Book Reciews

To be honest with you I didn't know much about Glenn Beck until he started showing up on the Fox news network, with his hour-long late afternoon program.  But after watching Glenn for while, I decided he deserved a contribution from me.  I felt like it was my duty to contribute some money to him, for some of the investigative work that he's done lately, so I bought his latest book "Arguing With Idiots."  Now, I'm not a Glenn Beck worshiper because he's just a little bit too weepy for me and just a bit too extremely religious in his views.  Being religious is OK but you don't need to tell me about it all the time.  

However,  recently he's been talking about some things that I think are very important and he won me over, I bought his book Arguing With Idiots.  This is a great book if you want to rile people up and have a lot of fun in your day just carry this book around with you because the cover shows a picture of Glenn Beck in some kind of military uniform.  Just the cover alone will freak out a lot of people.  It's the not a very big book under 300 pages but these pages are really thick, I mean really thick and they are have a lot of charts, drawings and illustrations, which makes for easy reading.  

This book gives anyone the tools they need, so you can argue with "idiots" who are extremely left minded.  Don't get me wrong I am not saying that all politically left leaning people are idiots, just some of them.  After reading this book you will have the information you need to argue with most any idiot you encounter. 

I read this book because I have heard and read many times that this book influenced President Obama when he was younger in Chicago.  Others, that reportedly have been influenced by Alinsky's teachings, include Wade Rathke (Co-Founder of ACORN), Cesar Chavez, and Jesse Jackson and others.

In the Art of War by Sun Tzu: Master Sun Said... "Know the other, know thyself and the victory will not be at risk; know thy ground, know the natural conditions, and the victory can be total."  So, I decided I should read this book.  Quite frankly I found this book to be one of the scariest books I have ever read.  It explained to me why this country has had some of the problems it has had in recent years.  I also felt that we all have a very troubling future unless more people understand why someone would write a book like this.  It's a short book only 193 pages but you should read it and form your own conclusions.

 

I started Reading The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown because I was really impressed with his last novel The Da Vinci Code.  After reading just a few chapters in the book it suddenly hit me that this all sounded very familiar.  The reason it sounded familiar was the book seem to be following the same storyline of The Da Vinci Code only the names were changed and what was going on and changed.  I thought at this point he had just taken the new book and just change the cast of characters so his readers would feel comfortable with the book.  This is not what I want to see in a book and as I read a bit further I realized that that maybe was a harsh comment, on my part.  In actuality, it turned into a very good read and for the next three hundred pages At times I found this book to be very exciting.

 

But then something else started bothering me as the clues, I was getting in the book allowed me to figure out who the bad guy was, and what was going on before I should have been able to figure it all out.  I think that anybody who has read very many books could have done the same thing.  I don't think my observation was especially special in any way.  This is quite a letdown for me and it bothered me clear throughout the book is the cast of characters started piecing things together, that was quite quite obvious to the reader, a long time ago.  I kept wanting to yell out, what's the matter with you guys, can't you see what's going on.

 

Anyway, towards the end of the book things really got exciting.  I couldn't believe what I was reading and it was quite shocking.  But then that all changed and before long the book had reached the end but I still had a lot of pages to go so I wondered what's way to happen now.  So, as I kept reading the final pages of this book and got to the very end, I found the book was just a great big let down for me.   The final ending was probably one of the worst of any book that I've ever read and I walked away wondering why the hell did I read this book.  I don't know if I'll read another Dan Brown book ever again.

I don't remember when I bought the book Sevastopol by Leo Tolstoy. I do know that as a very good book about the Crimean war of 1854 to 1856. However, the real treasure of this book is the introduction written by Phillip Rahv. The entire book is only 229 pages.  That must be read before digging into the rest of this book.

This book deals with all the horrors of war and begins with a young soldier visiting the battlefield and his idealistic view of what's going on. You later returns to battle only the discover that some of things he thought were so go the first time around turn out to be really horrible. There were many errors in judgment on both sides during this battle and as a result the losses were enormous. 

"The 11 months of that Tolstoy spent in Sebastopol were not entirely absorb our military life.  He was able to keep up with his diary in which we find any number of entries quite detached from his immediate experience.  Of particular and surprising interest is the following notation of March 5, 1855:" 

" A conversation about the Divinity and Faith has suggested to me a great, a stupendous idea, to the realization of which I feel capable of a devoting my life. That idea is the founding of a new religion corresponding to the present state of mankind: the religion of Christ but purged of the dogmas and mysticism - a practical religion, not promising future bliss but giving bliss on earth. I understand that to accomplish this the conscious labor of generations will be needed. One generation will bequeath the idea to the next, and someday fanaticism or reason will accomplish it. Deliberately to promote the union of mankind by religion is the basic thought which I hope will dominate me."

Now I ask you; isn't is enough to make you want to read this book?

 

(The following is a review I posted on amazon.com - Ray Basso)

I have read enough of this book, to be able to say; "I think it's a great book." I own a lot of barbecue related cookbooks and I have had the great good fortune, as the moderator of BBQForum.com, to have read over 700,000 posts to the forum by BBQ people. So I have been exposed to a lot of barbecue. This is one of the best books, about barbecue and outdoor cooking in general.

In 2005 I did a podcast interview with Adam and I have read his detailed posts to the forum. I have never actually meet Adam in person. However, I know a little bit about Adam. He knows how to cook and not only that, he knows what happens to food when it's cooking and can explain it to you. The book really focuses on layering flavors. So, when people taste food cooked the way he explains it, they are in for taste treats, one after another.

With all my 14 years of daily exposure to the wisdom of some of the top barbecue cooks in the country and all the cookbooks I have read, you would think I would have a good grasp of the situation. But, in reading this book I am learning a lot of new things.

I don't hand out these compliments lightly. This is not just a "low and slow pure barbecue" cookbook but he carries his knowledge of "pure barbecue" (he has won prestigious "pure barbecue" awards to back this up) into all levels of outdoor cooking. There is a lot of direct grilling and indirect smoking information. I don't care if you're an expert cook or a beginner, you will get a lot out of reading this book.