All posts by David Todd

book reviews, History

Book Review: The Hour of Peril

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About two or three weeks ago, I finished reading The Hour of Peril. It’s been on my bookshelf for about 10 years, waiting for its turn at the top of my reading queue.

A great read. Helps to round off the history of the pre-Civil War period.

Written by Daniel Stashower, subtitled “The Secret Plot to Murder Lincoln Before the Civil War”, it’s the story about the South’s animosity to Lincoln and various plots—real or imagined—of preventing Lincoln from ever reaching Washington DC to be inaugurated. Lincoln had to go by train into Maryland and through Baltimore.

Maryland was a slave state. They had great fear of what Lincoln might do to end their way of life, that is, their ability to own their fellow human and force them to work for them. Thus, they had such animosity toward Lincoln that many of them thought murder was the answer. This is unfathomable to me, the idea that murder is a solution to a problem. But that speaks to human depravity.

The main character in the book is not Lincoln, but Alan Pinkerton, the famous detective. He was tasked with protecting Lincoln in sort of a pre-Secret Service way. Knowing how the South was, and watching the southern states secede one by one, and anticipating Maryland to follow suit (which they did not do), Pinkerton assembled a team of operatives and tried to infiltrate them. The threats to Lincoln seemed credible, so Pinkerton employed some subterfuge to see that the president elect arrived safely. We meet many of those operatives as the book unfolds, along with some who spoke openly of wanting to murder the president-elect.

The book is excellent. An interesting and easy read, it starts somewhat slowly. We are expecting to see Lincoln in transit, but instead we get a lot about Pinkerton and how he got to the point by 1861 where he would be protecting the president-elect. But the historical build-up is good. Some people want to just focus on Lincoln and forget that there was a team around him, the forerunners of today’s “handlers.”

If you prefer shoot-em-up action, this isn’t the book for you. But if you like learning about details of historical events, by all means grab a copy and read this.

So I give this an enthusiastic 5-stars. But, alas, it is not a keeper, and is already in the donation box, giving way for some other book to show prominently on my shelves.

book reviews, Health, home improvements

A Little Progress

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The school year has started here in Texas. The summer lack of routine has been replaced by rigorous new routines. I’m not 100 percent sure of what my role will be this year, but I assume it will include some pick-ups and drop-offs. I’m ready to be busy with it. Meanwhile, some things going on:

  • One major project done is replacing our tub with a walk in shower. That perhaps should have been the first thing we contracted to do, but it’s done, and we are enjoying the greater safety it give us.
  • One book read (review coming next week), one new read started. It’s 602 pages—a tome, but it promises to be good. I anticipate two months to finish it.
  • Had our first automobile servicing in Texas. Not a pleasant experience, as it took 4 hours for an oil change and multipoint inspection. Now weighing my options for where to go next time.
  • My echo cardiogram and follow-up are this week. Routine, I think, as the new cardiologist is getting to know my surgically altered heart.
  • We still need to get our Texas driving licenses. I’m thinking next week or the week following.
  • We registered to vote in Texas, but never received anything in the mail acknowledging that. Will follow up this week.
  • The same with the IRS and their new requirement that they don’t send out checks for refunds. I don’t want to give the IRS my banking information. Is that wrong of me—or paranoid?
  • The mass of photos we’ve been dealing with are slightly reduced, as I’ve returned some to family and friends. I wish I could see the end of it, but I can’t.
  • But I have improved the labels on a lot of boxes, so that when I look in the closet, I can more easily tell where loose photos are to go.

I think that’s enough for this post. I think I have a letter to write. Or maybe it’s a book to work on.

book reviews, C.S. Lewis, History

Two Books Gone

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I really wanted to read this, but found it impossible to get through.

Normally when I do a book review, I do it in a separate post, trying to say what I found good about it, what I found bad, and making a recommendation on whether I thought it would be worthwhile for my readers to read. I’m breaking that pattern with this post, however, and discussing two books, books I tried to read but failed to finish. Both of these books are already off my bookshelves and added to the donation box.

One of these is The Nature of the Book by Adrian Johns. I bought this book new in 2010. We were on a trip to Yellowstone. One afternoon as the rest of our party were resting, I sought out a bookstore/coffee shop, found one, and bought this book as being probably of interest. I read maybe twenty pages over the next week, found it to be terribly academic and tedious, and laid it aside. A few weeks ago I scanned my shelves for something to read that I would then get rid of. This popped out, and I decided to give it another chance.

