I got done reading Jan Crawford Greenburg's excellent book "Supreme Conflict: The Inside Story of the Struggle For Control of the United States Supreme Court" last week. I strongly suggest that you pick it up if you're at all interested in the Supreme Court. Greenburg has more than capably outlined the past 30-some years of […]
I'm probably the last person out in the blogosphere to read Robert Ferrigno's "Prayers for the Assassin." Where Syne Mitchell's "The Last Mortal Man" (see below) describes an intriguing future that can make you a little uncomfortable, Ferrigno's "Prayers for the Assassin" is a future that is a heckuva lot scarier. Ferrigno's adventure takes place […]
I've been burning through a few books in the past week, but haven't really had the opportunity to write my mini book reports. I finished Syne Mitchell's "The Last Mortal Man" yesterday afternoon, and the only thing I'm kicking myself over is the fact that I didn't notice until I was already invested in the […]
I recently got some books in the mail, including Bryan Peterson's "Understanding Digital Photography." The book is a pretty good primer for those who've gone out and bought a new digital SLR. However, I would suggest that Peterson's "Understanding Exposure" book is the better buy if you're only going to buy one book. Two notes […]
I just finished reading Richard Brookhiser's "What Would the Founders Do?" It's a pretty good general survey of the founders views on a variety of issues. Perhaps the most interesting tidbit that I discovered was that there was agreement in both the Federalist and Democratic parties that something like an interstate highway system would require […]
I finished Ramesh Ponnuru's book "Party of Death" earlier this week and it's an excellent and easy-to-read book -- one every pro-lifer should have on their bookshelf. "Party of Death" is not a religious treatise -- it doesn't need to be. Instead Ponnuru presents a intellectually rigorous defense of the idea that a human being […]
My brother-in-law, the pastor, occasionally gets a kick out quoting "Biblical scholar" Elaine Pagels to me. He knows that she's got her theology all out of whack, but Pagels and I have a history. You see, in one of my upper-division English courses at Cal Poly, I made a mistake. I unwittingly got a professor […]
It's very rare that I read self-published books. The main reason is that when you even hear about a self-published book, it's usually because you know the author -- Barnes & Noble and other brick-and-mortar stores just don't have the shelf space to dedicate to books that are more an exercise in ego for the […]
I finished readling James L. Swanson's "Manhunt: The Twelve Day Chase for Lincoln's Killer" last night and I wholeheartedly suggest that anyone with any interest in the Civil War era pick it up. The book is an in-depth and compelling account of the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln and the hunt for John Wilkes Booth […]
I'm a big World War II history buff, both of my grandfathers served -- one in the Army Air Corps, the other in the Marines -- and I must confess that one of the major holes in my pretty extensive reading was the Bataan Death March and the Japanese occupation of the Phillippines. "Ghost Soldiers" […]