Control: Exposing the Truth About Guns

Author: Glenn Beck
Pages: 162
Rating: PG-13 (he talks about a lot of the gun massacres that have happened in the last several years, and also describes in detail some of the violent video games out on the market)

Summary:
When our founding fathers secured the Constitutional “right of the people to keep and bear arms,” they also added the admonition that this right SHALL NOT BE INFRINGED.

It is the only time this phrase appears in the Bill of Rights. So why aren’t more people listening?

History has proven that guns are essential to self-defense and liberty—but tragedy is a powerful force and has led many to believe that guns are the enemy, that the Second Amendment is outdated, and that more restrictions or outright bans on firearms will somehow solve everything.

They are wrong.

In CONTROL, Glenn Beck presents a passionate, fact-based case for guns that reveals why gun control isn’t really about controlling guns at all; it’s about controlling us. In doing so, he takes on and debunks the common myths and outright lies that are often used to vilify guns and demean their owners:

The Second Amendment is ABOUT MUSKETS . . . GUN CONTROL WORKS in other countries . . . 40 percent of all guns are sold without BACKGROUND CHECKS . . . More GUNS MEAN more MURDER . . . Mass shootings are becoming more common . . . These awful MASSACRES ARE UNIQUE TO AMERICA . . . No CIVILIAN needs a “weapon of war” like the AR-15 . . . ARMED GUARDS in schools do nothing, just look at Columbine . . . Stop FEARMONGERING, no one is talking about TAKING YOUR GUNS AWAY.
Backed by hundreds of sources, this handbook gives everyone who cares about the Second Amendment the indisputable facts they need to reclaim the debate, defeat the fear, and take back their natural rights.

My Thoughts: AWESOME BOOK! Back when I was a teenager, I don't think I really had an opinion one way or the other about guns. But as an adult, I am completely pro-gun. Regardless of how you may view Glenn Beck, this book is full of full-out FACTS. Basically, he takes quotations from various political and media public figures, quotes that many people just take for granted to be true, because it was said on the news, and then shows you how those claims are completely false and how half the time these people really don't know what they are talking about. He quotes numerous official studies (not paid for or backed by the NRA, as many liberals claim) and he also presents plenty of anecdotal evidence that taking away guns is actually not going to solve anything. It's extremely informational. One of my favorite quotes is towards the end of the book when Beck says this:

"If a boy stabs a cat to death with a steak knife, society doesn't debate the knife, it debates how the boy got that way. We look at his life, his upbringing, his schooling, his friends, his medications, and what he does in his spare time. But if that same boy uses a gun to kill that cat, everything changes. All of a sudden it's not about the boy, it's about the weapon. What kind of gun was it? How many rounds did it hold? how did he get it? Why didn't it have a trigger guard? While there are certainly legitimate questions to be asked in the wake of a violent act, gun crimes seem to divert attention from where it should really be: on the person committing the act."

Awesome. The first 2/3 of the book deals with debunking all the claims made in support of more gun control. My favorite was the quote from Piers Morgan, a famous anti-gun person, who said "In the last 30 years there have been 62 mass shootings. Not a single one has ever been thwarted by a civilian despite America being a heavily armed country." Well, DUH. If it had been stopped then it wouldn't be a mass shooting! Then Beck lists several accounts of killings that COULD have become large-scale if they had not been stopped by...someone with a gun.

Beck calls guns "the great equalizer." Basically the idea is that if you're an older person or a female, and some young, strong male (the normal profile of criminals) comes at you trying to hurt you or kill you, whether or not he has a gun, you're pretty much toast. However, if said senior citizen or young female has a gun, the chances of survival are WAY better. I love this quote from the book. "Consider for a second that you felt threatened for some reason and then ask yourself this: would you feel safer with a sign on your front window saying 'This house is a gun-free zone' or with an armed guard on call whenever you were home? If you wouldn't put this sign on your home, why would anyone think it's okay to put them in places where young children gather nearly every day?" Right you are, Mr. Beck.

The last 1/3 of the book focuses on the real reasons why Beck thinks we are having so many issues with violent crime lately. And it all starts with society and our acceptance of violence. He lists several studies that found that children who were exposed to violent television and/or video games were more likely to show aggressive behaviors later on in life. I have always been against violent video games, and now I'm even MORE against them. Beck describes the storylines of several of the more popular games out there right now, and I promise you, you will be SHOCKED! Oh and by the way, the rating M for Mature basically means that it's probably a really horrible game but the manufacturers got it past the raters by selecting specific less violent clips to show to the people in charge of giving ratings. He basically makes the argument that when we let kids spend hours playing games in which they are rewarded for being violent and for basically committing heinous acts, it starts to affect the way their brain perceives the world around them. 

