Book Review: Hitch-22: A Memoir by Christopher Hitchens (2010).

Despite "produc[ing] a thousand words a printable copy every day and sometimes more" (p. 350), Christopher Hitchens appears a reluctant writer of memoir.

He admits his reluctance upfront: "When I first formed the idea of writing some memoirs, I had the customary reservations about the whole conception being perhaps 'too soon'. Nothing dissolves this fusion of false modesty and natural reticence more swiftly than the blind realization that the project could become, at any moment, ruled out of the question as having been undertaken too 'late.'" (3.)

Hitchens does not entirely overcome his reticence because after reading Hitch-22: A Memoir does comes away not really knowing the man. For example, Hitchens provides almost zero explanation for his journey to atheism, or as he prefers, anti-theism. This omission surprises inasmuch as Hitchens is one of leaders of the so-called "New Atheism", following the publication of his recent bestseller, God Is Not Great and frequent debates with leading apologists including William Lane Craig. He does include a photo (immediately preceding page 309) with fellow "New Atheists", Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett and Sam Harris, but his caption is about as much as he says about the collaboration. There's a brief interlude at pages 330-331 about his public debates "once or twice every month" "with those whose pressing need it is to woo and to win the approval of supernatural beings" (330), i.e. Hitchens' creative, yet patronizing, way of saying theists. He writes:

"How ... I am asked, do I find meaning and purpose in life? How does a mere and gross materialist, with no expectation of a life to come, decide what, if anything, is worth caring about?

"Depending on my mood, I sometimes but not always refrain from point out what a breathtakingly insulting and patronizing question this is. ... Just as the answer to the latter question is: self-respect and the desire for respect to others... A life that partakes even a little of friendship, love, irony, humor, parenthood, literature, and music, and the courageto take part in battles for the liberation of others cannot be called 'meaningless' except if the person living it is also an existentialist and elects to call it so. It could be that all existence is a pointless joke, but it is not in fact possible to live one's everyday life as if this were so. Whereas if one sought to define meaninglessness and futility, the idea that a human life should be expended in the guilty, fearful self-obsessed propitiation of supernatural nonentities..but there, there. Enough." (330-31.)

That is not to say that the book ignores the people and places that have influenced his life. There's a strong doses of that, including chapters on his mother Yvonne who unfortunately committed suicide, and his somewhat distant father whom he called, "The Commander". However, Hitchens does not allow the book to indulge in extended self-introspection or self-analysis. This lack is especially odd when one considers Hitchens' closing sentiment: "After various past allegiances, I have come to believe that Marx was rightest of all when he recommended continual doubt and self-criticism." (422). Hitchens includes one chapter called, Something of Myself, which is exactly that--only "something".

Nevertheless, despite the reluctance to expose the world to his inner thoughts, the world is the richer to see a true man of letters whipping words into a delicacy of prose.

Book Review: The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine (2010) by Michael Lewis.

Describing one of his subjects--a gentleman who foretold the credit-default swap debacle--author Michael Lewis wrote, in The Big Short, that he was one who spoke in terms of stories instead of numbers.

This description could have just as easily be ascribed to the book itself. While the book chronicles the financial world's most ignominious fall since perhaps the Great Depression, it doesn't depend on hoary financial analysis. Instead, Lewis deftly tells the story through the people that positioned themselves to profit from the insanity of certain exotic lending practices. In so doing, Lewis provides perhaps the most lucid explanation for the catastrophe to date.

As a gifted writer and storyteller, Lewis tackles just about any subject with aplomb. He is well-known for his recent The Blind Side (covering football) and Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game (covering baseball) as well as his early work about Wall Street, Liar's Poker.

Observe a master at the top of his craft. Do yourself a favor and read this one.

Book Review: No One Would Listen (2010) by Harry Markopolos.

What would morally outrage you more: a person robbing a bank or a security guard (who was tipped off) slumbering through it?

As one flows from nefarious intent and the other from incompetence or inertia, one would typically argue for the bank robber.

But author Harry Markopolos is not typical. Just ask him. He seems to relish being "wildly eccentric". (p. 251.)

Perhaps reflecting this eccentricity, Markopolos' book reserves most of its moral outrage for the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), instead of the man it failed to stop: Bernie Madoff, despite Markopolos' repeated warnings.

Nobody Would Listen chronicles Markopolos' somewhat quixotic campaign to stop Madoff's ponzi scheme, years before it collapsed in 2008 (through no effort of the SEC). Anyone believing in federal government regulation of financial markets will have his or her faith stripped to agnosticism or atheism after reading this sad and sobering tale. That's not to say that the book doesn't have its funny moments too--the breathtaking audacity of Madoff as well as the SEC can sometimes only be read as comedic.

