Gunfighter: A Modern Warrior's Life

My Summer Reading List

I've already started, but this is the main thrust, in no particular order... except for the fact that the first two will probably be read while I am on vacation in August..

Here goes:

After The Downall, Harry Turtledove

The Man With The Iron Heart, Harry Turtledove

The Scourge of God, S.M. Stirling

Grand Theft Jesus, Robert S. McIlvaine

Red Letter Christians, Tony Campolo

The Fall of The Evangelical Nation, Christine  Wicker

The Great Awakening: Reviving Faith & Politics in a Post-Religious Right America, Jim Wallis

Among others...

The Great Gunfighter Giveaway

Father's Day is swift approaching so I have partnered with the Hachette Book Group (formerly Time-Warner books) to honor Dad's with a book give away.

Here is the deal... now, I'm going to keep this simple, because I don't want to confuse myself, so listen up.

I want you to post on your own blogs, or in a personal email to me, why Father's Day is important to you.  See?  Simple. 

OK, the lady in the back needs a little clarification, so here goes:  Any time between now and Midnight on Sunday, I will accept entries.... send me a link to your blog post, or send me an email describing why Father's Day is important to you.  This contest is open to new dads, not-so-new dads, old dads (like me), moms who want to honor their children's father, childless folks who want to talk about their own fathers, women who don't have children who want to talk about their hopes for the future father of their children, or even someone not related to you who stands out as sort of a favorite icon of fatherhood.

See?  I told you that it was simple.

Now for the good part:  I will select five entries and the winners will receive a copy of their choice of one of the following books:

What a bargain, eh?

OK, you have your mission, Let's roll!

GF

Book Review: The Tao of Fertility

When The Parent Blogger Network asked me if I wanted to review this book, I wasn't sure that I should.  I was unsure for a couple of reasons, the first and foremost being that I'm male, and as such, I can't get pregnant... so why bother, I thought?  Another reason that I had for not being sure that I should give it a gander is because Mrs Gunfighter and I are done having children.

In the end, I decided to review this book because I like to see things from points of view different than my own... and of course this is a seriously different view of pregnancy for me.

As you all know, I am an advocate of fully participatory fatherhood, and I tried as best as I could, to empathize with Mrs GF when she was pregnant.  You know something?  with all of the good intentions and sensitivity that I could muster, I CAN'T really imagine what it must be like to be pregnant.  No way.

So.  I decided to give this book a try.

First Impressions:  "Oh, Lord... another touchy-feely, earthy-crunch, new age, neo-hippie book on how to be spiritually holistic etc..."  I figured that this would be another book that could be summed up by saying:  "Watch what you eat, rest, drink water, exercise and all will be well"

I was wrong.

Clearly, I can't get pregnant, but there are things in this book that are beneficial to just about anyone... not just for women who want to have a baby.

The authors were kind enough not to fill the book with jargon that would leave my eyes bleeding and my head hurting.  They wrote in plain speech, and didn't appear to try to dazzle the reader with flashy  prose.  On the contrary, this book is written so that a person with no knowledge of Traditional Chinese Medicine could understand it, and glean very helpful... and healthful information.

The information in the book even covers pre-pregnancy dietary information (including suggested menus and recipes), and self-applied accu-pressure, to promote health and fertility.  As a hint, I suggest accu-pressure with a partner.  It's more fun.  Yeah.

OK!,  so the book is good.  The suggestions are good. The presentation is good.

Done, right?

Not yet.

There are other aspects of this book that I enjoy.  The first being the stories of women about their journey toward pregnancy.  Some of the stories were just heartbreaking.  Other aspects that I enjoyed were post-partum suggestions on diet and exercise, as well as mom-specific nutrition.

I am going to be honest here and say that I thought I was fgoing to read this book and shoot it full of holes.  I am rather pleased to report that this isn't the case here.

The authors, Daoshing Ni, Ph.D, and Dana Herko derserve full marks for theri product.

GF

This book review is sponsered by The Parent Blogger Network and HarperCollinsPublishers.  This review is cross-posted at my review blog, The Review From Here.

Book Review: Raised By Wolves - Christie Mellor

At the very start of this book, author Christie Mellor did something that few authors do for me. She made me laugh. She made me laugh aloud.