I highly recommend this book to anyone who is already pro-gun and wants a bit more ammo to use during "discussions" with your anti-gun peers, or to anyone who hasn't really formed an opinion about them yet and wants to get some really good, fact-based information. (By the way, everything in the book is backed up with sources at the end. That you could go check out on your own if you're that interested.)

The Survivor's Club: The Secrets and Science that Could Save Your Life

Author: Ben Sherwood
Pages: 337
Rating: PG - some of the things that happen to people in this book are a bit frightening, but there is no language, and nothing too horribly graphic.

Summary:
Which is the safest seat on an airplane? Where is the best place to have a heart attack? Why does religious observance add years to your life? How can birthdays be hazardous to your health?

Each second of the day, someone in America faces a crisis, whether it's a car accident, violent crime, serious illness, or financial trouble. Given the inevitability of adversity, we all wonder: Who beats the odds and who surrenders? Why do some people bound back and others give up? How can I become the kind of person who survives and thrives?

The fascinating, hopeful answers to these questions are found in THE SURVIVORS CLUB. In the tradition of Freakonomics and The Tipping Point, this book reveals the hidden side of survival by combining astonishing true stories, gripping scientific research, and the author's adventures inside the U.S. military's elite survival schools and the government's airplane crash evacuation course.

With THE SURVIVORS CLUB, you can also discover your own Survivor IQ through a powerful Internet-based test called the Survivor Profiler. Developed exclusively for this book, the test analyzes your personality and generates a customized report on your top survivor strengths.

There is no escaping life's inevitable struggles. But THE SURVIVORS CLUB can give you an edge when adversity strikes.

My Thoughts: This book was actually referred to me by my husband, who is not reader. He read it so fast, that I figured it must be worth the read. It was fascinating, let me tell you.

I have always been one of those people who is pretty much terrified at the thought of what life might possibly throw at me. I know we all usually have to face something majorly difficult in our lifetime, and I can give myself anxiety attacks wondering what that trial is going to be for me.

However, this book taught me that the more prepared you are, the better you'll fare (leading me to want to have more discussions with my husband about what we will do in various disastrous situations), and that people are almost always stronger than they think they are. The most fascinating chapter to me was the one on resiliance, where it explains that the majority of people who have some kind of traumatic experience do NOT experience severe PTSD and they actually recover quite well. Also, most people who have been through a difficult trial are grateful for the experience, and feel like they came out on the other end a better person than they were before.

My husband's favorite chapter was the one about plane crashes specifically. That one was also really interesting. I learned that it's very important to pay attention to the safety briefings, and also be aware of the exits and how you might be able to get out if there was a crash. Contrary to popular belief, most airplane crashes are NOT 100% fatal, and most people actually end up surviving. Also interesting is the fact that it doesn't much matter where you sit on the plane, as long as you are ready to jump into action in the face of an emergency. Plane crashes have been analyzed and found that people who died were sitting right next to people who lived. Those who died simply froze out of panic and therefore made no effort whatsoever to escape.

I would highly, highly recommend this one. It is so super interesting, and it gave me more confidence in myself. Also, you can take the Survivor Profiler test online and find out what your strengths are, and they might surprise you! I didn't think my results were accurate, but the test is pretty well put together, and it's really hard to get the wrong result. So maybe I'll surprise even myself in the event of a disaster!

Leaping Beauty and Other Animal Fairy Tales

Author: Gregory Maguire
Pages: 197
Rating: G

Summary:

Once upon a time . . . nothing was as it seemed!
What if Sleeping Beauty were actually a frog princess, doomed to be Weeping Beauty forever? What if the Three Chickens had to outwit Goldifox? What if Cinder-Elephant lost her glass plate slipper? Then you'd have this hilarious collection of twisted fairy tales from the master of the absurd, Gregory Maguire!

My Thoughts: I would aim this book right at 8-11 year olds. The sarcasm, goofy inserts, and just plain wackiness of these stories is just what would set a pre-teen laughing and laughing. For adults, I felt more like I was just laughing at a really clever but not really that funny joke. But there's modern stuff thrown in there, and it's all just so goofy. Like I said, definitely a funny read for pre-teens. I think my favorite was "Little Red Robin Hood" because it was a mashup of two stories, and the results were pretty hilarious.