Despite a healthy dollop of needless lawyer-bashing (e.g, "Most lawyers couldn't recognize a Ponzi scheme if they were having dinner with Charles Ponzi." [268]), the book is a fascinating instruction manual of how not to deal with a "whistleblower" if you are a government official tasked with supervising capital markets.

Book Review: War (2010) by Sebastian Junger.

My dad and I attended some basketball games at the university he taught at. One season, the school's team featured a player who was listed in excess of 7'5". He looked good on paper or walking through an airport terminal, but his performances on the court didn't live up to the promise. My dad characterized his play as "flashes of brilliance". Implied in the compliment, however, was that outside of the fleeting flashes, his play bordered on pedestrian.

Unfortunately, Sebastian Junger's War earns a similar backhanded accolade. There are undeniable moments of brilliant observation, flowing out of Junger's authentic experience periodically embedded between June 2007 and June 2008 with an Army unit in an especially dangerous part of Afghanistan. (p. xi.) For example:

"War is a lot of things and it's useless to pretend that exciting isn't one of them. It's insanely exciting. The machinery of war and the sound it makes and the urgency of its use and the consequences of almost everything about it are the most exciting things anyone engaged in war will ever know. ... War is supposed to feel bad because undeniably bad things happen in it, but for a nineteen-year-old at the working end of a .50 cal during a firefight that everyone comes out of okay, war is life multiplied by some number that no one has ever heard of." (144.)

Explaining the counterintuitive dearth of religion at the front line, Junger observed: "The platoon was the faith, a greater cause that, if you focused on it entirely, made your fears go away. It was an anesthetic that left you aware of what was happening but strangely fatalistic about the outcome. As a soldier, the thing you were most scared of was failing your brothers when they needed you, and compared to that, dying was easy. Dying was over with. Cowardice lingered forever." (210.)

Junger contrasts war from combat: "War is a big and sprawling word that brings a lot of human suffering into the conversation, but combat is a different matter. Combat is a smaller game that young men fall in love with, and any solution to the human problem of war will have to take into account the psyches of these young men. For some reason there is a profound and mysterious gratification to the reciprocal agreement to protect another person with your life, and combat is virtually the only situation in which that happens regularly." (234.)

Given these overriding themes about courage and the community of soldiers, Junger rarely gets into the politics or causes of the Afghanistan war. However, Junger drops this bracing, controversial comment (largely overlooked or ignored by the MSM) almost as an aside: "The men know Pakistan is the root of the entire war, and that is just about the only topic they get political about. They don't much care what happens in Afghanistan.... You didn't have to be in the Army to notice that Pakistan was effectively waging war against America, but the administration back home was refusing to even acknowledge it, must less take any action." (249.)

Perhaps the book's unevenness flows from the fact that Junger embarked on this project as both a book and a documentary (entitled Restrepo) (xi), unlike his earlier The Perfect Storm book that was later adapted into a movie starring George Clooney. For this reason, the book doesn't quite stand alone, as if the writer was distracted by making two disparate pieces at the same time. His division of focus unfortunately manifests as an inconsistent book, flashing its brilliance only like lightening strikes against an otherwise gray sky.

Book Review: Courage and Consequence: My Life as a Conservative in the Fight (2010) by Karl Rove.

If this book were human, it would have a tripartite personality, not unlike the "United States of Tara" or "Cybil".

Karl Rove's Courage and Consequence is part personal, political, and polemical. Each chapter essentially falls into one of these "personalities". And depending on which personality turns up, one can predict how it's going to go.

The personal chapters outdistance the others. First, Rove delves into his complicated upbringing and tragedies in his personal life, including his mother's suicide. He also deals with his climb up the ladder of the College Republicans, meeting some interesting folks along the way including Lee Atwater (with a hilarious story about running out of gas), Jeff Sessions (who later became an Alabama senator), and George H. W. Bush (who holds Rove's reverence throughout).

Rove's discussion of his harrowing experience as a "subject" and then a "target" of a grand jury investigation should be required reading for anyone in law school thinking of a career in white collar criminal defense and probably everyone else considering a field in the law. He lays out the high stakes "dance" between the special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald and Rove's attorney, Bob Luskin, in fascinating detail--a story that I don't believe has been told before.

The political chapters provide insight into the strategies that put Bush into the White House following the 2000 and 2004 elections. Additionally, Rove ably dissects the 2006 mid-term election and what went wrong (and right) for Republicans. These chapters demonstrate a keen political mind, powered by a sharp eye of the electorate. Not as strong as the personal chapters, but these chapters more than fuel political junkies' engines.

