While it remains laudably honest, this book will likely appeal mostly to Christian readers with similar views.
A semiautobiographical collection of opinions examines Christianity and contemporary topics.
Early in her debut work, Walton offers the admonishment that “when God tells people what I am telling them in my Books and Blogs on Judgment Day it will be TOO LATE for people to do anything about it.” What follows is an assortment of topics about which the author expresses passionate views. These range from the understanding that Satan is deceptive with his appearance—“I am talking about making sure people understand he does not come dressed with two horns”—to the idea that if Hillary Clinton had won the 2016 presidential election, “it would have FORCED ‘The Rapture.’ ” Intermingled among such subjects, many of which have come from the author’s blog (www.godssystem.com), are bits of personal history. There is the time the author spent living in her car, her ongoing campaign to control her weight, and how she kept a list of people to pray for regularly. There are also single sentences of great importance that appear in capital letters. These range from the idea that “GOD HAS A VISION FOR ALL OF OUR LIVES” to “IF YOU ARE GOING TO HAVE AN ANIMAL ALWAYS BE CAREFUL AROUND OTHER PEOPLE WITH THEM AND ALWAYS CLEAN UP AFTER THEM.” Needless to say, the wide-ranging, candid book presents a great deal of intriguing material in a fashion that is nothing short of fiery. But the fervent passages sometimes become muddled. In addition to jumping from topic to topic, the book offers many sentiments that are awkwardly phrased. For example, the author mentions playing the lottery and how “the next ticket I purchased was the ‘Mega Millions,’ which Established it.” It is not entirely clear what is being established here. While the author fearlessly addresses controversial issues, these are not handled in subtle ways. At one point, she shares her firm position against the legalization of same-sex marriages: “While gays are celebrating their marriage victory they might as well start celebrating molestation too.” Although such statements are unapologetically incendiary, more nuanced insights would allow for illumination instead of one-dimensional shock.
While it remains laudably honest, this book will likely appeal mostly to Christian readers with similar views.Pub Date: Sept. 21, 2017
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 335
Publisher: Infinity Publishing
Review Posted Online: Nov. 24, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Dogged original research and superb narrative skills come together in this gripping account of pitiless evil.
Greed, depravity, and serial murder in 1920s Oklahoma.
During that time, enrolled members of the Osage Indian nation were among the wealthiest people per capita in the world. The rich oil fields beneath their reservation brought millions of dollars into the tribe annually, distributed to tribal members holding "headrights" that could not be bought or sold but only inherited. This vast wealth attracted the attention of unscrupulous whites who found ways to divert it to themselves by marrying Osage women or by having Osage declared legally incompetent so the whites could fleece them through the administration of their estates. For some, however, these deceptive tactics were not enough, and a plague of violent death—by shooting, poison, orchestrated automobile accident, and bombing—began to decimate the Osage in what they came to call the "Reign of Terror." Corrupt and incompetent law enforcement and judicial systems ensured that the perpetrators were never found or punished until the young J. Edgar Hoover saw cracking these cases as a means of burnishing the reputation of the newly professionalized FBI. Bestselling New Yorkerstaff writer Grann (The Devil and Sherlock Holmes: Tales of Murder, Madness, and Obsession, 2010, etc.) follows Special Agent Tom White and his assistants as they track the killers of one extended Osage family through a closed local culture of greed, bigotry, and lies in pursuit of protection for the survivors and justice for the dead. But he doesn't stop there; relying almost entirely on primary and unpublished sources, the author goes on to expose a web of conspiracy and corruption that extended far wider than even the FBI ever suspected. This page-turner surges forward with the pacing of a true-crime thriller, elevated by Grann's crisp and evocative prose and enhanced by dozens of period photographs.
Dogged original research and superb narrative skills come together in this gripping account of pitiless evil.Pub Date: April 18, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-385-53424-6
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2017
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
For Howard Zinn, long-time civil rights and anti-war activist, history and ideology have a lot in common. Since he thinks that everything is in someone's interest, the historian—Zinn posits—has to figure out whose interests he or she is defining/defending/reconstructing (hence one of his previous books, The Politics of History). Zinn has no doubts about where he stands in this "people's history": "it is a history disrespectful of governments and respectful of people's movements of resistance." So what we get here, instead of the usual survey of wars, presidents, and institutions, is a survey of the usual rebellions, strikes, and protest movements. Zinn starts out by depicting the arrival of Columbus in North America from the standpoint of the Indians (which amounts to their standpoint as constructed from the observations of the Europeans); and, after easily establishing the cultural disharmony that ensued, he goes on to the importation of slaves into the colonies. Add the laborers and indentured servants that followed, plus women and later immigrants, and you have Zinn's amorphous constituency. To hear Zinn tell it, all anyone did in America at any time was to oppress or be oppressed; and so he obscures as much as his hated mainstream historical foes do—only in Zinn's case there is that absurd presumption that virtually everything that came to pass was the work of ruling-class planning: this amounts to one great indictment for conspiracy. Despite surface similarities, this is not a social history, since we get no sense of the fabric of life. Instead of negating the one-sided histories he detests, Zinn has merely reversed the image; the distortion remains.
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 1979
ISBN: 0061965588
Page Count: 772
Publisher: Harper & Row
Review Posted Online: May 26, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 1979
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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