Alas, after fifty or more pages of its 610, I found it just as difficult as before. It goes into great detail of how Gutenberg’s printing press and moveable type forever changed the dissemination of information. Yes, I know that’s true, but I guess I don’t need 610 pages of academic nonsense to tell me that. My advice is don’t bother with this book.

I gave it three tries; I’m done with it. Sorry, C.S.

The other book I’ve blogged about before here and here. It’s C.S. Lewis’s Allegory of Love. After getting through the first two-thirds, I set it aside for a more opportune time. That time came; I picked it up again. I finally got to Lewis’s analysis of Spenser’s The Fairie Queen, which I had sensed all the rest of the book was pointing to. I was looking forward to it.

Alas, it was, if anything, worse than the first two-thirds. I could understand almost nothing Lewis wrote. I read some of his extensive quotes from Spenser’s epic poem and found it incomprehensible. Twenty pages more and I laid it aside.

Unless you already love English literature from pre-Shakespearian days, don’t bother with this.

book reviews

Book Review: Four Anxious Armadillos

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A good book for your middle grade child or grandchild to read.

In a recent post, I mentioned having taken out a library card in Lake Jackson and checking out some books. One of the books was by a Lake Jackson author I know, Lauri Cruver Cherian. The author of four books, the particular one I was interested in was Four Anxious Armadillos. It’s a middle grade book. Hence I’m not really in the target audience, but my youngest grandson is. I checked it out for him, but I wanted to read it too.

Four Anxious Armadillos is the story of Nilda, a nine-banded Armadillo who is in the Amazon rain forest, but feels she is in the wrong place. She longs to see the grasslands of South America and heads in the direction. But she is anxious. When she encounters uncertainty, she follows her natural instincts, jumps four feet into the air and, instead of landing on her feet, lands on her back and is helpless. before long she is helped by a sloth, who also gives good advice for the journey ahead.

Author Lauri Cruver Cherian

In that journey, Nilda encounters three other armadillos, who join her on her trek. They are of different armadillo species. Each of them has a different inherent trait for dealing with danger or simple anxieties. Each of the four armadillos learns how to use their natural trait in a helpful way.

The book is an easy read for a child of around 8 to 10. The age of interest may be a little longer than that. Since it is based in South America, the book includes many snippets of Spanish. But these are mostly explained in the text; if not, a glossary in the book translates them. I generally did not have to understand the Spanish to understand the text. Also in the book are discussions of the animal species in the story. Each chapter includes a nice illustration.

I finished the main book in two days and the appendices in one more.  My nine-year-old grandson, who is somewhat hyper, read about the first half and put it down. Thinking he was uninterested, I returned it to the library. A couple of days later he said he would have finished it. I hadn’t accounted for his difficulty in concentrating. I hope to take him to the library soon to finish it.

I rate this book 5-stars for those in the target age range.

family, home improvements, letters, miscellaneous, reading, technology woes, The Forest Throne

Random Thoughts Part “n”

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Three collections of letters moved from to-do to done—or maybe not.

Having recently given up reading two books (which I will report on later), I have only random thoughts on my mind upon which to build this post. Here goes.

  • We are having a workman come today to make repairs to the screens on our screened-in patio. One screen panel is completely loose, two others appear to be at the point of coming loose, two have slight tears in then, one needs some caulking, one door has a closer that needs replacing, and the other door is sagging, leaving a gap. A few years back I would have attempted these repairs myself, but no longer. This workman will also be converting our tub-shower into a walk-in shower. We aren’t quite ready to do that yet, but might be in a day or two.
  • I may finally replace my 10-year-old laptop with a new one. I’ve been putting this off for as long as possible. Our oldest grandson needs a powerful one for his first term of college, and I’m hoping we can get a better price on a two-computer order. I may scoot up to Best Buy today and see what this will set me back.
  • I spent a good part of last week getting caught up on my checkbook and the family budget. Yes, I still balance my checkbook and keep a budget. I have a little more to do on these, which I think I can finish today. At that point I’ll be ready to…
  • start some new writing. It will almost certainly be Vol 3 of The Forest Throne series. Though possibly I’ll work on another piece first before I get into that. New creative writing will feel good after a long time working on editing collections of letters.
  • Also hoping for some good reading time this week. I began a new book yesterday, and it looks like it will be a good read.
  • This morning I spent a fair amount of time on computer file organization, making good progress. Ready to scan some photos and save them for posterity.
  • Other than that, the main thing I have to do is deal with an IRS letter that says I did my taxes incorrectly and they owe me money. That should be top of my list but I’m having trouble dealing with it.