Finally, the polemical chapters anchor the book, and not in a good way. Chapter 21 entitled, "Bush Was Right on Iraq", encapsulates the personality of these chapters where Rove vigorously defends various Bush decisions, conduct or inaction. This is where the book takes on almost a litigator's tone where Rove argues a certain position as if he were an advocate for Bush. In fact, the first part of the book's title is about Bush not Rove, "I am proud to have been part of the long journey of a man of courage and consequence who sought to provide conservative reform of great institutions in need of repair and kept America safe in its hour of peril." (520.) These chapters are tediously long, dismissive of other points of view, and selectively deal with the evidence.

Overall, I was surprised how good this book was, despite its "schizophrenic" tendencies. Recommended.

Book Review: The Big Sort: Why the Clustering of Like-Minded America is Tearing Us Apart (2008) by Bill Bishop.

This book is a two-fer.

Having heard the author, Bill Bishop, interviewed on the radio, I expected a book about how America sorts itself into politically like-minded clusters. That expectation was met. Bishop writes: "[T]o see how the country was sorting--a more useful calculation is ... population density. Republicans were moving into places where people lived farther apart; Democrats were clustering in places where people lived closer together." (pp. 204-05.) While this fairly sums up the political sorting process, the book bonuses readers with sorting of a different, well, sort.

For example, Chapter 7 entitled, "The Missionary and The Megachurch", lucidly explains how the Church (or at least parts of it) employs "like attracts like" methodologies to market itself. The result, according to Bishop, is homogeneous congregations or clusters. If correct, this conclusion is sobering. But Bishop does not come to it lightly or amateurishly. His conclusions are arrived at only after conducting substantial research, and demonstrating knowledge of the subculture. He even delves into the "emerging church" (in Chapter 12) as a counterbalance or response to "megachurch" or "evangelical" models. As a result, Bishop delivers a surprising indictment of the American church within a book primarily marketed as a political study.

Two-for-the-price-of-one. Now that's value.

Book Review: The Politician: An Insider's Account of John Edwards's Pursuit of the Presidency and the Scandal That Brought Him Down by Andrew Young.

As the old saying goes, politics is a dirty business.

Evidently, so is writing about it.

I felt like I needed to take a shower after reading 2010's The Politician, and that was not because I read parts of it while on a stair climber.

Andrew Young was a close aide to John Edwards for many years and had intimate access to the one-time Senator and erstwhile Presidential candidate.

Due to this unusually close proximity, Young was privy to many unseemly and personal things. Young apparently does not feel the need to edit himself as he reveals private conversations between Edwards and himself including how Edwards dealt with his son Wade's tragic death. Even with politicians, there should be a limit to a "tell-all" book. Moreover, Young participated in unseemly things, including acquiescing to a false press release that claimed paternity for John Edward's child with Rielle Hunter. (239.)

Revealingly, Young sets the tone at the very outset in the acknowledgments. He writes: "To the Edwards and Anania families, with the exception of John and Elizabeth, thank you for many years of friendship." (p. xiii; emphasis added.)

Accordingly, Young seems bent on vengeance, but as is usually the case with revenge, it works like a boomerang. Neither comes across well.

Book Review: Circle of Greed: The Spectacular Rise and Fall of the Lawyer Who Brought Corporate America to Its Knees (2010).

A college roommate implored me to read Tolstoy's War and Peace.

His persuasive pitch was that the book covered every aspect of the human experience.

I would challenge him by asking, "What about [this]?" He'd reply, "It's in there." I'd try again, "What about [that]?" He'd say, "It's in there."

I've been heartily recommending Circle of Greed by Patrick Dillon and Carl M. Cannon to my law students and fellow lawyers with a similar pitch: Circle of Greed covers the entire range of experience for litigation lawyers, ably showing how cases are prepared, litigated and tried. In so doing, Pulitzer Prize winning writers Cannon and Dillon have created a masterpiece much like Tolstoy. I can't say much more than to declare this is the best book I've read this year, and I doubt it will be topped in 2010.

The book reaches its dramatic apogee in and around chapter 22 cleverly entitled, "The Hunters and the Hunted." In this duality, the book reports on class action securities lawyer William Lerach's simultaneous climb to pinnacle of his civil law niche in pursuit of Enron, while descending to the nadir of the criminal law as the target of the federal investigation that ultimately led to his felony conviction and substantial prison time.

Since Lerach cooperated with the writers, the book provides many fascinating details that an "unauthorized" book would not. While trying to be fair, the book exposes both the laudable and the lamentable. Nevertheless, in the final analysis, Lerach does emerge rather well from the narrative, vindicating his decision to participate in the book.

The ultimate beneficiary, however, is the reader. Circle of Greed garners my top recommendation.

Book Review: Last Words (2009) by George Carlin with Tony Hendra.

I confess I don't like the old George Carlin.

By this, I don't mean the elder version. I mean the younger one.

