Book Review of "Death in The West: Fatal Stories From America's Last Frontiers" by Chris Becker

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Death in The West: Fatal Stories from America's Last Frontiers. [Soft Cover]

by Chris Becker

224 pages, $16.95

ISBN-13: 978-0873588935

Nonfiction

Review by Steven King, MBA, MEd

Diving into underwater caverns, scaling insurmountable mountains, or defying natural consequences of exploration, Americans are attracted to anything that produces a thrill. The adrenaline rush causes our hearts to beat faster and our spirits to soar. Adrenaline junkies are seldom satisfied unless they are defying death.

Whatever your vice for an adrenaline rush-do not strap yourself into a lawn chair and tie 45 helium-filled balloons to it. Your intention might be to rise to the top of the trees but you might find yourself spotted by airliners at 16,000 feet instead. Larry Walters, or Lawnchair Larry, as his neighbors in San Pedro came to know him, did just that in 1982. Unless, of course, you desire to be arrested - just like Larry was when he landed.

Becker writes of stories such as this in a powerful way to show where the odds catch up to thrill seekers. For every success, a handful of people die. It is unfortunate to be caught in the wrong place at the wrong time, but it can also have deadly consequences.

Sometimes, the Grim Reaper arrives as the result of really bad choices. If lightning strikes, the best refuge is not in a rock crevice where electricity can jump across side to side and destroy what is between. It is never advisable to hike into unfamiliar territory, without a compass, map, or extra clothing, and not tell someone your anticipated route. Becker's testimony rings clear: take precautions and provisions, or your next trek might be your last.

In spite of our best efforts, however, we are totally at the mercy of Planet Earth. Natural calamities abound and chances are, if you are in the wrong place at the wrong time, you might not return. Avalanches bury people, mudslides wipe out entire towns, and destructive fires burn across the landscape with apparent vengeance.

Sharks can mistake humans for natural food sources and grizzly bears can attack with little or no provocation. Mountain lions might stalk a hiker down a pathway and then attack for a late night snack. Perhaps our quest for adventure takes humanity too far into the natural habitat of the animal denizens of the planet.

A compelling read as Becker usually demonstrates how calamities could have been avoided. Reading these stories will certainly make the reader think twice before the next thrill seeking adventure.

The Warmth of Other Suns by Isabel Wilkerson - A Review

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If you've ever done genealogy, you cannot help but learn in intimate detail the history of your family and often the times in which they lived. The generation born prior to the Baby Boomers is quickly disappearing and so are their stories. Thankfully Isabel Wilkerson pursued the history of three of these people to help Americans understand the epic tale of the Great Migration of southern African-Americans, who came north for a better life.

This migration of close to six million people covered almost seventy years. Within a generation of the Jim Crow laws becoming established throughout the South, black southerners turned to the North. And although it had a confusing set of rules of its own, the North dangled a carrot of hope for all those seeking a chance for improvement. The North did not want to commingle with these poorly paid new migrants, nor did they want them to take any jobs that paid well, nor live in any housing outside the areas established for them. The North did, in fact, do almost anything to prevent their success.

Wilkerson records the journeys of three migrants from the small towns of the South to the big cities of the North and West. Her research shatters many of the pre-conceived ideas about southern black migrants. She reminds us of the courage of all those who come to America, seeking a life with more opportunities for themselves and their children.

Wilkerson weaves the first hand accounts of Ida Mae Gladney in Chicago, George Starling in New York City and Robert Foster in Los Angeles with background information of the times in which they lived. She sites new data to support her conclusions and does it all with incredible understanding and compassion. You will have a difficult time putting the book down, especially in the last hundred pages, as you become more and more attached to these real-life, fallible people.

As with blues music, which is often unacknowledged by today's African-Americans, this book may be ignored by those whose parents have lived it. Do not let the size of the book discourage you. Read it to better understand your parents and grandparents. Many of us grew up being taught American history from a white male perspective. This book makes you realize that we all influence history by example, by the way we live our lives, by what we will and won't tolerate and by the choices that we make. Learning about these three individuals proves that we do indeed have the potential of living heroic, albeit unrecognized, lives.

Copyright 2012 by Linda Murdock. Linda K Murdock is the author of four books, including two cookbooks, a puzzle book and an insider's look at the State of Colorado. She has traced her genealogy back ten generations in America and has written articles for the Colorado Historical Society. She is a blues enthusiast and an avid mystery reader. Learn more or read more reviews at http://bellwetherbooks.com/

Review - Musa Dagh

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Musa Dagh, Edward Minasian, 2007, ISBN 9781583851593

This is the true story about a famous bit of early 20th century history, the Armenian Genocide. It is also about the suppression, with the help of the American government, of a movie based on a novel about that time.

In the early 1900s, Turkey was run by a government of younger activists who wanted to "cleanse" Turkey of all non-Muslims (sound vaguely familiar?). Starting in 1915, it became official policy to kill or deport all Armenians (who were Christian). The population of Armenians in Turkey dropped from approximately 2 million to its present number of less than 100,000. Several villages of Armenians, facing "relocation" to the Syrian desert, made their last stand at a place called Musa Dagh. It is in present-day southeastern Turkey, just north of the border with Syria. They held out for approximately 2 months against the Turkish Army, before being rescued by a French ship.