Fire and Wings: Dragon Tales from East and West

Author: Various
Pages: 141
Rating: G

Summary:
Newbery Award winner Jane Yolen’s enchanting preface “Dragons: An Unnatural History” introduces this collection of 15 dragon stories from England, Western and Eastern Europe, Korea, Japan, and China. Ferocious fire-breathing dragons face off with clever princesses and courageous village girls in a riddle match. But the last dragon in the world is a kind, gentle beast who sheds tears of joy when a princess calls him “dragon dear.” Ferocious or kind, wise or wicked, these mythical creatures transport readers to the far corners of the world.

My Thoughts: I got this book from the library to read throughout the week to my Summer Camp kids as we learned about China for the week. While there are two or three stories from China and other Asian countries, not all are like that. I thought it was a great little book of stories. Dragons are often found in various fairy tales, but they are not usually the main character, so it was fun to read a whole slew of stories just about dragons. None of them were stories I had heard before, although some were similar to other tales I have heard. Some stories were more serious, others were comical, and the dragons varied between being evil and good. It's definitely a twist on the run-of-the-mill fairy tale book. Definitely worth checking out.

The World Above

Author: Cameron Dokey
Pages: 175
Rating: G

Summary: Gen and her twin brother, Jack, were raised with their mother's tales of life in the World Above. Gen is skeptical, but adventurous Jack believes the stories--and trades the family cow for magical beans. Their mother rejoices, knowing they can finally return to their royal home.
When Jack plants the beans and climbs the enchanted stalk, he is captured by the tyrant who now rules the land. Gen sets off to rescue her brother, but danger awaits her in the World Above. For finding Jack may mean losing her heart....

.
My Thoughts: This would probably be one of my favorite of the Once Upon a Time books. It's kind of a mixture between "Jack and the Beanstalk" and "Robin Hood," which makes for an interesting story. Like all fairy tales, the love part is super cheesy and overdone, but it's still cute. Basically, the idea is that Jack and Gen were originally from the World Above, but their mother came down to the "World Below" to run away from a man who was trying to kill her. She raises her children Below, with the promise from her old nursing maid that when the time is right, she will send a messenger with the magic beans to take them back to the World Above. And the giant is actually a nice guy who helps them. He's not a bad guy. Definitely worth the read. If you've read my other posts about these books, they typically have too much build up and not enough climax, but this one I felt had the right amounts of everything. I didn't feel gypped at the end.

The Age of Miracles

Author: Karen Thompson Walker
Pages: 269

Rating: PG-13 (There is some language, including maybe 3-4 F-words. I would say there's probably a swear word once every 30 pages or so. It's not a lot.)

Summary:
On an ordinary Saturday, Julia awakes to discover that something has happened to the rotation of the earth. The days and nights are growing longer and longer, gravity is affected, the birds, the tides, human behavior and cosmic rhythms are thrown into disarray. In a world of danger and loss, Julia faces surprising developments in herself, and her personal world—divisions widening between her parents, strange behavior by Hanna and other friends, the vulnerability of first love, a sense of isolation, and a rebellious new strength.

My Thoughts: This is first novel, and the concept was interesting, but I thought the author could have gone a lot farther with it. Basically, the earth's rotation slows down so that eventually "days" and "nights" are lasting 60 hours each. But instead of something really interesting happening, everyone just does their best to adapt. It's more of a coming of age story, but with a different setting than you've seen before. I thought it was a good book, definitely interesting, but not as good as I thought it was going to be. Also, I couldn't figure out how the title applied. The only "miracle" in the book was that the earth wasn't turning they way it's supposed to. Everything else was just sad, like birds dying and people getting sick.

The American Way of Eating: Undercover at walmart, Applebee's, Farm Fields, and the Dinner Table

Author:Tracie McMillan
Pages: 241
Rating: PG-13 (There is some language, which was kind of disappointing. I think the F-word was there 5 or 6 times.)

Summary: When award-winning (and working-class) journalist Tracie McMillan saw foodies swooning over $9 organic tomatoes, she couldn’t help but wonder: What about the rest of us? Why do working Americans eat the way we do? And what can we do to change it? To find out, McMillan went undercover in three jobs that feed America, living and eating off her wages in each. Reporting from California fields, a Walmart produce aisle outside of Detroit, and the kitchen of a New York City Applebee’s, McMillan examines the reality of our country’s food industry in this “clear and essential” (The Boston Globe) work of reportage. Chronicling her own experience and that of the Mexican garlic crews, Midwestern produce managers, and Caribbean line cooks with whom she works, McMillan goes beyond the food on her plate to explore the national priorities that put it there.
Fearlessly reported and beautifully written, The American Way of Eating goes beyond statistics and culture wars to deliver a book that is fiercely honest, strikingly intelligent, and compulsively readable. In making the simple case that—city or country, rich or poor—everyone wants good food, McMillan guarantees that talking about dinner will never be the same again.