In her own wonderful and very humorous way, Christie Mellor gives young people some very cogent advice, while not sounding at all preachy, dry, or boring. She takes less than 250 pages to tell all twenty-somethings things that it took me almost 40 years to learn. Just think of the possibilities if I had learned them early on.

Mellor gives advice on basic living practices, such as the importance of keeping your apartment clean, how to clean your bathroom, and why it is important to make your bed, and the myriad uses of baking soda. Baking soda! Did you know that you can remove coffee and tea stains with that stuff? I didn't. I didn't know that you could also use it to kill fleas. who knew? Well, Mellor knew enough to share it with all of us.

She goes on to give advanced life-lessons about the working world; from not being a "fawning bootlicker" to not sharing the intimate details of your love life with people you barely know. Mellor gives directions to the young in ways that will make you laugh aloud, AND make you think (or at least, nod your head sagely).

Reading this book at age 44 was like a trip down memory lane. When the author talks about drinking to excess, and how you care to be remembered, I immediately thought back to my hard-partying days in The Marines. It made me think about the several old friends of mine from those days whom, in my memory, will always be pictured as roaringly, life-of-the-party drunk... or violently vomiting in public places.

To be sure, this book has a lot of lessons in it that can be categorized as "What Not To Do When You Are An Adult", but it doesn't spend all of it's time as a humorous "Don't" list. There are other things that young folks in anything close to polite society ought to know. Dinner Party etiquette; visiting invitations; hosting a party; basic recipes for the novice cook; and how to make a proper Martini (yes, it IS important to know how to make a Martini). Get this, she'll also teach you how to draw a Martini... see? (I drew this 10 minutes before posting this review. Useful, see?)

One of the most important chapters is the one about finance. Look, in today's economy, things are tough for families... we already know that, but we shouldn't assume that things are free and easy for young adults, especially as they often start amassing horrendous debt early in life. Mellor's advice on money is sound. So, pay attention.

The bottom line on this book is that there is a lot of good information in it, and it would be useful to a young person who has just left or is about to leave his parent's home or graduate from school. It would also be every bit as useful to that person in their thirties or forties, you know the ones, who just don't have a clue.

It's a keeper... but not for me. I'm sending MY copy to my college freshman daughter (that is, after I copy that soup recipe!)

GF

This review was sponsored by the Parent Blogger Network and the fine folks at HarperCollins Publishers.  This review is also cross-posted at The Review From Here, Gunfighter's product review blog

Book Review: The Sky Isn't Visible From Here

The scenes from Felicia Sullivan's book are heartbreaking.

Stories of her childhood as she watched her mother abuse drugs, and abused by often-violent men. Stories of a child who had to take her mother to the emergency room on a regular basis when the dope stopped feeling good. Stories of a nomadic youth. Stories that aren't filled with love, and don't have happy endings.

I didn't know where to start with my review. I really didn't. It isn't because I didn't get it, because I did. It isn't because the book isn't good, because it is. I didn't really know where to start, I think, because I am very aware of the fact that a lot of the author's childhood was like my own.

I too, lived in a home with a single, drug abusing parent, and sure as hell, it wasn't pretty.

Ms. Sullivan tells us about some of the minutiae of life with her mother, and her own struggles with addiction and it's aftermath. Anyone reading this very personal, powerful, and moving memoir, should come away knowing at least one thing for certain: That the wreckage of substance abuse isn't just physical, and it isn't just mental. The wreckage is emotional, and it's raw... and despite what you've been told, time doesn't heal all wounds.

Felicia Sullivan's well-written story is one of survival, not victory.

Survival.

Sometimes survival is the best we can ask for.

This review was sponsored by the Parent Bloggers Network, and those fine folks at Algonquin books.

You can read Felicia Sullivan's blog here.

Book Review: Rollback, by Robert J. Sawyer

I just finished reading this book a couple of weeks ago, and wrote the review the following day.  I apologize for not posting it... I've been a bit distracted.

I have read several novels by award winning Canadian Science Fiction writer Robert J. Sawyer, and I have been impressed by all of them.... this one being no different.