In reading, I’m working on about three things. One of these is the Carlyle Letters Online. I found a good quote in a letter Thomas wrote to his wife, Jane:

…I really wish you could find an eligible house somewhere out under the quiet sky,…

8 April 1846, TC to JWC, par 3A.

Thomas was in the last week or two of shepherding the 2nd edition of his book on Oliver Cromwell through the editing and printing process. And he was sick of it. He needed a break and wanted his wife to find them a house away from London, “somewhere out under the quiet sky.” As the rest of the letter makes plain, it could be for the summer or for good. Carlyle was finally making money and probably no longer needed to be in London to be near the publishers.

I can so relate to this. I just finished editing and publishing the third collection of letters in a row. It’s taken me over a year, actually the better part of two or three years. Copies of the last two arrived today. I immediately thumbed through the two books, looking for layout errors, then read the Introduction of each. What did I find. An error in each book! In the first couple of pages. In one book I used the word “prosperity” when I mean “posterity”. In the other I have “thin” where I meant to type “think”. Am I really that back of a writer/editor?

But I’m so sick of these books, I don’t know if I have the mental strength or stamina to make the changes, let alone read the entire books looking for other needed corrections. I really want to move on to something else. I could see myself in the house somewhere under a quiet sky, reading and writing, a little bit of editing and publishing.

But I don’t really expect that to happen. There are still photographs and papers to sort through, pictures to hang. Drivers licenses to get and cars to see to maintenance on.

So onward and perhaps upward.

 

 

book reviews, C.S. Lewis, Christianity

Book Review: “A Life Observed”

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An excellent, easy read; and a good addition to your C.S. Lewis collection.

One of the things related to our move, but which there was no hurry to do, was taking out a library card. I finally did that the week before last. I echo the words of Linus van Pelt (of the Peanuts comic strip) who, upon getting his library card, said: “I have been given my citizenship in the land of knowledge.” That same day, I of course had to check out three library books, because I could, and because a thousand books in our house obviously are not enough.

The one I read first was A Life Observed: A Spiritual Biography of C.S. Lewis by Devin Brown. As regular readers of the blog know, I read a lot of things both by and about Lewis. That includes his fiction, his Christian non-fiction, and his works of literary criticism (such as I can understand them). So this was a no-brainer one to pull off the library shelf.

I went through the book’s 228 pages in about ten days, maybe less. I found it to be an easy and fascinating read. Much of Lewis’s spiritual journey is well known. His path from the nominal Christianity of his upbringing, his drift to atheism, his two part conversion first to theism then to Christianity under the influence of Tolkien and Dyson, his growth as a Christian scholar and writer who could speak to both scholars and non-scholars. I’ve read all about it before.

This book, with much of Lewis’s non-spiritual journey either not covered or truncated, does a good job in describing Lewis, the “mere” Christian. Brown quotes extensively from Lewis’s books, letters, and interviews. Lewis’s autobiography, Surprised By Joy, is a major source and Brown quotes or refers to it extensively. But he is not limited by that. He takes note of other things in Lewis’s writings that he (Brown) shows to have bearing on Lewis’s spiritual journey. Surprisingly, even The Chronicles of Narnia become a major source of what was on Lewis’s mind as he journeyed through life, both before and after his conversion.

In fact, my only complaint about this biography is the author does a bit too much digging into the writings and finding spiritual things about Lewis in them. Every part of Lewis’s life and writings are laid bare and tied to his Christianity. I suppose such is inevitable for a person of Lewis’s renown and influence. But it made me somewhat glad that I, as a failed author, won’t have anyone picking apart my life in a similar manner.

If you are a C.S. Lewis fan, by all mean pick up a copy of this book and read it. I give it 5-stars. If it were mine, I would keep it. Alas, it goes back to the library tomorrow.

expatriate life, family, home improvements, letters, self-publishing

Some Projects Completed

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Transcribed in 2020-2022 and published in 2022, this was my first collection of letters to publish. Now it’s my fourth to be revised and finally completed.

Back on April 3 this year, I posted about what things I wanted to accomplish over the next months, or more likely a year.  A few times since then I’ve reported about progress toward the items I mentioned in that post. Such as getting my income taxes done and in on time.

The list was ambitious. It included not only things I was working on at the time, but also writing projects for once I completed other things. As I look back at that post and list, it’s hard to see myself ever getting all those things done. But it’s time to look back and see how I’ve done in the last few months.

