Review: The Setup: A True Story of Dirty Cops, Soccer Moms, and Reality TV by Pete Crooks

The Setup: A True Story of Dirty Cops, Soccer Moms, and Reality TV by Pete Crooks

Link to buy The Setup: A True Story of Dirty Cops, Soccer Moms, and Reality TV

Story Rating: 2 out of 5

Review:

This book has a long title that sounds like it is going to be full of all sorts of action, but I found this was not the case. In fact, this book moved so slowly I found myself putting it down for a while before I could continue on with the story. The people in this book were not the most likeable and it was difficult to find any redeeming qualities in them.

The best part about this book is the introduction written by Joe Kenda. I found myself wishing he had written the rest of the book as well. Mr Crooks has a rough writing style that was too bad because I was interested in the book and really wanted to like it more than I did.

Reviewed by Joseph

Review: Behind the Iron Curtain: My Years Hidden As A Boy by Irene Kucholick

Behind the Iron Curtain: My Years Hidden As A Boy by Irene Kucholick

Link to buy: Behind the Iron Curtain: My Years Hidden as a Boy (Iron Curtain Memoirs) (Volume 2)

Story Rating: 3.5 out of 5

Review:

You know the old saying "To the victor go the spoils"? Well, that's what happened to Germany after it was defeated in World War II. The country was split between the nations that had sacrificed so much to end Germany's reign of terror across Europe. The poor souls who ended up in the Russian-controlled communist portion of Germany experienced hunger, oppression, and all manner of abuse. Other Germans living in other parts of the country came under the control of France, England, and the United States, and they enjoyed greater freedom and prosperity.

This is the sequel to a book that ended when Germany lost World War II. It recounts the life of a teenage German girl who survived the war only to end up trapped under the thumb of the conquering Russians. This is an interesting, educational look at the daily struggles of the author, her family, and friends in the years following the war. It offers a glimpse into circumstances that most people will hopefully never have to endure.

The biggest problem with this book is how depressing it is. If the author's goal was to strike fear into every reader's heart at the thought that their comfy lives could at any moment be ripped away because of evil, corrupt, and self-serving governments, then mission accomplished! Because that's exactly what this book did for me. The people depicted in this book weren't responsible for Hitler's atrocities, yet they were the ones paying the price at the hands of Russian soldiers who clearly felt justified in abusing the German people.

The title refers to the fact that the main character begins dressing like a boy in order to avoid being repeatedly raped by Russian soldiers. German women and girls were frequently abducted from their homes and dragged to the barracks for the soldiers' entertainment, but boys were safer. Yes, they'd get beaten – and the main character certainly did get her share of beatings – but at least she avoided being raped. See what I mean about how the book is depressing?

When the Russian soldiers weren't raping the locals, they were stealing everything they could from them. The Germans were starving, so they resorted to any means necessary to find food for themselves and their families, including stealing and travelling to cities to become (illegal) street performers. Everyone knew that if the Russian soldiers got their hands on anything of value that the Germans had, it would be confiscated. The author's accordion was taken at one point, which was tragic because she had been using it to earn money to buy food.

Finally, be aware that this book is written in a simplistic style that could be the result of an author for whom English is a second language. That makes sense if the author was living in Germany following WWII, but an editor could have smoothed out these rough spots. 

Reviewed by Peter

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Do You Know Where Your Carbon Is?

It's 10 o'clock. Do You Know Where Your Carbon Is? 

The global climate change movement howls about the evils of carbon in the atmosphere, but most ignore how important carbon is to the soil. It's vital to the health of plants and, in turn, to the health of everyone and everything that eats those plants. In other words, it's vital to us all. But humans have spent thousands of years taking lousy care of the soil, and we've only gotten worse as the centuries have passed. As a result, the carbon content of our soils has been severely depleted. So what to do? Read books, of course! This is a book review site, after all.

Organic is so last year. Sustainable isn't enough. We need to take action that regenerates the planet. That's a substantial part of the message in Kristin Ohlson's book The Soil Will Save Us: How Scientists, Farmers, and Foodies Are Healing the Soil to Save the Planet. Yes, organic and sustainable are good, and they're certainly way better than factory farming and pesticides, but there's more to it than that. We need to heal the soil by replenishing carbon, which will help heal the environment. The idea is that when carbon leaves the soil, it must go somewhere, which means it ends up in the atmosphere. Ohlson points out that even without burning fossil fuels, the carbon build-up in the atmosphere will persist if we don't change our damaging farming and land use practices. We need to put that carbon back in the soil where it can help us instead of kill us.

