Review: I Like Giving: The Transforming Power of a Generous Life

I Like Giving: The Transforming Power of a Generous Life by Brad Formsma
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I have to admit that this was one of my guilty pleasures – reading touching stories about people that give to others and how those donations were received, especially right before the Christmas season and the overwhelm of Hallmark Christmas movies. There were a lot of personal stories here. Most were the touching, positive stories you’d expect, though the author included some stories that showed some of the issues involved in giving and receiving charity. Also of interest was the author’s personal story, building a business, then moving on to lead a non-profit. While I enjoyed many of the stories, I find on reflection, a week after reading, that I don’t recall any particulars beyond the author’s own stories. So for me, this was good for a relaxing and involving read, but more to set a mood than to provide guidance or examples.

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Review: Love the Home You Have: Simple Ways to…Embrace Your Style *Get Organized *Delight in Where You Are

Love the Home You Have: Simple Ways to…Embrace Your Style *Get Organized *Delight in Where You Are by Melissa Michaels
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

So the author is a pastor’s wife. This book is about a pastor’s wife making an inviting home. It was interesting in the secret spectator way watching home shows is – you get an idea of how someone who highly values making the home inviting to visitors and livable for her family makes things come together. There were recommendations to declutter, no kidding, but not so much on organizing. This wasn’t your typical home organization book. I didn’t see much in her recommendations that I hadn’t seen previously, so this wasn’t as much of idea book as I expected. Instead, the parts I really enjoyed were her stories about buying new houses and decorating on a pastor’s budget, which was quite minimal. The author describes moving houses a number of times in her life, and how she made the best of her and her husbands house dreams given that tiny budget, including one “money pit” that had charm, and a ballroom, but also racoons and vermin in the kitchen. That made the book for me.

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Review: Hombre

Hombre by Elmore Leonard
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

A fine story. I’ve read quite a few older Westerns recently, including a few Zane Grey’s. The first thing I thought of when I finished this short book was that it sounded so much different than Grey’s century-old prose. This was much tighter, with a knowing narrator. It felt modern and to me, an easier read. At times, Grey felt like he was paid by the word (and he likely was), but here you get appropriate levels of description and mood setting. I will be looking for more Leonard audiobook Westerns.

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Review: My Friend, Yvette Vickers: In Her Own Words, as Told to John O'Dowd

My Friend, Yvette Vickers: In Her Own Words, as Told to John O'Dowd by Yvette Vickers
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I don’t believe I had ever heard of Yvette Vickers before running across this audiobook. What drew me to listen was the promise of hearing the story of a starlet, with bit parts in Hollywood classics and leading parts in the kinds of horror movies I used to watch Saturdays at midnight on local TV. (In my area, the Quad Cities, her “Attack” movies would have been shown on Chuck Acri’s Creature Feature). And the book blurb promised her story “in her own voice”. How literal that ended up being.

The entire book, except for a few short introductory sections of a few minutes each at most, was recordings of Yvette talking. The first half of the audiobook consists of a set of recordings Yvette made to capture her biography, with the hopes of later turning her recorded notes into a book. Much of this first section is told with a light jazz band in the background. She apparently recorded this at a bar or with music playing at home. She includes many stories of her early life and her early career, including her belief that she was blackballed from good roles in Hollywood by Joanne Woodward after “partying” with Paul Newman while filming “Hud”. The second half of the book were, of all things, two hours of telephone messages Yvette left with her collaborator/interviewer – the “author” of this book. Here, Yvette told some additional stories of her life, about, for instance, the death of a beloved dog, and issues selling real estate, and reports of doctors appointments. Yvette was a friend to the author, and these messages showed her as a normal person, showing interest in him while also sharing details of her life.

Unexpectedly (to me), Yvette came across as a smart cookie, with an outgoing personality typical of a real estate seller. This made it easy to listen to the recordings. What ended up being odd was that the two things she was most known for – her horror movies and her bizarre death, were not part of this book. Obviously she couldn’t have narrated the details of her own death, but you don’t know from the blurbs if her recordings were all you would get. The author certainly could have written more on this. The author explains away the lack of horror movie detail by saying that Yvette had already had some magazine articles written that detailed those episodes in her life and she didn’t bother repeating them in her recordings here. These missing pieces were very noticeable, but what you are left with was really like being a fly on the wall as an older actress talked to a friend/potential biographer. The voyeur in me found this a lot like listening in to some old friends talking at a table near you in a coffee shop. I found it of some interest, but was glad it wasn’t longer.


