Book Review: Rights of Man by Thomas Paine

Rights of Man by Thomas Paine
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

The French Revolution brought about various reactions across the Channel in Britain, especially after the war in America however the split between English supporters of the American cause in-between supporters and reactionaries against the French Revolution brought about one of the most famous counterrevolution pamphlets of all time and then came the response. Rights of Man by Thomas Paine is a series of essays first to counter Edmund Burke’s Reflections on the Revolution in France and then to propose reforms of the English government.

The first part of the book directly answers Burke’s counter-revolution argument with Paine positing that popular revolution is permissible when a government does not safeguard the natural rights of its people. The defense of the French Revolution is expertly done by Paine then he highlights and counters what he perceives to be the weakness of Burke’s argument of hereditary wisdom by the assertion—with examples—of how wisdom does not translate from one generation to another in a monarchy so how could it do so in a whole class. The second part of Paine’s book, which was published a year later than the first, is where the essays start deviating from the defending the French Revolution which was the premise to reforming the English government. While some of Paine’s thoughts and ideas are good, his delving into tax policy and the like it’ll made me wonder why I’m reading Wealth of Nations again. Admittedly I didn’t read Burke’s Reflections before reading Paine, a major oversight, but given that Paine awaited Burke’s response while dismissing lesser writers’ efforts to counter his initial publication—during the time between Parts 1 and 2—I will assume that Paine accurately portrayed Burke’s thesis. Given this assumption, Part 1 is a well written rebuttal to Burke and good defense of the ideals of the early French Revolution. However, the second half of the book and its essays touching on a wide range of subjects that Paine attempts to connect with his theme in an effort to advocate a reform to English system of government to be more like the American republican and French constitutional monarchy forms that the late 18th Century Revolutions had produced to that point, is where things feel scattered and the thrust of Paine’s arguments slacken. Yet, one can’t deny Paine’s way with words especially in defense of causes he believes in.

Rights of Man by Thomas Paine is a defense of the ideals of the early French Revolution against counter-revolutionary arguments by reactionary aristocratic defenders of the “status quo”, when focused it’s very good reading.

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Book Review: Star Wars Adventures, Volume 3: Endangered by Delilah S. Dawson & Sholly Fisch

Star Wars Adventures, Vol. 3: Endangered by Delilah S. Dawson
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Star Wars Adventures, Volume 3: Endangered combines three issues of the comic that featured main stories focused on Rose Tico from The Last Jedi and the crew of the Ghost from Star Wars Rebels. “Rose Knows” is fine for what it is, and Ros is portrayed better than how Rian Johnson writes her in the film. The titular story of the volume features the crew of the Ghost on a mission to save a rare bird from being taken to the Emperor’s menagerie for a planet that view it necessary for things to grow. Having seen a few episodes of Star Wars Rebels, “Endangered” reads like what I imagine a script for the show would be and the art appears to be accurate as well, a surprise given the all-ages demographic. The are three Tales from Wild Space that features a young Anakin Skywalker in “Podracer’s Rescue, Nien Numb in “Look Before You Leap”, and a young Jawa in “Gonk!”. While all three short stories were at least good, I’ll admit I purchased this for “Gonk!” written and drawn by Otis Frampton who had drawn random Jawa images and unofficial little comic strips for years prior to getting this opportunity to do a short story that would appear under the official Star Wars banner. Overall, it’s a nice little volume of stories set in the galaxy far far away.

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Book Review: Neuromancer by William Gibson

Neuromancer by William Gibson
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

In the future the line between humanity and machine is getting blurred thanks to cybernetic implants that allow people to enter cyberspace for both positive and nefarious activities then there is artificial intelligence that at any moment could go from machine to human. Neuromancer by William Gibson was a science fiction classic from its publication that became the go to example of the cyberpunk subgenre.