My Thoughts: It took me forever to get through this book. Probably mostly because I was really only interested in the summary at the end of the book. Basically, the entire thing can be summarized in: American's know that we need to eat better but because of lack of basic cooking skills (kids aren't being taught by their parents or home ec classes anymore) and the difficulty of obtaining healthy, good quality food, we just don't eat as well as we all know we ought to.

Also, there's a lot of crap going on in the fields. When McMillan spent some time as a farmworker, she learned of some pretty common practices. When she picked garlic, all the workers were payed by the bucket. She got $1.60 per bucket of garlic picked. At her best, she only picked about 10 buckets per 12 hour day - earning her a whopping $16. Now, California law requires the farm companies to make up the difference, so that each worker will make minimum wage at the end of the day. Big surprise....they don't.  McMillan's pay stubs were still for $16, but instead of showing that she worked for 8-12 hours, they showed that she worked for 2. This is extremely common, and rarely disputed, especially since many farmworkers have questionable legal status. Also, there are laws about how close workers can be to a field that is being sprayed with pesticides, or how long they have to wait until workers go back into a field that has just been sprayed. These laws are largely ignored.

In her time at Applebee's McMillan learned that you don't need much cooking expertise to work in a restaurant kitchen, unless you're cooking the steaks and burgers. Other than that, all you're really doing is scooping out pre-made portions and sticking them in the microwave.

Basically, the end statement was that in order for Americans to eat better, we need to make quality, affordable food more accessible to the general public, and we also need to make sure that we have the basic cooking skills necessary to prepare basic, healthy meals. And I totally agree. It's just plain easier to eat what's cheap and simple to prepare.
 

The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry

Author: Rachel Joyce
Pages: 320
Rating: PG-13-R (There was more swearing than I was comfortable with, including at least 15 instances of the F-word)

Summary:
Meet Harold Fry, recently retired. He lives in a small English village with his wife, Maureen, who seems irritated by almost everything he does, even down to how he butters his toast. Little differentiates one day from the next. Then one morning the mail arrives, and within the stack of quotidian minutiae is a letter addressed to Harold in a shaky scrawl from a woman he hasn’t seen or heard from in twenty years. Queenie Hennessy is in hospice and is writing to say goodbye.

Harold pens a quick reply and, leaving Maureen to her chores, heads to the corner mailbox. But then, as happens in the very best works of fiction, Harold has a chance encounter, one that convinces him that he absolutely must deliver his message to Queenie in person. And thus begins the unlikely pilgrimage at the heart of Rachel Joyce’s remarkable debut. Harold Fry is determined to walk six hundred miles from Kingsbridge to the hospice in Berwick-upon-Tweed because, he believes, as long as he walks, Queenie Hennessey will live.

Still in his yachting shoes and light coat, Harold embarks on his urgent quest across the countryside. Along the way he meets one fascinating character after another, each of whom unlocks his long-dormant spirit and sense of promise. Memories of his first dance with Maureen, his wedding day, his joy in fatherhood, come rushing back to him—allowing him to also reconcile the losses and the regrets. As for Maureen, she finds herself missing Harold for the first time in years.

And then there is the unfinished business with Queenie Hennessy.

My Thoughts: I wasn't really all that impressed with this book. It's interesting, that's for sure, and a different story line than perhaps you may have read before, but I don't know. It just didn't grab me that well. Maybe I just wasn't in the right frame of mind for it.

Either way, it is a really good story about healing, both of individuals and as groups. Harold and Maureen have a rocky marriage that has been quite loveless for some time. The walk manages to renew their feelings for each other, slowly and surely. There is also a problem in the book about Harold's son David. You get this feeling that something went wrong with David and that Harold has blamed himself for it for all these years, and Maureen has let him do it. They need to come to terms with their son and with each other. Harold and Maureen were both very well developed characters, but I honestly felt that there was not enough development of some of the secondary characters in the book.

There wasn't really anything inappropriate in it, just the language. And like I said, I felt like there was too much swearing for me.

In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto

Author: Michael Pollan
Pages: 201
Rating:  G

Summary:
What to eat, what not to eat, and how to think about health: a manifesto for our times

"Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants." These simple words go to the heart of Michael Pollan's In Defense of Food, the well-considered answers he provides to the questions posed in the bestselling The Omnivore's Dilemma.