The older George didn't like the the younger one either.

This posthumously published book, Last Words, explains why. Carlin writes about how he found his voice later in life. He found his voice only after he dug deeply, while dispensing with artifices that characterized his earlier career filled with synthetic television show appearances, "micro-world" topics, such as toe nails and peas, and throwaway characters (leading to some self-loathing).

Carlin's later material (especially his HBO specials from about the late 1990s forward) was beyond challenging, bracing, acerbic, dark, angry and at times idiosyncratically insightful. On top of the penetrating substance, Carlin's mastery of the English language, his delivery, and presentation set the bar for later comics.

More informational than funny, Carlin's book reveals much about his Irish-Catholic upbringing in New York City (with, as he says, "no father and half a mother"), his surprising time in the Air Force, his career arc, and most intimately, his marriages (he was widowed from his first wife and married to his second for almost 10 years when he died on June 22, 2008) and personal failings and insecurities.

Recommended to Carlin fans and to satirists/comics wanting to learn from the best how it is done.

Book Review: The Happiness Project (2009) by Gretchen Rubin.

Surprisingly, Gretchen Rubin somewhat undermines her thesis that happiness is intentional.

At the outset, she writes: "According to current research, in the determination of a person's level of happiness, genetics accounts for about 50 percent; life circumstances, such as age, gender, ethnicity, marital status, income, health, occupation, and religious affiliation, account for about 10 to 20 percent; and the remainder is a product of how a person thinks and acts." (p. 6.)

In other words, if at least 50 percent (and likely much more) is governed by circumstances beyond one's control, isn't that a little depressing? (sorry)

But, if heredity isn't destiny, then most of Rubin's book uplifts. She breaks her project into twelve parts--one for each month. Not all monthly projects are created equal, however. For example, her chapter for April on "Parenthood" stands out. She offers some helpful tips, including trying to reverse the propensity of parents to speak negatively to their children. Rubin reports that "[s]tudies show that 85 of adult messages to children are negative--'no,' 'stop,' 'don't'--so it's worth trying to keep that to a minimum. Instead of saying, 'No, not until after lunch,' I try to say, 'Yes, as soon as we've finished lunch.'" (99.)

By contrast, her chapter for August to "Contemplate the Heavens" and "eternity" from an "reverent agnostic" (195) falls flat. While Rubin hints at aspects of "spirituality" that may increase happiness, she does not enjoy the depth of background to harvest the fruit presented by this bountiful topic.

Further, the two quoted passages above (6 and 99) illustrate an annoying tendency in the book to cite "current research" or "studies" without any footnote, endnote or citation for support. As a result, the reader has no idea how credible this research is. As a former Supreme Court clerk, who left the law to write, perhaps Rubin intentionally shunned writing like a lawyer in this respect.

As an interesting side note, her father-in-law Robert Rubin (former Treasury Secretary) makes several appearances in the book (and receives favorable treatment).

In sum, while Rubin might receive criticism for gimmickry (which she acknowledges), the book contains some useful food-for-thought as to what influences happiness, and how one can take intentional steps (thoughts and actions) to maximize it.

Book Review: Jesus Wants to Save Christians: A Manifesto for the Church in Exile (2008) by Rob Bell and Don Golden.

Philosophy professor Douglas Groothuis of Denver Seminary critiques tendencies of many modern books:

"Many books today seem afraid to rely on pure text. They seem to be embarrassed to be what they are: books, that is, orderly collections of words formed into sentences and paragraphs.Too many books are filled with one-sentence paragraphs (usually a sign of poor style and impatience), call-outs that repeat what is in smaller print elsewhere on the page (annoying), stand-alone call-outs with little connection to the flow of the text and which I find disorienting. (When do I read them? That is their context?) We also find lists, bullet points (the bane of orderly discourse, but the balm of PowerPoint), and font variations. These books are more like children's books of old." (The Constructive Curmudgeon, April 3, 2010: http://tinyurl.com/y7s3h7o; emphasis supplied).

I wonder if Dr. Groothuis has read Rob Bell and Don Golden's Jesus Wants to Save Christians: A Manifesto for the Church in Exile. As this book is loaded with one-sentence paragraphs and some colorful accoutrements, it might just ruin Dr. Groothuis' day for these reasons alone. (The authors also play games with the endnotes, as they add one [a Bible verse] to each chapter that nowhere appears in the text.) However, it would be hasty to reject it as childish for its stylistic indulgences. The book contains some thought-provoking material about the church today.

First, let me dismantle another potential stumbling block: the book's provocative title. The book does not argue that Christians need to be "saved" in the sense of obtaining reconciliation with God through justification. Rather, a clue unlocking the title's meaning is found in this one-sentence paragraph appearing late in the book: "Jesus wants to save our church from irrelevance." (p. 174.) Bell and Golden expound on their ideas about saving the church: "Jesus wants to save us from shrinking the gospel down to a transaction about the removal of sin and not about every single particle of creation being reconciled to its maker." (179.)