I’m not a picky reader and I’m willing to follow any character whether good or bad or doing very nefarious things to others or having deplorable personal habits, and with caveat I can say the main character of Case was frankly boring as hell. In fact, no character was interesting save Molly even though she was seen from Case perspective and frankly I wish she would have been the main character even though she didn’t enter cyberspace. Honestly, I didn’t understand Gibson’s vision of cyberspace until the latter half of the book when Case was in it a lot and it got easier to figure out. So it can be no surprise that I really didn’t get into the book until roughly two-thirds of the way through when things were building up to the climax that in the end was meh. Maybe if I had read this book closer to when it was published it might have been more impactful but given the slow start then the rapid climb in anticipation to an indifferent ending I don’t understand the hype for the book.

Neuromancer made the cyberpunk subgenre and William Gibson a major science fiction author, however to me I don’t understand the hype for the book.

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Book Review: The Creators by Daniel J. Boorstin

The Creators: A History of Heroes of the Imagination by Daniel J. Boorstin
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Aesthetic and intellectual innovations from great art to great architectural to philosophy have been a major part of the shaping of Western culture, but they didn’t appear out of nowhere and we have people thank for them. The Creators by Daniel J. Boorstin is a historic tale of the individuals that innovated in the styles of art, architecture, literature, music, and more from Vedic India to the 20th Century.

Boorstin over the course of almost 750 pages covers the development of various cultural aspects that have grown and evolved over the course of Western civilization. When possible, individuals are highlighted in biographical sketches as well as their contribution to the subject being discussed, though whenever the origins of the beginning of are murky or more communal in nature before individuals began to impact them Boorstin ready provides the information as such. Yet this approach of highlighting the Western tradition over the rest of the world through either ignoring it or simply writing off the rest of the world as disingenuous—his covering the Japanese long use of wood for architecture didn’t factor into the reality of how many earthquakes the nation dealt with and how quickly rebuilding homes were put back up with wood in comparison to stone. Also, some of Boorstin’s information was incorrect and he overlooked individual’s negative aspects in almost making them myths to illuminate. While some might believe Boorstin is being subjective in what he included, given wide range of time and the cultural aspects involved not everything could be included and so some selection is required in which an author’s personal preference will undoubtedly play a big role since they are writing the book. Overall, the volume is informative for someone looking for a general cultural history of the West, but if you want something more authoritative then this wouldn’t be the book.

The Creators is the middle volume of a trilogy by Daniel Boorstin on “Knowledge”, a hefty book that covers the development and evolution of Western cultural history.

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Book Review: Ordeal of the Union, Volume: Fruits of Manifest Destiny, 1847-1852 by Allan Nevins

Ordeal of the Union, Vol 1: Fruits of Manifest Destiny 1847-52 by Allan Nevins
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The aftermath of a unpopular though very successful war suddenly put two sections of the victors against one another in arguments so serious that it could cause civil war, this is the United States after the Mexican-American War. Ordeal of the Union, Volume One: Fruits of Manifest Destiny, 1847-1852 is the first of Allan Nevins’ eight volume series on the lead up to and of the American Civil War with the focus being on the search for a compromise.

This book featured Nevins revealing to the reader various themes that interact with one another politically, economically, socially, and culturally. Nevins political analysis focused on how weak executives (Polk successful in war but unable to control the fallout of victory, Taylor unable to work with others, and Fillmore an accidental President) and a House of Representatives in chaos demanded the Senate to come up with a compromise to prevent the unraveling the country. Nevins looked how each section of the country—North and South—viewed slavery and treated African Americans along with how the two were economically situated in the early 1850s. Throughout the book, it became clear that many Southerners who preached secession were lying to themselves about the prospects of an independent South and given the 1947 publication date, this was definitely not a “Lost Cause” book. Now that I have brought up when this book came out, there is some word usage that today wouldn’t be used obviously and while it doesn’t need a “trigger warning” one needs to be mindful that different eras had different conventions. Overall, Fruits of Manifest Destiny was a fitting title as Nevins revealed the sweet richness of the new territory acquired from Mexico but the bitterness of the sectional divide that it caused while comparing and contrasting the two sections verbally battling on how to politically and economically organize it.