Humans used to know how to eat well, Pollan argues. But the balanced dietary lessons that were once passed down through generations have been confused, complicated, and distorted by food industry marketers, nutritional scientists, and journalists-all of whom have much to gain from our dietary confusion. As a result, we face today a complex culinary landscape dense with bad advice and foods that are not "real." These "edible foodlike substances" are often packaged with labels bearing health claims that are typically false or misleading. Indeed, real food is fast disappearing from the marketplace, to be replaced by "nutrients," and plain old eating by an obsession with nutrition that is, paradoxically, ruining our health, not to mention our meals. Michael Pollan's sensible and decidedly counterintuitive advice is: "Don't eat anything that your great-great grandmother would not recognize as food."

Writing In Defense of Food, and affirming the joy of eating, Pollan suggests that if we would pay more for better, well-grown food, but buy less of it, we'll benefit ourselves, our communities, and the environment at large. Taking a clear-eyed look at what science does and does not know about the links between diet and health, he proposes a new way to think about the question of what to eat that is informed by ecology and tradition rather than by the prevailing nutrient-by-nutrient approach.

In Defense of Food reminds us that, despite the daunting dietary landscape Americans confront in the modern supermarket, the solutions to the current omnivore's dilemma can be found all around us.

In looking toward traditional diets the world over, as well as the foods our families-and regions-historically enjoyed, we can recover a more balanced, reasonable, and pleasurable approach to food. Michael Pollan's bracing and eloquent manifesto shows us how we might start making thoughtful food choices that will enrich our lives and enlarge our sense of what it means to be healthy.

My Thoughts: This book was a real eye-opener. Basically, the author argues that we are so obsessed with nutrients, and so focused on the one magical thing that will make us healthier (less fat, lower carbs, more omega 3's) that we have forgotten the fact that we're not eating nutrients, we're eating food. And a whole food is more than just the sum of its parts. Pollan basically tells us that the entire Western diet is flawed. Diets from other cultures, as diverse as they may be, inevitably create healthier human beings than our diet does.

And it's more complicated than just buying more healthy foods. Since we are part of a food chain, what our food sources eat is important too. The soils our food comes from are starting to become less nutritious, which is bad for our cows, which then results in meat that isn't as nutritionally healthy.

There are definitely some really good points in this book. I'm not sure that I'm convinced that I need to go buy everything organic, as the author suggests, but I will say that I am more wary of how many weird ingredients crop up in my food, and that I am more determined to eat more fruits, veggies, and stuff made from scratch at home, where I know what exactly is in it.

I guarantee that if you read this, the way you look at food and the way you eat will change significantly. It's a fascinating, and very easy read. Some of the nutrient science was a bit over my head, but I still got the main idea. He ends the book with a series of tips of how to be a better eater, so don't think that the book is just condemning your current eating style. Some of his tips include:

-Don't eat anything your great grandmother wouldn't recognize as food
- Avoid anything with a health claim
- Avoid anything with more than five ingredients, or with ingredients you don't recognize.
- Eat mostly plants, especially leaves

Those are just a taste. You'll have to read the book. It was really a good one!

Cheyenne in New York

Author: Jack Weyland
Pages: 279
Rating: G

Summary:
Ben Morelli is a brash, up-and-coming New York City ad agency executive. He's just landed a huge account, and his future looks bright. The last thing he needs is to share the spotlight with some hick from Idaho.
Bright, outspokenly moral, and unfailingly honest, Cheyenne is everything Ben thinks he dislikes in a woman. She's also a Mormon, whatever that is. It doesn't help, either, that his most important client thinks Cheyenne is terrific. And so does Ben's family.
In Cheyenne in New York, Jack Weyland introduces us to an intriguing pair of strong-willed, seemingly mismatched characters whose family backgrounds, interests, and ambitions are worlds apart.
A contemporary love story played out in the aftermath of a horrific national disaster, this latest Jack Weyland novel reaffirms in an unforgettable way the power of love, faith, and family ties.

My Thoughts: Honestly, I wasn't that impressed. The book was pretty cheesy, and everything moved much too quickly. Ben doesn't struggle for very long about the whole Mormon thing before he all of a sudden believes it. The whole first half of the book was just straight cheese. The writing did get a lot better in the second half of the book. Basically, what happens is 9/11 and Ben has family that is directly effected by the terrorist attacks. Suddenly, the storyline is interesting and no longer quite so cheesy. It becomes a lot more real at that point. I still felt that the development of the relationship between Ben and Cheyenne left something to be desired. They're so pure together, and then they get upset over dumb stuff. I don't know, it was a nice little read, and uplifting for sure, because the gospel is so prominent, but I wasn't all that wowed by it.