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Currently ReadingRecently Read | Living on the Great Plains, we can tend to think we are removed from the nation’s ongoing debate over illegal immigration. That couldn’t be further from the truth. Just last year, Fremont, a town of some 25,000 in northeastern Nebraska, drew national attention when voters approved a law fining landlords and employers who house or [...]            Tim September 13th, 2011 | Tags: Book Reviews, immigration, nonfiction, Review Copy | Category: Book Reviews | Comments are closed |  Print This Post |  Email This PostSo, if a lifelong pacifist liberal says a book about how to train our soldiers is a “must read,” it must be full of peacenik bullshit aimed at undermining the military, right? Believe me, though, when I say that’s not the case with Karl Marlantes’ What It Is Like to Go to War. Marlantes brings [...] Tim September 11th, 2011 | Tags: Book Reviews, memoir, nonfiction | Category: Book Reviews | One comment - (Comments are closed) | Print This Post | Email This PostIt sounds a bit like a script for a television show or film under the Disney umbrella. A small high school in a town of 250 people decides to start a football team. The goalpost crossbars are built out of two by fours. The players don’t wear jerseys. They wear sweatshirts with the numbers painted [...] Tim August 24th, 2011 | Tags: biography, Book Reviews, football, nonfiction, Review Copy, South Dakota history | Category: Book Reviews | Comments are closed | Print This Post | Email This PostIn today’s sound-bite world, it is easy to forget that cogent maxims can be more than buzzwords and arise from more substantive expressions of thought. Although they may encapsulate a principle or theme, they aren’t necessarily designed to be a 15-second snippet. Wisdom of Progressive Voices, compiled and edited by Joanne Boyer, is a good [...] Tim August 22nd, 2011 | Tags: Book Reviews, nonfiction, Politics, Review Copy | Category: Book Reviews | Comments are closed | Print This Post | Email This PostWhy do certain political ideas take root and gain acceptance while others advocated by the same party or movement do not? That question can’t help but come to mind reading R. Alton Lee’s Principle over Party: The Farmers’ Alliance and Populism in South Dakota, 1880-1900. The Farmers’ Alliance and the political parties to which it [...] Tim August 19th, 2011 | Tags: Book Reviews, history, nonfiction, Review Copy, South Dakota history | Category: Book Reviews | Comments are closed | Print This Post | Email This PostIt’s hard to see and hear Penn Jillette without forming some sort of opinion. Jillette, the large (nearly 6 foot, 7 inches tall and approximately 300 pounds) half of the illusionist-magician-comic duo Penn & Teller, is talented, brash and unabashed. He’s never been loath to express his views. And his new book, God, No!: Signs [...] Tim August 12th, 2011 | Tags: atheism, Book Reviews, nonfiction, Religion, Review Copy | Category: Book Reviews | 3 comments - (Comments are closed) | Print This Post | Email This PostThe War to End All Wars didn’t. At least in the United States, the vast majority of those alive today probably view World War I as the chapter in their history textbook before the Depression and World War II. And the death earlier this year of the last surviving combat veteran of the Great War [...] Tim August 9th, 2011 | Tags: Book Reviews, history, nonfiction, Review Copy | Category: Book Reviews | Comments are closed | Print This Post | Email This PostIt sticks out on almost any bookshelf. Like the cover, a white circle appears in the center of the jacket spine, the antithesis of the black that otherwise fills the space. In the midst of the circle is black again, but in the shape of the Nazi swastika. The title, The Rise and Fall of [...] Tim August 8th, 2011 | Tags: biography, Book Reviews, history, Nazi Germany, nonfiction, Review Copy | Category: Book Reviews | Comments are closed | Print This Post | Email This PostElements of our lives undoubtedly impact not only what we read but how we read it. Growing up during the Gemini and Apollo programs left me with a continued interest in space-related topics. Later training in a “just the facts ma’am” approach to journalism tends to leave me feeling terms like “creative nonfiction” have more [...] Tim July 7th, 2011 | Tags: Book Reviews, crime, nonfiction, Review Copy, Science, space | Category: Book Reviews | One comment - (Comments are closed) | Print This Post | Email This PostStatues and busts have advantages over the heroes and icons they depict. Any imperfections are superficial, unlike human flaws. Their character is fixed, not subject to further research and analysis. But anyone who insists folk heroes must be paragons of virtue ignores the reality of human nature. Even — and perhaps especially — those with [...] Tim June 13th, 2011 | Tags: biography, Book Reviews, Clarence Darrow, Law, nonfiction, Review Copy | Category: Book Reviews | Comments are closed | Print This Post | Email This Post |         The views expressed here are mine and mine alone. I do not speak for my law partners, our associates, staff and clients or my family and friends. Not only should any opinions here not be attributed to them, chances are they probably don't agree with me.  | ||
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