Ordeal of the Union, Volume One vividly portrays the political tumult of the aftermath of the war with Mexico and Allan Nevins describes it wonderfully while also giving the reader an in-depth overviews of each section of the nation at the beginning of the 1850s.

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Book Review: The Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha Christie

The Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha Christie
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The town of King’s Abbot loose two of important members of the community in the space of a day, but only one is a murder though it has a connection to the other death which relates to another earlier death. The Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha Christie is the fourth book of her mystery series featuring Belgian detective Hercule Poirot, whose retirement in King’s Abott is abruptly ended by the murder of his acquaintance Roger Ackroyd.

Christie is rightfully considered one of best writers of the mystery genre and this book that “breaks all the rules” is one of the reasons why. I knew coming into this book that there was a twist, and it wasn’t until 90 pages left in the book that I realized what the twist was, looking back the main clue stood out and I should have realized it earlier since I already knew the conventional detective tropes would be turned on its head. As for the overall story, I enjoyed it, and I loved my first reading of Hercule Poirot (I imagined him speaking as portrayed by David Suchet) making interested in other books featuring him. This is my second Christie book—And Then There Where None—and I’ve enjoyed both very much which means that I’ll be exploring Agatha Christie more in the future.

The Murder of Roger Ackroyd could be said to subvert tropes while also creating a trope, but however you classify it Agatha Christie wrote a great novel with a fascinating set up and interesting character in Hercule Poirot.

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Book Review: The Nation Comes of Age by Page Smith

The Nation Comes of Age: A People's History of the Ante-Bellum Years by Page Smith
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

With the Founders fading into history, a new generation of leadership took the helm of the United States, but they faced a problem they didn’t want to deal with and in the end, it would create the nation’s greatest crisis. The Nation Comes of Age: A People’s History of the Ante-Bellum Years is the fourth volume of Page Smith’s A People’s History series follows the deaths of Jefferson and Admas focusing on the expansion of the nation and how it resulted in the idea of the Union to grow in appreciation even as the morality of slavery increasing turned the North and South against one another until open war begins.

In the previous volume Smith introduced his view of the United States as schizophrenic in viewing itself against reality then extended it from how one section of the nation looked at the country against the vision of the other. This social-political schizophrenia during the 35 years covered in the book was centered on one issue, slavery which as I stated above quickly became a moral issue thanks to those reformers who abhorred it much to the surprise of Southerners who in their heart of hearts agreed. This wasn’t a completely political and military (Mexican-American War) only history, Smith takes over half the book to look at various social history elements from the status of women to culture (art, literature, etc.) to the reform movements and finally abolitionism; he also covered the exploration by Americans of the interior West and finding routes to the Pacific West following the adventures of such men like Jedediah Smith, Kit Carson, and John Fremont while following on their heels were settlers whose on experiences were covered as well. While Smith follows a lot of political figures, he ends the volume describing the rise of Abraham Lincoln and setting up the coming bloody crisis that would scare the nation. Overall this 1200+ page book covers a lot of things that happened in the United States over the course of 35 years even as Smith spread his narrative to give a very comprehensive he was focused on what everything was leading to and how everything shaped the coming conflagration.

The Nation Comes of Age is the critical volume in Page Smith’s history of the United States, the use of primary sources of ordinary people to help tell the story of the nation during these critical 35 years brings it alive and informs the reader with new facets of American history they might have not known fully before.

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Book Review: Lore Olympus Volume Five by Rachel Smythe

Lore Olympus: Volume Five by Rachel Smythe
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

A relationship is ending, a relationship is beginning, a secret revealed to the audience, and it’s revealed to someone who is furious that the event happened and was hidden from him, oh and the female protagonist disappears. Lore Olympus Volume Five by Rachel Smythe finds Hades and Persephone begin a relationship after the former breaks up with Minthe but things get complicated when we learn how Kore became Persephone.