The thing that prompted this was completing, yesterday afternoon, a significant revision to the book of letters from our years living in Kuwait. This included: adding recently found letters; adding in Lynda’s diary from the time she was working in Kuwait as a Red Cross nurse after the Gulf War; and, at the suggestion of our children, adding a bunch more photos to it. All of that took a lot of time, especially with interruptions. But Wednesday I added the last of the photos and began the re-pagination check, yesterday I completed the check. I found I had four blank pages where they weren’t supposed to be, so went scrambling and added more.

I adjusted the cover and uploaded everything. In checking the book online, I discovered some formatting was still off. I spent the better part of two to three hours fine-tuning the formatting and pagination. Finally it was done around lunch time. Amazon’s bot review declared all good, so I ordered my author copy. ‘Twill be here in about ten days.

So what’s next? That April 3 post included grandiose plans of new books to be written. Maybe I will shift to those. But first, I need to find locations on closet and garage shelfs for the things I got out to work on the three books of letters. And I need desperately to catch up on the family budget to see where we stand financially. I’m sure we’re in good shape, but I need to know. And I need to get back to the never-ending job of unpacking and organizing following our move.

I declare the next few days, or maybe a week, as maintenance time. Stowing, budgeting, unpacking, minor household improvements. These shall fill my time until I get to a stopping point and feel released to do some writing. This includes some organization of computer files, which I discovered in finalizing the Kuwait letters book are woefully discombobulated. Hopefully I’ll also be able to up my reading.

self-publishing

A Chasing After The Wind

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This book, timely right now, sells three or four copies a month.

That phrase, “a chasing after the wind”, appears at least a couple of times in the book of Ecclesiastes. It’s meant to imply something is folly. The folly of seeking after pleasure. The folly of seeking wealth. The folly of strong drink, of fly-by-night friends. The folly of…could be almost anything that becomes all consuming.

I suppose the thing that I pursued to the point of folly is book sales. Having written books, given up on trying to get them published and deciding to self-publish them, I then needed to figure out how to sell them. Conventional wisdom for a self-publisher goes:

  • Create social media accounts and blast out posts about your books. I did this only on Facebook, but I’m not sure the limited number I did ever qualified as blasting.
  • Start an author’s newsletter; collect e-mail addresses (using giveaways if you have to); publish a regular newsletter so readers will know about your books. I never did this. Actually, I did two giveaways, one big and one small. Total sales I could trace to them: two.
  • Place ads on mediums that readers will see, such as Amazon, Facebook, the Fussy Librarian. More on that later.
  • Attend author events and sell paperback copies of your books, remembering to collect e-mail addresses as you do. I did this as those events came at convenient places and times. But I’m sure I passed up more than a few.
  • Any other thing successful other self-publishers seem to be doing. Of course, to learn these things you need to subscribe to other authors’ newsletters, actually read them, and perhaps interact with them to pick their brains. I did a little of this, but can’t say that I really got into the newsletter loop.

About a month ago, I finally realized that trying to sell books is essentially chasing after the wind. It took up a lot of my energy. It caused me to divert time and brainpower from things I would enjoy doing more.

I’ve been running ads on Amazon—but nowhere else—for about four years. I’ve run a profit from these ads—not a big profit. I think I’m $100 or maybe $200 ahead. Every month or two the ads are set to expire, and I roll them over. A few times I’ve forgotten to do this and sales went to zero. I thought about these ads and wondered why I was using them to chase after the wind. I decided when the ads ended at the end of June, as all 17 ads did, I would not renew them. And did not.

So as of right now, I am no longer a book seller. My books are still for sale on Amazon and a few of them at other places. May I’ll sell the occasional one here and there. If any author events come up locally, I might take part until my inventory of paperback copies is reduced to a handful of books.

But as of now, I’m done chasing after the wind. I can always change my mind later, I suppose.

Now, time to go read that new C.S. Lewis biography I picked at the library this afternoon.

book reviews, History, letters, Politics

Book Review: All The Best

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A good read; 5-stars; wish I could keep it.

Back in the dark ages, must have been 1999 to 2000, I saw an episode of Larry King Live where George H W Bush promoted his book, All The Best: My Life in Letters and Other Writings. This was more or less Bush’s post-presidential memoir. At least I think it’s in place of a true memoir. I didn’t research that question.

Regular readers of this blog will know I love reading collections of letters. And I always liked the first president Bush. I voted for him in the Kansas presidential primary in 1980. I was out of the country during his 1988 presidential run and can’t remember if I got an absentee ballot in. I know I voted for him in 1992. He made a good presentation of his book in that 1999 or 2000 interview, and I made a mental note to pick up a copy. Way led on to way, and it was several years later when I found it for sale used and picked it up.