In this novel, scientist Sarah Halifax is not just another geek in a white lab coat.  She is a well-known scientist who, "back" in 2009, had deciphered the first message from an alien civilization at Sigma Draconis, a star system almost nineteen light years away from Earth. Thirty-eight years later, the response to Earth's reply is received, but it is encrypted.

The eyes of the world are on Sarah... can she decrypt the current message?  Maybe she can, but by this time Sarah is well into her 80's.  Will she live long enough to break the code?

Along comes billionaire Cody McGavin who believes that Sarah is vital to decoding the message and opening a dialog between earth and the aliens... but at her age she can't do much... or can she?  By this time, the year is 2048 and medical technologies have advanced a bit from Sarah's younger years, and physical rejuvenation processes are now available, but only to the super rich.  Fortunately for Sarah, and her husband Don, McGavin is the epitome of super-rich.

In this novel, Sawyer doesn't just tell us an good story.  Sure, he entertains us, but he also makes us think about the moral and ethical questions that always arise when great forward leaps are made in science.

One of the best things about this book is that you don't have to be a geeked out science fiction guy, like me, to enjoy it.

Trust me, you'll love it.

GF

What Are You Reading?

I haven't talked about books in a while, so I thought I would ask you what you have been reading lately. 

So... give!  What are you reading?  What have you read, recently?  Steamy romances?, Mysteries?, Thrillers?, Science Fiction?  Gunfighter wants to know (mainly so I can see if there is anything that sounds really good to me, so I can put it on my "to read" list)!

I just started reading a book that was a gift from Mrs Gunfighter, called "The Perils of Peace - America's Struggle for Survival After Yorktown"

In October of 1781, the army of Major General Cornwallis surrendered to the combined Franco-American armies at Yorktown, Virginia, but the Revolutionary war wasn't quite over yet.  The British still maintained a garrison of 13,000 men in New York City, and still had units in the field from Canada to Savannah, Georgia.  On the American side, the army had no money to pay neither the soldiers or the officers, and was near collapse.

Across the Atlantic, King George III wasn't convinced that Cornwallis' defeat meant the end, and declared that he wouldn't yield his dominions in America, and in France, our Diplomats weren't getting along with our only European ally.

This book is about how Washington held his army together while Diplomats, Kings, and Politicians hammered out the finality of American independence.

So far it has been really great... it makes it very clear that the cookie-cutter version of the history of the American Revolution that most of us learned in high school isn't exactly accurate.

Book Review: Come On, People!

It won’t shock anyone to know that I am one of Bill Cosby’s loudest cheerleaders regarding social issue that confront the black communities of 21st century America. Indeed, more than a cheerleader, I must best describe my self as a devotee of many of the things that Mr. Cosby espouses when it comes to the rebirth and renewal of our communities and the tough love that it will require.

In this latest publication, Bill Cosby, and his longtime collaborator, Dr, Alvin Poussaint, discuss the breadth of the pathological behavior that has rent our communities since the days of reconstruction and Jim Crow.

Cosby doesn’t spare anyone here. He calls out the people that need to be called out. He tells some home truths that we should have been telling the community-at-large for at least three generations.

I could give you all of the details of the book, but I don’t think that I need to. Suffice it to say that I believe that Cosby (and Poussaint) are strong black men that understand the truths that we must confront as a people.

It isn’t enough that there is public assistance for the poor, we must insure that public assistance is a temporary thing. The best way that we can do that is to build up the two-parent nuclear family. In addition to that, we must ALL be responsible for the extended family. Whether that kid is your blood kin or not, you, black man, must provide the example. You have to show that boy or girl that a man… a real man behaves a certain way. That he cares for his children, and feeds, clothes, nurtures and educates that child, and that he is responsible for that child’s spiritual and religious training.

It isn’t enough for me, or for my coworkers to be good husbands and fathers in our suburban homes… we have to teach our brethren who don’t know this life, that there is life outside of the ‘hood, or the projects, or the prisons.

We have a lot of work to do brothers… we’d best be about it if we want the best for our children, and their children, and their children.

We have to start now.

Right now.

Today.

What will YOU do, for the future of our people?

Happy New Year, people!

Book Review: Opening Atlantis

OK, so I put out this list of books that I wanted to read, remember?