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Review: An American Gospel: On Family, History, and the Kingdom of God

An American Gospel: On Family, History, and the Kingdom of God by Erik Reece
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

When I saw the title of this one, I thought it sounded like it might be one of those reads that was transcendent, that could cause me to think about things in a different way. The reviews seemed generally positive. I listened to the audio production of the book. I found the narrative meandering, but interesting in the author’s use of literature to illustrate his thoughts on his family history and on the meaning of nature. I will remember the descriptions of specific books, mainly Walt Whitman’s, and their impact on society and on the author, but I probably won’t remember his personal backstory and his conclusions. A well written and interesting read nonetheless.

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Review: Chicago: A Novel of Prohibition

Chicago: A Novel of Prohibition by David Mamet
My rating: 0 of 5 stars

The kind of writing you’d expect from the author of “Glengarry Glen Ross”, with plenty of play-like dialog, where timing and the way words sound together are very important, and you run across occasional monologues. And as you’d expect from a book called “Chicago” from an author known for Chicago ties, you get plenty of tastes of the city. And while this is a period story from right after WWI, Mamet drops plenty of well-known names, including an extended bit on Bessie Coleman, many well known street names, and more. My personal favorite mention was of Chicago neighborhood Hegewisch, where my wife grew up, as the swampy spot to dispose of murdered corpses. That and the Fox River duck hunting story that starts the book were excellent. These Chicago references on reflection seem a bit gratuitous, not really key to the story and chosen for that flicker of recognition they provided. The story was OK for a mystery, although it went on some tangents that I couldn’t always keep straight. The treasure of the book was not so much the story as the occasional sentence or paragraph or scene that just stood out.

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Review: Sacred Rest: Recover Your Life, Renew Your Energy, Restore Your Sanity

Sacred Rest: Recover Your Life, Renew Your Energy, Restore Your Sanity by Saundra Dalton-Smith
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I enjoyed the first part of “Sacred Rest”. The author divides rest into different types and discusses why you might need each type of rest, and what can happen if you don’t get that needed rest. Types include physical rest, but also spiritual, emotional, social, mental, sensory, and others. I found this made sense, and I hadn’t thought of rest in all these different ways. For me, the value of the book was in this first part. This part didn’t have an overwhelming secular bent. In comparison, the second part was all about the sacred as illustrated in Christianity. This didn’t maintain my interest as much as the first part. Overall, though, I found this very interesting, giving me a few new ways to categorize when I need my “downtime” to reap its benefits.

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Review: Y: The Last Man, Vol. 1: Unmanned

Y: The Last Man, Vol. 1: Unmanned by Brian K. Vaughan
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Interesting premise - all men and animals with x chromosomes suddenly die. Except for a young magician and his monkey. Who happens to be well connected. Add in an Amazon cult, Israeli soldiers, cloning scientists, garbage truck driving models, and lots of decomposing corpses and this could get interesting. This introductory book was interesting enough for me to continue.

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Review: Poised for Retirement: Moving from Anxiety to Zen

Poised for Retirement: Moving from Anxiety to Zen by Louise Nayer
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I found this an enjoyable description of the author’s thoughts and actions prior to retiring, with annual updates for a few years post retirement. I find myself in roughly the same position in my career that the author was in at the beginning of the book. No surprise, I found the author has many of the same questions and worries and aspirations about her upcoming retirement as I have for my future. She provides some of the answers she reached, but also writes about the outcomes of her choices, and of her days in her new routine. I found this comforting. The author is a creative writing instructor, so I got the expected lengthy, poetically descriptive passages. The author also intended this to be a self-help book, so mixed in with her personal narrative are some paragraphs providing suggestions on things to consider or actions to accomplish to help lead to a successful retirement. I found these oddly placed suggestions, usually dropped into a narrative stream, were not very interesting or valuable, similar to many other books and matching common sense. The narrative is the value here. I greatly enjoyed the book. It hit the points I was like talking to a friend you haven’t spoken to in a long while – they meander around the decisions and actions of their lives, sometimes big ,sometimes little, always with reflection.