Way continued to lead on to way, and it was only a little over a month ago when I finally pulled it off the shelf and read it. It is a collection of letters (Pres. Bush’s), not of correspondence (incoming and outgoing). And it’s not comprehensive. It’s a selection, made probably Bush himself and an editor. The collection begins just before his enlistment in the Navy during World War 2, continues through his business years in the oil field, his jump into politics—running for Congress and both winning some and losing some, then as Republican party chairman, US rep to the United Nations, CIA director, US ambassador to China, then to vice-presidential and presidential years. Plus, a chapter or letters after he lost the presidency in 1992 to the book’s publishing in 1999.

The letters have been selected, of course, to put Bush in a good light. But it appears to be an excellent selection. They show a lot of humor, such as an award given to cabinet members who dozed off in cabinet meetings. There were letters to his parents and children. I found this great excerpt in a 1974 letter to his sons.

Don’t confuse being ‘soft’ with seeing the other guy’s point of view. …[U]nderstand too that power accompanied by arrogance is very dangerous. It’s particularly dangerous when men with no real experience have it—for they can abuse our great institutions.

Great sentiments from a nice guy. Yes, Bush was an understanding man who went about his jobs with quiet efficiency. Bush gained a reputation in the press of being a wimp—a weakling in foreign affairs and unconcerned with domestic affairs. That reputation is blown to smithereens in these letters. Bush continued Reagan initiatives that resulted in the Iron Curtain coming down, the end of the Cold War, and the break-up of the Soviet Union. He put together a coalition of nations that drove Iraq out of Kuwait—something especially close to me. Those are not the actions of a wimp. The contemporary press got it wrong; history is getting it right.

At 634 pages and ten to fifteen pages a day, it took me a while to get through it. But I’m glad I did. It was well worth reading, and I give it a strong 5-stars. But, alas, it’s not a keeper since you can’t keep everything. I’d put it in the donation pile, except I dropped the book on the patio one day and it split at the spine. So into recycling it will go. If you have an interest in history, or if you have a thing for letters, it’s well worth seeking out and reading.

books, family, letters, memories, self-publishing

The World War 2 Letters of Wayne Cheney

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The Pacific was Wayne’s war theatre.

Last week, actually around June 13, I finished my latest book project. It is The World War 2 Letters of Wayne B. Cheney. He was Lynda’s dad—my father-in-law, of sorts. He and Lynda’s mom divorced long before I came into the family.

Like many soldiers, Wayne wrote letters home, and received many in return, both from family members, townsfolks, and other armed forces personnel. He wasn’t able to keep most of the incoming letters, given how his base kept changing in the South Pacific. But his parents kept most of the ones he wrote home. When Wayne died in 1996, we brought those letters to our house. There they sat in a green plastic bin, moved from Bentonville to Bella Vista in 2002.

It was about this time last year that I decided the time had come to do something with them. I decided to transcribe them, put them into book form for easier reading by family members, then donate the letters themselves to some worthy institution.

From a Kansas town to an island=hopping war. See the world from the nose of a B-24.

Wayne enlisted in the fall of 1942 at age 18. He was hoping to get on the ground crew in the Army Air Forces, but instead found himself in school to become an air gunner. He was assigned at nose gunner in B-24 Liberators and saw action in the South Pacific. He was either based on or participated in bombing missions over some of the famous islands in the war history, such as Kwajalein, Eniwetok, Truk, Tarawa. His time there was over when the war had moved on to Iwo Jima and Okinawa.

In addition to the letters, Wayne wrote a war diary. He transcribed parts of this over the years, but only the parts dealing with actual combat. He mixed that with later explanations of what his modern impressions were about what was going on in 1942-1945. I did a full transcription of the diary, interspersing the entries with the letters.

Actually, the letters are not exciting stuff. Subject to forward base censorship (and occasionally running afoul of the censors), he couldn’t write a lot about what he was doing in the war effort. So there was lots about doing laundry, rigging something in his barracks, who he received letters from, talk about what must be happening on Kansas farms.

This book is not a commercial project, and I doubt anyone except immediate family members will be interested. Maybe someday a great-grandkid will ask about what their ancestor did in that war they covered in history class and someone will pull a copy of the book off the shelf. But should anyone else be interested in this small piece of WW2 history, it’s available on Amazon.

Fair warning: I have not yet received my proof copy, so I haven’t been able to go through an actual book to make sure the photos and print came out okay. That’s because I had the proof copy sent to the wrong address. Still waiting for it to be forwarded.