The book somewhat abruptly pivots from an exposition of biblical texts--largely the exodus narrative--into a call for the American church's political or social action. "[L]et's listen with fresh ears to the Bible. Because what's going on here is an ancient phenomenon known as empire [endnote omitted].

"America is an empire.

"And the Bible has a lot to say about empires.

"Most of the Bible is a history told by people living in lands occupied by conquering superpowers. It's a book written from the underside of power. It's an oppression narrative. The majority of the Bible was written by a minority people living under the rule and reign of massive, mighty empires, from the Egypt Empire to the Babylonian Empire to the Persian Empire to the Assyrian Empire to the Roman Empire.

***

"What we see in the Bible is that empires naturally accumulate wealth and resources." (121.)

Then, Bell and Golden explain the ways in which America is an empire that accumulates, which in turn leads to "consequences", including "burdens and curses". (122-23.) They call on the church to be mindful of this tendency towards accumulation, and simultaneously, to understand those who are trampled by empires who need liberation.

Notwithstanding the single-sentence paragraphs and colorful flourishes, Jesus Wants to Save Christians is challenging. It's challenging in its conclusions and its theology. In fact, I'm not sure its theology can withstand careful scrutiny in every respect, as it also occasionally indulges in excesses in its theological expositions.

So, here's an example of not judging a book by its text.

Book Review: Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America by Barbara Ehrenreich.

After describing a coworker's lament about wasting her employer's money by wasting time on the job, author Barbara Ehrenreich writes: "To me, this anger seems badly mis-aimed." (180.)

Pot, meet kettle.

Ehrenreich's book Nickel and Dimed is an extended exercise in misdirected anger.

Holding a Ph.D. in biology and enjoying a career as a writer of several books, Ehrenreich took jobs as a waitress, hotel maid, house cleaner, nursing home aide, and retail clerk to expose the dispiriting working conditions endured in these travails.

Surprisingly, Ehrenreich mixes in rants about customers or clients who have nothing to do with setting these employment conditions. In a particularly shocking example during her stint as a house cleaner for a company, Ehrenreich seethes:

"[I]n a huge, gorgeous country house with hand-painted walls, I encounter a shelf full of arrogant and, under the circumstances, personally insulting neoconservative encomiums to the status quo and consider using germ warfare against the (house) owners, the weapons for which are within my apron pockets. All I would have to do is take one of the E. coli-rich rags that's been used on the toilets and use it to 'clean' the kitchen counters--a plan that entertains me for an hour or more." (109.)

Why is Ehrenreich directing her anger to the customer (besides class envy)? After all, the house owner did nothing to set any of the working conditions about which Ehrenreich complains. I'm quite confident the home owner did not set her hourly wage, set her schedule, dictate breaks (or lack thereof), or anything else about Ehrenreich's working conditions. Moreover, without the home owner contracting with Ehrenreich's employer for her services, there would be no wages flowing to Ehrenreich whatsoever. So, again, it appears the rage is misdirected.

Ehrenreich does expose, however, some appalling aspects of employment in such positions of unequal bargaining power. She describes scenarios of checks being withheld, breaks ignored, hours shaved (i.e. uncompensated) and other indignities or injustices.

Nickel and Dimed has birthed other immersion journalism books, including 2010's Working in the Shadows by Gabriel Thompson and Scratch Beginnings by Adam Shepard (reviewed here on March 8, 2010, and October 29, 2008, respectively). Both books expressly noted their inspiration in Ehrenreich's book. Even without the express acknowledgement, it was evident that Thompson's book bears a strong resemblance to Ehrenreich's, as if they share the same DNA. Their political perspectives, especially strong advocacy for unions, are nearly identical. However, Thompson's book mostly lets the conditions speak for themselves, while Ehrenreich colors her narrative with screeds. In the end, these diatribes, often off-topic, detract from the stories that can stand on their own without these immaterial attempts at enhancement.

Book Review: What the Dog Saw (2009) by Malcolm Gladwell.

It's surprising only one chapter contains the word "myth".

The chapter, "The Talent Myth--Are Smart People Overrated?" exemplifies Malcolm Gladwell's overall approach to his essays in What the Dog Saw. Just about every other one begins with a myth that Gladwell sets out to debunk.

Unlike his other three monster best-sellers: The Tipping Point, Blink, and Outliers (each favorably reviewed here), this book constitutes a collection of essays previously published in The New Yorker magazine.