Well, one of those books, I got for my birthday, a few weeks ago. I got another one for Christmas!

Awwwww yeah! Harry Turtledove, baby! Alternate history geeks in the hizouse!

The year is 1452, and Englishman, Edward Radcliffe, intervenes in a barroom argument between Basque and Breton fishermen about what year it really is. The winners of the argument agree to buy him drinks and a meal, which leads to the revelation of a secret that will change the world.

The English fisherman is told about a fishing bank where the cod are larger and more plentiful than any place ever was, and when he sees this for himself, he realizes that the srtange birds that land on his boat while he and his sons are hauling the catch are land bird, not gulls, terns or frigate birds. Edward Radcliffe looks to the western cloud banks and knows that land is near.

Thus is Atlantis discovered. No. Not the Atlantis of fabled civilization. The Atlantis that Harry Turtledove has conjured in this alternate history, is none other than the east coast of what, in our timeline (OTL, in geekspeak), would eventually be the United States and parts of eastern Canada.

In this world, Atlantis essentially consists of what is now the easternmost part of Quebec, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, Maine, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, West Virginia, Virginia, The Carolinas, Georgia, Florida, and Alabama. There is a wide gulf between that land mass and the rest of the North American continent, which is called Terranova in this world.

Atlantis is devoid of human life… there are no aboriginal peoples, like in our world who would be dubbed “Indians”.

Radcliffe quickly decides to settle Atlantis, and does so a few years before the Bretons (later the French) and Basques (Spanish) do.

The novel spans approximately 300 years of Atlantis settlement, from the first landing, through the war between France and England which would have coincided with our French and Indian war. During this part, Turtledove introduces to us, two historical figures, Major General Edward Braddock, and Lieutenant Colonel Charles Cornwallis.

By the end of the Novel, Atlantis is mostly in English hands, and one can begin to see the paths that Atlantis might take.

This novel was a fast read, and I enjoyed it immensely. If you are a fellow devotee of the genre, I encourage you to read this book. Dr. Turtledove does important work here, showing us what could have been, and as always, shows the reader a good time!

Gunfighter gives this novel full marks for detail, historical accuracy and well-written prose that never gets boring.

Read it. You’ll be happy that you did.

Oh, and don't foret! We aren't blogging on January 10th! Get the word out!

Book Review: The Monks of War

If the ongoing carnage in the middle east occupies any part of your brain, you really ought to learn a bit about The Crusades, Christendom's thousand-year struggle for The Holy Land.

If you want to learn about the Crusades, you need to learn about the history of of the Christian military orders. With this book, you'll learn a lot.

Most of you saw or read "The DaVinci Code", which makes a great many references to the secrets and mysteries of the Knights Templar... these mysteries make for great fiction, but the truth is that the Templars were a monastic military order, and they weren't the only one.

In his book, author Desmond Seward, has crafted what many people call the definitive history of The Order of The Temple (Knights Templar), The Knights of Saint John (The Hospitallers), The Teutonic Knights, The Knights of Santiago, and some smaller orders as well.

These fighting monks were "noblemen vowed to poverty, chastity and obedience, living a monastic life in convents which were at the same time barracks, waging war on the enemies of the Cross"

The military orders fought against Islam (and intrigued amongst themselves) from their inception in the 12th century through the 17th century, but that's not all they did. They also fought on the fringes of "barbarian" Europe, in what are commonly referred to as "The Northern, or Baltic Crusades". Perhaps the most famous battle of the orders came in 1565, with the Knights of Saint John, withstanding and then defeating the Turks at the Siege of Malta.

Seward not only discusses the military campaigns of the orders, he also goes on in-depth about the history of the Christian Kingdoms in "Latin Syria" and the involvement of European monarchs in the battle for primacy in the Holy Land.

The Crusades are important to the modern world. It isn't just fascinating history. Things done and left undone during the Crusades are the stuff of the evening news, here in the west. We only have to look to the Balkans, Iraq, The Philippines, the Horn of Africa, and Israel to see the conflict being played out. We can't understand today without learning something about yesterday.

Since we can factually say that the Crusades are important, than it must be said that the military orders of the day are equally important, for they stand at the very center.

If you want to learn anything about the military orders, here is the best place to start.

January 10th... don't forget!