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Review: The Power of Business Process Improvement: 10 Simple Steps to Increase Effectiveness, Efficiency, and Adaptability

The Power of Business Process Improvement: 10 Simple Steps to Increase Effectiveness, Efficiency, and Adaptability by Susan Page
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

As I read this, I kept being reminded of those many project management how-to books I’ve read throughout my career. Page describes in detail the process to catalog and define business processes, and puts together a plan on effecting and managing related change. I approached this book as a way to reintroduce myself to the concepts of BPM, and I did recognize much of this from my work with a BPM software vendor. I believe this would be valuable to those approaching a BPM project without an existing framework to use. This provides the framework and samples of plans and processes and assets. Seems like this would be a valuable resource to many.

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Review: A Clockwork Orange

A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

A classic, but one where I saw the movie first. And then listened to the BBC4 audio adaptation, with multiple actors and embedded musical numbers. Still haven’t read it, but a comment on the story and the audio production. This is one of those stories built around some interesting moral quandaries. While many stories provide nuanced studies of such quandries, I’ve always thought of this as an example of the sledgehammer method of storytelling, one very willing to tell you exactly what each quandary is and what the options are. The best part about this book is that Burgess tells the story so well even with those almost academic constraints.

On the BBC4 production: This becomes something of a musical with this audio play rendition. There are four or five times where music comes up during the story, and there is not so much singing as rhythmic speaking and group chanting along with the music. It is very interesting, but it didn’t work for me. The other thing that set this audio production apart was the number of grunts and heavy breathing. Given there is a lot of violence in this book, this was expected, and the BBC used some of the best grunters and heavy breathers on radio. Overall, this was an interesting production, okay but not great. I believe I would rate the book higher.


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Review: The Crusades

The Crusades by Abigail Archer
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Very short take on a few centuries of religious warfare. The book covers the largest battles, sieges, negotiations, political intrigue, and other events in the Holy Lands, but also covers the European home front and the political intrigue happening there. While short, there was no shortage of royalty, religious, and military leaders mentioned, and I was confused a few times. There was a good mix of narrative that helped to make this readable and enjoyable. I listened to the audio version. I suspect the paper book would have been more enjoyable here given other reviewers mentions of pictures, and given my difficulty tracking the principals.

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Review: Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band: The Album, the Beatles, and the World in 1967

Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band: The Album, the Beatles, and the World in 1967 by Brian Southall
My rating: 1 of 5 stars

When I see a book about one album, I expect the book to really be dedicated to that album, providing a lot of behind-the-scenes info that wasn’t common knowledge. You get some of that here, but it amounts to about a quarter of the book. The rest of the book is about the Beatles in general, from beginnings to the end of the group and beyond, with a lot of band member bio mixed in. Also mixed in was a lot on the times - basic pop history of the sixties. I have read a few books about the Beatles over the years, so I found most of this very basic Beatles lore. I could see if a person hadn’t heard much about the Beatles, this would be of interest, but c’mon…

I listened to this on audio. I understand from other reviews that the paper book has illustrations that make it more interesting. You don’t get those with the audio. While the book may well be better, I’d recommend skipping the audio version, and will rank the audio version low.


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Review: Barefoot Boy with Cheek

Barefoot Boy with Cheek by Max Shulman
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I can’t add much to the other reviews here. This is certainly over-the-top satire. Shulman’s take on college life has aged quite well, given the multiple generations that have passed since it was written. I recognized many of the types Shulman skewers from my time at college a few decades back, and I see them in the descriptions my daughters have from college in the past few years. The main frat covered is Alpha Cholera, the main sorority Beta Thigh. I’m not sure why that strikes me as funny, but it certainly does. As for the story, ehhh, it’s just there to introduce the satirical bits. And you can see Shulman’s master creation, Dobie Gillis, in the constant falling-in-love of the main character. Also beneficial is the relative shortness of the novel. I found the schtick getting a bit wearing by the end of the book.

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Review: Great Horse Racing Mysteries

Great Horse Racing Mysteries by John McEvoy
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I found this collection of true stories of horse racing “mysteries” a bit uneven, in terms of both the story as well as the writing. But for my intent, a light read between deeper books with horse racing as a subject, this worked well. I found the variety in the types of stories interesting, but noticed that some really didn’t seem all that mysterious. Criminality was the basis for most, if not all of these stories. I thought that the most interesting would be the Alydar story, having read the excellent book “Wild Ride” on Alydar and the downfall of Calumet Farms. Here, the story is a short summary of what happened, with a lot of back story on Affirmed and Alydar. My favorite story in this collection was about Hawthorne burning, because Hawthorne is near where I live and I hadn’t heard this story before. But there’s not a lot to it. Again, I found this an OK book for a casual read involving horse racing (in my case this fit in where I’d normally read a Dick Francis book).

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