Thus, it appears his criterion was to select essays exhibiting this myth theme. One example particularly captured my interest as a trial lawyer. Gladwell claims that prosecutors got it "wrong" when they prosecuted Enron's former CEO Jeffrey Skilling by framing the issue as a one about "truth and lies"--a commonly held belief about the Enron scandal. (p. 155.) Gladwell argues that the truth was hiding in plain sight, what he terms "an open secret". Instead, he calls it a "peril[] of too much information". (151.)

This debunking pattern removes the element of surprise. By the time I reached Gladwell's discussion of pit bull's reputation for aggressiveness, I knew how he would conclude: don't blame the breed. And there it was. (416.)

By far, as a book, What the Dog Saw represents Gladwell's weakest effort of his four. I can't help but suspect that Gladwell or his publisher sought to capitalize on his runaway success as an book author. Or perhaps that's just a myth. Maybe he intended to publish such a book all along.

Book Review: Velvet Elvis by Rob Bell.

Using the painting metaphor set up by pastor Rob Bell in Velvet Elvis, people will see different aspects in this book as they do when viewing a painting or artwork.

In other words, there's something for everyone here. Some will hate what they see. Some will love it. Calvinists will find some solace. Social gospel-teers will find support too. Orthodox and heterodox will both be emboldened.

It all depends on one's vantage point. Or interpretation. As Bell writes: "[T]he Bible is open-ended. It has to be interpreted.... It is not possible to simply do what the Bible says." (Emphasis in original.)

From my perspective, I enjoyed the different ways Bell looks at things that have become very familiar. For example, Bell observes that the first time John mentions "love" in his gospel is John 3:16 (God giving His Son), which correlates to the first time love's mentioned in Genesis (chapter 22 recording Abraham's attempted offering of his son Isaac).

Likewise, Bell's ideas about church are idiosyncratic. He eshews any kind of "church marketing" and even wants signage removed. "You can't put a sign out front, I argued; people have to want to find us. And so there were no advertisements, no flyers, no promotions, and no signs. The thought of the word church and the word marketing in the same sentence makes me sick." (Emphases in original.)

One should approach this book with an open mind. You might discover things that you hadn't seen before in the Bible or the Church. As I did.

Book Review: Working in the Shadows: A Year of Doing the Jobs [Most] Americans Won't Do (2010) by Gabriel Thompson.

Gabriel Thompson and I share something in common.

He and I both are inspired by immersion journalism. He writes: "As a teenager, I relished George Orwell's accounts of going into dangerous coal mines in The Road to Wigan Pier and washing dishes in Down and Out in Paris and London, and was likewise moved by Barbara Ehrenreich's Nickel and Dimed. I've always been drawn to chronicles of immersion journalism; they have a unique ability to explore fascinating and sometimes brutal worlds that are usually kept out of sight." (p. xiv.)

Too, I've read and reviewed several books of immersion journalism: e.g. The Unlikely Disciple: A Sinner's Semester at America's Holiest University by Kevin Roose (reviewed 6/7/09); Self-Made Man: One Woman's Journey into Manhood and Back Again by Norah Vincent (reviewed 6/23/09); and Scratch Beginnings by Adam Shepard (reviewed 10/29/08).

The difference is Thompson actually did it.

In Working in the Shadows: A Year of Doing the Jobs [Most] Americans Won't Do, Thompson worked over a period of about a year total "cutting lettuce" in Yuma, Arizona, toiling in a poultry factory in Russellville, Alabama, and delivering flowers and food in Manhattan (his hometown). And then he wrote about it.

Effectively done, immersion journalism discovers "worlds that are usually kept out of sight" by the readers as well as the immersed journalist. This book is no exception.

While he's previously written about "the lives of immigrants" (and planned to do so again here [xiv]), he had "been blindsided by the degree of rural poverty suffered by U.S. citizens" (158), whom he worked alongside during this year. This discovery explains in part the apparent change to the book's subtitle, which had to add the bracketed "[most]" to acknowledge that some Americans will, and have, done this kind of work. Through this immersion, Thompson ably pulls the curtain back on the abuses suffered by those who happen to work with their hands. Thompson exposes how labor laws--especially in the New York setting--are simply ignored, with the concomitant understanding that those abused have no (or highly limited) power or ability to complain.

Thompson made some other interesting discoveries.

For example, "Unlike an office setting--where personalities frequently clash over an email or a comment taken the wrong way--there doesn't seem to be much conflict in the fields. For one thing, we're not maneuvering for advancement: Our roles and wage of $8.37 an hour will remain the same. Equally important, we lack the extra energy need to gossip or hold grudges for long; our exhaustion ensures that there's simply no time to develop the dysfunction that plagues many work environments." (35.)