Covering episodes #103-126 of her webcomic, Smythe zeros in on Persephone’s backstory both from a brief glimpse from her point-of-view but other investigating her life before Olympus. However, the two protagonists don’t take a backseat as Hades attempts to figure out how to deal with his feelings and Persephone tries to continue to figure out things, Smythe’s continual work on deepening the characters really pays off in this volume because as the two most important characters gain layers it allows secondary characters to get more layers as well strengthening the overall piece. Once again Smythe’s artwork and choices to denote the different types of immortals—nymphs, gods, Olympians, Titans—makes the worldbuilding better and the colorizing choices allow the reader to realize something is up when a character’s shading darkness or lightens or completely changes for a few panels. Unlike the last volume, this one—though honestly, I was reading it on and off for a month—resonated better. I can’t tell you the reason why because frankly I don’t know why I had the issue with Volume Four, but things clicked for me in this one better maybe more things happening allowed me to appreciate the two protagonist’s struggles more because I knew other things were going actively without them knowing about it.

Lore Olympus Volume Five by Rachel Smythe continues with compelling characters, expanding the narrative out but keeping it from bloating, and great artwork. To say the least the way the volume’s ending has me interested in what is next.

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Book Review: The Book of Job by Richardo Graham

The Book of Job by Ricardo Graham
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

The story of his suffering and wondering why has fascinated believers of both Judaism and Christianity, but Job’s struggle to understand is only one of many that is touched up in the oldest book of the Bible. The Book of Job is the supplementary book of the Adult Sabbath School Bible Study (4th Quarter 2016) by Richardo Graham covers the major themes of he believes it is important to bring out over the course of 14 chapters. Covering 117 pages, Graham goes over several themes that come to mind when one talks about the Book of Job: Why God allows bad things to happen to good people, God and human suffering, and is suffering the result of sin (i.e. retributive punishment)? But Graham also covers such Adventist topics as the Great Controversy and making connections between Jesus and Job not only in their innocent suffering but also if Job knew his Redeemer. The one thing I disagreed with Graham on was his characterization of Elihu, which given how God handles Job’s other friends at the end of the Book of Job seems to contradict Graham’s thought. However this minor quibble doesn’t mean this isn’t a great book overall.

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Book Review: The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy

The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Twins long separated after the death of a cousin and a family scandal reunite, but the sorrow doesn’t go away. The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy, retells the childhood experience of a set of twins in which seemingly insignificant things shape behavior in unexpected ways in the backdrop of postcolonial India and the lingering effects of casteism.

Roy’s debut novel relates events in 1969 and 1993, with backstories for each, in a disjointed narrative that while taking a little bit getting use to overall didn’t hurt my understanding of events as many times they were explained before we saw them unfold. The antagonist, or the character who is the most villainously influential in conjunction with the societal norms that negatively impact the two protagonists, is hard to miss because of how ugly she is though seen through the eyes of one of the traumatized twins turned adults it could be influencing the description of said individual. There is sexual situations that run the gambit of healthy to bad, very bad which could be off-putting to some readers and frankly when I read the one of them I wish I hadn’t even though I knew a head of time it would be alluded to but didn’t know I actually read it as it happened. Overall, I’m a bit conflicted about the book, I appreciate that Roy showed the societal conflicts of postcolonial India, the characters were interesting, but some of the situations that “we see” I somewhat wish we were told instead. To me personally this is a one-time read, but this is not a book I would re-read.

The God of Small Things looks into how a culture tries to keep its traditions in a time of increasing globalization through the eyes of children and their grown up selves recounting how what appeared as insignificant things impacted their lives dramatically one awful night.

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Book Review: The Federalist by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay

The Federalist Or, the New Constitution by Alexander Hamilton
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

The United States was in dire need of a form of government that worked better than the Articles of Confederation, in the summer of 1787 a convention in Philadelphia produced what would become the Constitution of the United States but its ratification wasn’t guaranteed especially by the most important states in the Union. The Federalist is a collection of 85 essays written by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay to convince the citizens of New York to support the ratification of the Constitution that also explained for the historical record what two of its framers believed how the government it created would work and why.

