wanted Audrey
to get into the school where Ruth has taught for a decade, but when she is
finally admitted, she discovers that the daily world of Eliot is a place of sly
bullying, ferocious intolerance, and bewildering social standards. Her mother,
Ruth, finds her own stability dismantled by the arrival of a new teacher. As
both navigate the treacheries of their upended worlds, each finds her sense of
morality slipping as unexpected possibilities ignite. Clearly a book that women
will enjoy and identify with more than men, it is also clearly worth a read for
being by turns comic and psychologically intense.
From Thomas & Mercer comes a mystery, The Dead Key by D.M. Pulley ($15.96,
softcover), an atmospheric and richly detailed story that weaves together the
stories of Beatrice Baker who begins work at the First Bank of Cleveland
shortly before its mysterious collapse in 1978 and Iris Latch, a civil engineer
hired to survey the abandoned but perfectly preserved bank building two decades
later. As she toils amid the bank’s ransacked offices and forgotten safe
deposit boxes, Iris is drawn into uncovering the dark secrets of the building’s
sordid past; one that includes Beatrice’s mysterious disappearance shortly
before the sudden collapse. This is a thoroughly engrossing mystery and a fine
debut for its author.
That’s it for March. Come back in April for more news of
the best new fiction and non-fiction. Tell your book loving friends, family and
coworkers about Bookviews.com so they too any can learn about books that often
do not get noted by the mainstream print media which in recent times is
devoting less and less space to reviews. See you next month!