To his credit, Thompson concedes that his politics motivated this project. "Politics animates me; politics is a factor that motivated my current project." (74.) Even without this concession, Thompson's politics becomes clear as he intersperses the narrative with excursions into studies and arguments concerning employment, poverty and immigration.

Even with its strong political stance, the book's compelling underlying narrative and Thompson's likability fight alienating readers who may disagree with his politics.

Highly recommended.

Book Review: Too Big To Fail (2009) by Andrew Ross Sorkin.

Would you want to listen to a play-by-play of a game when you knew the final score?

Some sports purists do, as old games run on the NFL Network and ESPN Classic, to analyze closely what happened.

Likewise, Andrew Ross Sorkin's Too Big To Fail reads like a play-by-play as it goes from myriad meetings to telephone conversations and then back again as "Wall Street and Washington fought to save the financial system--and themselves." For example, Sorkin reports on proposed merger talks, but knowing that such a merger was not consummated removes any suspense.

A sports play-by-play simply reports what happened. There's little emphasis on coaches' game plans before the game or what they were strategizing during the game. A play-by-play does not explain the why or how of events leading up to the game.

Too, Sorkin does not seem interested in doing an etiology of this financial breakdown. Sorkin quotes President Bush asking, "How ... did we get here?" (p. 440), but doesn't endeavor to provide any answers. Given that some might find the book's size almost "too big to read" (at 539 pages sans acknowledgements and notes), it's surprising how little Sorkin discusses causes.

By contrast, Lawrence G. McDonald and Patrick Robinson's briefer, A Colossal Failure of Common Sense: The Inside Story of the Collapse of Lehman Brothers (reviewed here on November 13, 2009), managed to do so. A former Lehman Brothers vice-president, McDonald was much harder on Richard Fuld and Joe Gregory than Sorkin was. In fact, the only person that took a sustained linguistic beating in Sorkin's tome was Christopher Cox, chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission (and former Congressman from Newport Beach, CA), whom is called a "lightweight", "cryogentically frozen" (304) and "almost intentionally ineffectual" (422), among other things.

Nevertheless, Sorkin does provide an extensive array of material, that obviously took a tremendous amount of time to obtain. Given that most people weren't in meetings or privy to phone conversations, the book does keep readers' interest, notwithstanding knowledge of how things turned out.

As I passed the 500-page mark, I was impressed by the lack of editing errors, especially given the paucity of time that Sorkin had to conduct all this research and then assemble it into a book in about a year. Just as I formed that impression, a spate of errors cropped up suggesting the book was rushed to press just a bit too soon. (e.g., 503, 514, 516.)

Recommended.

Book Review: The Devil's Delusion: Atheism and Its Scientific Pretensions (2008) by David Berlinski.

"I don't have enough faith to be an atheist."
--Norm Geisler and Frank Turek (from the title of their 2004 book).


In The Devil's Delusion, David Berlinski explains why those who rely on scientific naturalism are stepping out in faith. According to Dr. Berlinski, it's a faith because science has failed to answer the most basic of inquiries: the origins of the universe and life (among other things).

Due to these limitations, Dr. Berlinski chastises those who oversell their worldviews. For example, "The answers that prominent scientific figures have offered are remarkable in their shallowness. The hypothesis that we are nothing more than cosmic accidents has been widely accepted by the scientific community.... It is an article of their faith, one advanced with the confidence of men convinced that nature has equipped them to face realities the rest of us cannot bear to contemplate. There is not the slightest reason to think this is so." (p. xiv; emphasis in original.)

Dr. Berlinski continues: "Daniel Dennett's assertion that natural selection has been demonstrated 'beyond all reasonable doubt' must be judged for what it is: It is the ecclesiastical bull of a most peculiar church, a cousin in kind to an ecclesiastical bluff. When Steven Pinker affirm that 'natural section is the only explanation we have of how complex life can evolve,' he is very much in the inadvertent position of the apostles. Much against his will, he is bearing witness." (196; emphasis in original.)

Berlinski's approach is somewhat unique for a couple of reasons. First, he comes at the issue not as one seeking to establish theism (or even as an adherent of any religion [p. xi]), but instead to undermine this kind of faith propagated by the "scientific community." Moreover, he does so from the inside, as he has taught and written on mathematics and science, after earning a Ph.D. from Princeton.

Second, Berlinski does so with the same searing smugness that came across when he was interviewed in Ben Stein's clever movie, Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed, in which he insulted Richard Dawkins for his intellectual limitations. In this vein, the book is full of personal attacks, which while amusing, aren't necessary to build the case (and as in law actually undercut it). For example, Berlinski writes: "I count myself among [Sam] Harris's warmest detractors. When he remarks that he has been dumbstruck by Christian...intellectual commitments, I believe the word has met the man." (p. xi; emphasis in original.)