Want more fuel for your carbon fire? Try Grass, Soil, Hope: A Journey through Carbon Country by Courtney White. For the animal lovers among us, pick up a copy of Cows Save the Planet: And Other Improbable Ways of Restoring Soil to Heal the Earth by Judith D. Schwartz. An advantage of these books and others like them is that they leave readers feeling hopeful. We're not at the mercy of polluting mega-corporations or factory farms or genetic engineers. Individuals can take meaningful action in their own backyards and at their local grocery stores.

Start planning your spring regenerative gardens now and be optimistic about our planet's future!

Review: Screw the Valley by Timothy Sprinkle

Screw the Valley by Timothy Sprinkle

Link to buy Screw the Valley: A Coast-to-Coast Tour of America’s New Tech Startup Culture: New York, Boulder, Austin, Raleigh, Detroit, Las Vegas, Kansas City

Story Rating: 4 out of 5

Review:

Timothy Sprinkle's "Screw the Valley, a Coast-to-Coast Tour of America's Startup Culture" will be of particular interest to entrepreneurs and venture-capitalists. As a general business guy, occasional investor, and sometime follower of financial news, I can attest to the more-general appeal to others interested in learning more about the challenges and opportunities innovators and startups face. The tone is conversational and relatable to a general audience, and a reader won't need a degree in
Finance to compare the pros and cons of launching a startup in Austin, Texas versus Boulder, Colorado.

Mr. Sprinkle has been reporting on this topic for a variety of magazines and websites for 15 years and has an expert, insider's knowledge of the topic. Through personal anecdotes, as well as quotes and interviews with experts in each of the regions covered, he does an excellent job highlighting the cultural and business environments of New York, Boulder, Austin, Raleigh, Detroit, Las Vegas, and Kansas City. He also explains the support and roadblocks startups can expect to receive from the various local governments and business groups. He makes an excellent case that Silicon Valley is not
the only, or even the best, place to launch a new business or locate willing, expert business partners.

The advance review copy I read had a number of grammatical errors, especially in the Introduction (which I would advise readers to skip.) Hopefully they will be corrected before final publication. Other than this quibble, a reader interested in the topic will learn much about how these deals get made, and how many vibrant startup hubs there are in the U.S. outside of where we might typically look.

Reviewed by Trevor

Review: 50 Best Yoga Positions

50 Best Yoga Positions

Link to buy 50 Best Yoga Positions

Story Rating: 4 out of 5

Blurb:

Yoga is a wonderful way to tone and strengthen your body while reducing stress and improving flexibility. With simple, step-by-step instructions and full-color photography to help you clearly understand and perform each exercise, this compact book of yoga exercises is designed for a compete full-body workout. Ideal for every age and fitness level, it features 50 individual exercises and a unique planner that helps you design your own routine, 50 Best Yoga Exercises is an essential, no-fuss guide for anyone looking to improve their health and form.

Review:

This is a great book filled with photos of yoga poses. There are in depth explanations for each pose with tips and techniques to make each easier for the beginner and more difficult for the advanced. At the end of the book there is a chapter with the chakras. While it is an enjoyable book there were a couple of times I experienced an eye roll at some of the cheesiness in pose descriptions. Overall though, probably best for the novice.

Reviewed by Elizabeth

Review: Nashville Songwriter: The Inside Stories Behind Country Music's Greatest Hits by Jake Brown

Nashville Songwriter by Jake Brown

Link to buy Nashville Songwriter: The Inside Stories Behind Country Music’s Greatest Hits

Story Rating: 3 out of 5

Blurb:

Nashville Songwriter gives readers the first completely authorized collection of the true stories that inspired hits by the biggest multi-platinum country superstars of the last half century—recounted by the songwriters themselves. Award-winning music biographer Jake Brown gives readers an unprecedented, intimate glimpse inside the world of country music songwriting.

Featuring exclusive commentary from country superstars and chapter-length interviews with today’s biggest hit-writers on Music Row, this book chronicles the stories behind smash hits such as:

Willie Nelson’s “Always on My Mind”
Tim McGraw’s “Live Like You Were Dying,” “Southern Voice,” and “Real Good Man”
George Jones’s “Tennessee Whiskey”
Carrie Underwood’s “Jesus Take the Wheel” and “Cowboy Casanova”
Brooks & Dunn’s “Ain’t Nothing ’Bout You”
Lady Antebellum’s “We Owned the Night” and “Just a Kiss”
Brad Paisley’s “Mud on the Tires,” “We Danced,” and “I’m Still a Guy”
Luke Bryan’s “Play It Again,” “Crash My Party,” and “That’s My Kind of Night”
The Oak Ridge Boys’s “American Made”
George Strait’s “Ocean Front Property” and “The Best Day,”
Rascal Flatts’s “Fast Cars and Freedom,” and “Take Me There”
Kenny Chesney’s “Living in Fast Forward” and “When the Sun Goes Down”
Ricochet’s “Daddy’s Money”
Montgomery Gentry’s “If You Ever Stop Loving Me”
The Crickets’s “I Fought the Law”
Tom T. Hall’s “A Week in a County Jail” and “That Song Is Driving Me Crazy”
Trace Adkins’s “You’re Gonna Miss This”
David Lee Murphy’s “Dust on the Bottle”
Jason Aldean’s “Big Green Tractor” and “Fly Over States”
And many more top country hits over the past 40 years!

Review:

We have all heard a phrase or sentence and thought "That would make a great country song title!" Well, prepare to have a lot of those while reading this book. Even if you are not a fan of country music the process of writing a song is intriguing. The book is arranged from oldest to newest and is easy to follow.

Reviewed by Joseph

Review: Health By Design: Weight Loss God's Way by Cathy Morenzie

Healthy by Design: Weight Loss, God's Way by Cathy Morenzie

Link to buy Healthy by Design: Weight Loss, God's Way

Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

Review:

Healthy by Design establishes a 21-day program designed to help readers lose weight in conjunction with their faith. It's geared to a Christian audience and includes passages from the Bible that reinforce each day's weight loss activities. Each day starts with a Bible passage and reflection on the teachings. It's like a mini sermon where the author offers thoughts about how the passage can help the reader achieve his/her weight loss goals. The second daily activity is called a health challenge. This is an action that the reader must take to help move toward weight loss goals. For instance, one of the first health challenges requires readers to select an "accountability partner" to help work through the steps and serve as a support group. The third element of each day's activities is a confession, which is essentially a prayer that reinforces the lesson from each day. For instance, Day 11 addresses the problem of emotional eating. The daily health challenge asks readers to identify emotions that have previously caused an emotional eating response, and the confession demands that readers admit to God that they're guilty of emotional eating, but they have the ability to stop. At the end of the first 21 days, the book provides additional scripture suggestions for continuing the program into the future.

In many ways, this book is an amalgam of other self-help books and self-help programs that encourage readers to think positive, take small steps in the right direction, and focus on the goal. The big difference is that this one is specifically geared to Christians who want to lose weight. You've been told many times before to picture yourself thin (or sober or rich), put your weight loss (or addiction or desire for success) in the hands of a higher power so you can stop obsessing about it, know that you're meant to reach your goal, etc.

Just because the strategies used here have been seen before doesn't mean they're not valuable. Positive thinking and focus on a goal can work wonders. It seems like that would be especially true for Christians who are already eager to learn more from the Bible and strengthen their beliefs. It makes sense to combine faith with health and fitness goals. The author says that a research study showed churchgoers weigh more than non-churchgoers. She suggests that's because of all the food-based fellowship activities like barbeques and bake sales.

If it's true that churchgoers' behaviors cause them to be less fit, perhaps a change in behaviors could improve fitness. What if churches were to install stationary bikes and treadmills instead of pews so parishioners could spend an hour every Sunday strengthening both their bodies and their spirits? That suggestion might sound over-the-top, but it's completely serious. What better way to worship than by attacking the deadly sin of sloth? Nothing in the Bible says people must worship by sitting quietly wearing big hats and uncomfortable clothes.

Since this reviewer isn't a Christian, I approached the book with an eye toward whether it has much value for non-Christians. The answer is a qualified "Yes." For nonbelievers, some of this book's value is lost, but like many self-help books for weight loss or achieving success or curbing anxiety, etc., this one's primary value is reinforcement. It reminds the reader what he/she should do, and reading it provides quiet time to focus on the goal. Also, many of the scripture passages contain valuable advice for Christians and non-Christians alike. For instance, Day 6 is about avoiding excuses. You have to make a choice between "reasons or results," because if you want results you can't be constantly creating reasons (excuses) for why you can't achieve them. Other days focus on additional helpful topics like improving self-image and avoiding blaming others for your problems.

One part of the program that might not work for everyone is choosing the "accountability partner." Some people like to work with partners or groups and feel they provide motivation. Those are the people who go to the gym with a friend or who join study groups in school. Others, however, prefer to work alone and don't want to drag anyone into what they're doing. The author of this book should have made the "accountability partner" portion of this program optional in order to allow for readers' personal preferences.

Reviewed by Peter