The essays making of The Federalist are a look into both political theory, as three men expound how the proposed government would work in practice and refute allegations against it, and also political history as with two of the Constitution’s Framers and another prominent Founding Father defending it we see how important in the time and day they believed this document was. This is the culmination of almost a quarter century of political writing since the start of the tax dispute with Britain in which the arguments of political thinkers Locke and Montesquieu were prominent as they were within the writings of Hamilton, Madison, and Jay. There are several famous essays known by their numbers (#10, 14, 39, 51, 70, and 78) that become the standards of American political thought to this day. While students of political history and readers of political theory read The Federalist to understand the arguments for the Constitution and to glimpse the thinking that lay behind the document, was it’s intended purpose successful? While New York ratified the Constitution, it was the last of the big four and the overall eleventh state to do so, the Constitution was operational, and the state convention was packed with opponents but being left out of the new government was too much to handle. It could be argued that the essays didn’t sway New York, political reality did, but why is this collection famous? Hamilton and Madison, two young men instrumental in getting the Constitutional Convention called, attended and debated, and then influenced the new government they created over the course of the next quarter century.

The Federalist is a collection of 85 essays planned out to show the need for and defend the Constitution sent to the 13 states to be ratified and create a new government. Written by three prominent Founding Fathers, these essays are in the words of history Richard B. Morris, “a classic in political science unsurpassed in both breadth and depth by the product of any later American writer.”

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Book Review: Jeremiah by Timothy Joseph Golden

Jeremiah by Timothy Joseph Golden
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The long career of Jeremiah was not a fun, rewarding experience for the prophet born into a line of priests, but one of profound personal sadness, humiliation, the constant threat of death and more. Jeremiah: The Prophet of Crisis is the supplemental book of the Adult Sabbath School Bible Study (4th Quarter 2015) by Timothy Joseph Golden covers Jeremiah’s prophetic career of warning Judah of the coming divine punishment and how his life mirrors that of Christ in several areas. In 143 pages Golden covers the career and book of Jeremiah that space allows, bringing out important lessons that we today can learn from while also covering the history of the last five kings of Judah before the Babylonian Captivity. This was the first supplemental book that referred to the contents of the weekly lesson in the quarterly and not having a copy means I couldn’t get background—however given I this book is almost 10 years old mean it couldn’t be helped—but regardless the chapters were still good reads. Overall this is was a good read.

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Book Review: The Discoverers by Daniel Boorstin

The Discoverers: A History of Man's Search to Know His World and Himself by Daniel J. Boorstin
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Today in our interconnected global community we take for granted how much we know about the world around us, but not so long ago every aspect of our modern world would have been considered fantasy but through individuals who expanded the knowledge of their time our world was made. The Discoverers by Daniel Boorstin is a historic tale of individuals that pushed the boundaries of human discoveries in the physical realm and more theoretical ones.

Boorstin begins his book with how the calendar came about and finished with how the atom went from concept to fact and in between he covered how time got measured, how the earth was measured then fully mapped out, how plants and animals were classified, and finally how everything about man from the inside out and his creation of science shaped himself and the world. In almost 700 pages Boorstin explores how individuals—all men to be honest—built on the work of others even if it meant they undercut that had come before to revealing something new and unknown, even if it went up against “the establishment” whether that meant the academic consensus or the all-powerful Church, with each segment focusing on a different avenue for discoveries near seamlessly transitioning from one to another. Boorstin’s focus is on the West, he does give China a spotlight early one though to show a cultural contrast, and one needs to come into the book with full knowledge that it will be European-focused.

The Discoverers is the first of a trilogy series by Daniel Boorstin on “Knowledge”, a hefty book that covers a wide range of human adventures into their world.