Setting aside the personal attacks, the book's unusual approach to the material gives it currency in today's economy of debate on these issues.

Recommended to those interested in the field.

Book [on CD] Review: What's So Great About Christianity by Dinesh D'Souza.

Dinesh D'Souza probably should be paying royalties to Christopher Hitchens, Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett and even the estate of Nietzsche.

For all the quotations of their work, he probably owes them a monetary debt. More broadly, D'Souza probably also owes them a debt of gratitude for they serve as foils for his book. In fact, the companion study guide is subtitled, "Your Guide to Answering the New Atheists". D'Souza asserts he wrote this book to answer their (and others') "strongest critiques and objections" to Christianity.

As a result, the book is mistitled (likely to parallel his earlier work, What's So Great About America). It's not so much as litany of the beneficial effects of Christianity as the title would suggest, but as a polemic for the religion, responding to such questions of the origin of the universe, miracles, and the problem of evil, among other things. D'Souza, however, does eventually get to the promised utilitarian argument in his final chapter (26), "A Foretaste of Eternity: How Christianity Can Change Your Life."

Coming from his background as a writer mostly about politics, D'Souza essentially relies on others to make his case in this disparate area. In this sense, D'Souza is a popularizer of what others have done in the fields of philosophy, science, and theology as they bear on these questions. However, while not formally trained in these disciplines, he brings to the topics clear prose, and sometimes, a creative way to repackage these thoughts for a general readership.

Book Review: Comeback America: Turning the Country Around and Restoring Fiscal Responsibility (2009) by David M. Walker.

Alert the media!

David M. Walker claims he has solved the the country's deficit and debt crises in Comeback America: Turning the Country Around and Restoring Fiscal Responsibility.

His solution: cut spending and raise taxes.

How did this prescription possibly elude everyone else?

The answer is that it hasn't. What has been elusive is leadership. One party wants to cut taxes and the other wants to increase spending (and some want both). The result is a balance sheet that isn't. Walker lays out a parade of horribles regarding the resultant national debt and unfunded obligations. (E.g., pp. 5-25.) This is not a news flash.

Too, Walker offers some political proposals, such as term limits and other anti-incumbency measures, and constitutional amendments. (pp. 193-96.) However, unless those in power and those who put them in power get serious about this mess, nothing will change. Walker, who has been a Washington-insider for many years, most recently as CEO of the Government Accountability Office from 1998 to 2008, knows this as well as anyone. I admire his apparent optimism, but this book comes across as a simplistic antidote to a poison that has probably irreparably corroded the system.

Walker himself concedes: "All of this is easy to say, but it will be tough to accomplish." (p. 192.) "[E]asy to say", yes; but far more than "tough to accomplish."

Book Review: Patience With God: Faith for Those Who Don't Like Religion (or Atheism) (2009) by Frank Schaeffer.

"Rigid purity is the ultimate denial of paradox. And that denial is the only blasphemy there is. It's the blasphemy committed against God by all fundamentalists with every false certainty they mouth about Him." --Frank Schaeffer, Patience With God (p. 194).

This quote reveals much about the book (as well as inverts the biblical definition of blasphemy). In sum, Schaeffer contends God is "ineffable". (149.) So he's against anyone asserting anything with certainty, including "evangelicals/fundamentalists" and the "new atheists" (which he lumps in as fundamentalists of a different stripe).

He prescribes a third way, "an apophatic view". (150.) He calls it "a humble thread that runs through many religions parallel to the deadly we-know-it-all thread of the theological hubris." (150.)

For one ardently arguing we cannot know virtually anything about God, and chastising both "evangelicals/fundamentalists" and the "new atheists" for their disdain of "the other" (among other things), Patience With God inconsistently advocates a particular view about God and often vitriolically attacks "the other". Rick Warren as well as Richard Dawkins each receive sharp barbs from the author (among others), although attacks are mostly about their commercialism.

In the end, despite promising "'something' to hold on to" (xxi), the converse is the result. Employing Schaeffer's amorphous prescription is akin to grasping air or "shoveling smoke" as Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. famously observed (about lawyers' work).

Moreover, this book's an exercise of ignoring the evidence. Schaeffer simply doesn't deal with it in arriving at his conclusions. Rather, he relies more on his experiences, content to produce another memoir. (125.) In this regard, Schaeffer recycles stories about his childhood contained in 2007's Crazy for God and provides new ones. In doing so, Schaeffer seems to working out issues he had with his parents who "forgot" him as they pursued their ministries. Nevertheless, that experience of religion, albeit painful, doesn't prove or disprove its underlying tenets.

Accordingly, in the end, the book should be understood simply as one man's memorialization of his circuitous spiritual journey. It's not a polemic that undermines the sides Schaeffer attempts to debunk or discard.