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Book Review: Lore Olympus Volume Four by Rachel Smythe

Lore Olympus: Volume Four by Rachel Smythe
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

The complicated relationship between the goddess of spring and the king of the underworld has entered its fourth day and not only are the two protagonists that are having trouble, but it also seems all of Olympus is starting to have issues. Lore Olympus Volume Four by Rachel Smythe finds Hades and Persephone attempting to navigate their various feelings, traumas, and daily tasks while also figuring out whatever is happening between them.

Covering episodes #76-102 of her webcomic, Smythe begins developing the backstories for both Hades and Persephone while also expanding the roster of Greek gods in her retelling of the ancient mythos. However, this doesn’t stop the progression of both main character’s ongoing “present-day” stories and how they are dealing with the increasingly annoying gossip mill building around them amongst the citizens of Olympus as well as their family members and friends. Smythe continues to build the subplots that are expanding and filling out Olympus giving the world more depth. The artwork continues to be excellent and engaging, which given the format of the media is a must. However, for some reason while I enjoyed the filling in of the main characters’ backstory, the introduction of more gods, and the slow building of other subplots there was something this entire volume that just wasn’t clicking with me and I don’t know what exactly.

Lore Olympus Volume Four by Rachel Smythe continues storytelling whose quality I’ve enjoyed up to this point, however for everything I liked while reading there was just something that wasn’t clicking with me the entire book.

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Book Review: The Shaping of America by Page Smith

The Shaping of America: A People's History of the Young Republic by Page Smith
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The struggle against the political encroachment of Britain and the ensuing military struggle led to independence, but now the real problems began how to follow up. The Shaping of America: A People’s History of the Young Republic is the third volume of Page Smith’s A People’s History series going over the history of the United States with this volume covering the aftermath of the 1783 Treaty of Paris to the deaths of John Adams and Thomas Jefferson in 1826.

Smith viewed the young nation caught between two intellectual consciousnesses—the Classical-Christian of the Revolutionary generation, whose last gasp brought about the Constitution, and the Secular-Democratic inspired by the Enlightenment in the generation that followed the Founders, though ironically led by a few of the Founders. Though Secular-Democratic thought came out on top, it was deeply influenced by the intellectual viewpoint it had replaced especially as the international scene saw the resurgence of absolute monarchism in the aftermath of the French Revolution and Napoleonic Wars. Though politically the Secular-Democratic intellectual view was victorious, socially the Protestant Christian emphasis on redeeming the world was a major thread in the American tapestry and eventually come up against the issue that the Founders and the next generation didn’t want to confront, black slavery. As Smith ended this volume, he highlighted the growing cloud that slavery was becoming for those in the North and South while the “original” West was beginning to pick sides. But once again I found Smith’s facts about Native American tribes inaccurate in some instances that I was shaking my head, and I don’t know much about that subject which speaks volumes. Overall, this was a well-written and fascinating look at the history of the young republic, while Smith’s analysis or chosen themes might not be for everyone but that is the point as it reveals the uncomfortable facts that need to be addressed.

The Shaping of America follows up the two-volume history of the American Revolution with a fascinating and engaging look at the young republic as Page Smith reveals all facets of the United States over four critical decades.

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Book Review: Where God and I Meet: The Sanctuary by Martin Probstle

Where God and I Meet: The Sanctuary by Martin T. Preobstle
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

The sanctuary is essential to the distinctive Adventist doctrine of the investigative judgment and from the beginning the sanctuary has been where God has come to meet with his creation first in Heaven then on Earth. Where God and I Meet: The Sanctuary is the supplemental book of the Adult Sabbath School Bible Study (4th Quarter 2013) by Martin Proebstle reveals God’s character and His plan of redemption through Jesus’ death. Through 144 pages divided into 13 chapters, Proebstle goes over the Heavenly Sanctuary, the various earthly sanctuaries (yes more than the Israelite tabernacle and Temples), the meanings of the sacrifices, the yearly Day of Atonement, and finally everything connected with the Investigative Judgment doctrine. This is a fascinating combination of Biblical history, a look at the plan of redemption, and finally how God had a plan to solve the sin problem from before it appeared.

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