In 1934, a novel called "The Forty Days of Musa Dagh" by Franz Werfel was published to worldwide acclaim. The Armenian Genocide had become The Forgotten Genocide, so Armenians around the world were overjoyed. They were even more overjoyed when MGM announced, in 1935, that a major motion picture would be made based on the novel. Then the Turkish government got involved.

They exerted a lot of diplomatic pressure to stop the film from ever being made. Turkey threatened to ban all American films from Turkey. France, their long-time ally, was willing to go along. The American State Department took Turkey's side. To this day, the Turkish government strongly denies that anything like genocide ever took place. MGM was eventually convinced to shelve the film, but they refused to let anyone else make it, diligently renewing their rights to the film every few years.

In the years after World War II, a number of well-known Hollywood figures were interested in making the film. No less than 15 different scripts were written. To satisfy Turkey, it was suggested that the Turkish Ambassador in Washington read the script before production, or that the title or setting is changed, so that it has nothing to do with Turkey or Armenians. The Turkish response was that no amount of re-writing was sufficient. During the Cold War, the threatened closing of the NATO base at Incirlik, Turkey, provided a very good reason to not get Turkey upset over the film.

In the 1980s, rights to the film were acquired by an Armenian from California named John Kurkjian. He was very interested in making the film, but he had a huge time constraint. If the film was not "in the can" by a certain date, a few months away, all rights to the film would go to Anna Mahler, Werfel's widow. Kurkjian was forced to make the film in the Hollywood Hills, using unemployed Armenian actors and a second-rate director. He was a total newcomer to the world of "Hollywood," so he was unmercifully taken advantage of by everyone involved in the film. It was a rushed, low-budget film, and the final cut looked like it. Kurkjian made the deadline, but when the film was shown in front of Armenian audiences, words like "disappointing" and "tragic" were used (the film stunk). He was able to make back the money he spent on the film; the only good thing about the whole experience was that the permanent rights to the film were now held by an Armenian.

This is a fascinating and eye-opening book. It exposes a little-known piece of American film history and is highly recommended.

Paul Lappen is a freelance book reviewer whose blog, http://www.deadtreesreview.blogspot.com/, emphasizes small press and self-published books.

Book Review: Stories of a Traveling Belly Dancer

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Non-fiction/Memoir/Travel

Stories of a Traveling Belly Dancer

Zaina Brown

2012

Ebook

Zaina Brown is a professional belly dancer who has worked in the United States and in several countries abroad. In her new book, Stories of a Traveling Belly Dancer, Brown shares a collection of emails she sent to friends during her nearly four years of travel in Africa and the Middle East. The book documents the dancer's adventures in the twelve countries that she visited as a student and working dancer. Brown's descriptions of her dancing experiences are dramatic and exciting. Her encounters with the local residents of each country are as entertaining as the dances she performs.

Brown opens the book with a brief history of belly dancing, which originated in North Africa and the Middle East. The author describes the changes in the art of belly dancing as it became popular in India, Asia and Western countries. Brown discovered belly dancing as a teenager growing up in Finland. She quickly decided that she would pursue a career in the field. In her early twenties, after taking classes and working as a dancer in New York City, Brown embarked on what was supposed to be a two month trip to Cairo, Egypt. She left New York in 2007 and returned in 2011.

As a young, single woman traveling alone, Brown provides the reader with a unique perspective regarding the treatment of women in the Middle East and the beauty of many of the people, often poor and struggling themselves, who assisted her as in each country she visited. Brown's writing is personal, informative and funny. She includes history about each country and the specific sites that she visited, which makes the places come to life for the reader. The same is true of her accounts of the people she befriended. The stories are also revealing of Brown as a person. She comes across as brave, a little impulsive, compassionate, inquisitive, and open-hearted. Even though most of the jobs Brown worked during her travels included accommodations that many of her fellow performers stayed close to for security, Brown (who learned some Arabic in Egypt) made a point of reaching out to the local community at every stop. Even though the story is primarily about Brown's work as a professional belly dancer, what will keep the reader engaged is the spirit of this adventurous woman who seems to have few fears and sees even fewer limitations in life. From Egypt to the United Arab Emirates to Ethiopia, Brown's courage helped her navigate many interesting situations. And her love for her work never faltered.

Stories of a Traveling Belly Dancer is a colorful, entertaining story of a young dancer with a passion for her work and an absolute love for adventure. It is an inspiring tale for the young and old who are interested in travel and living an unrestricted life. I highly recommend it.

Melissa Brown Levine for Independent Professional Book Reviewers

Melissa Brown Levine is a writer, book reviewer and manuscript consultant. She is the author of "I Need to Make Promises: A Novella and Stories." Read an excerpt at http://www.melissabrownlevine.com/.

Incognito: The Secret Lives Of The Brain - Book Review

After reading David Eagleman;s Incognito: The Secret Lives of the Brain, it's easy to see the future of writing is in good hands. Even better, the future of writing about a subject that would have most readers snoring by Page 3. Or, if they were eReading the work on a Nook, Kindle Fire or iPad, one might think the readers would be wandering off to apps that let them check their email or move to eBay, but it won't happen.

Eagleman is a deceptively cagey writer, who actually knows how to put together a sentence of more than three emoticons and four XOXOs - a tribute to the writing skills of some of his generational colleagues so that you learn something about concepts that you had, perhaps, thought were either boring or had no reach into your daily life.

Laboring under this premise is false because you soon learn the Eagleman is a man who knows his subject thoroughly as he is one of the future's top neuroscientists. Yet, he's more; he is a science writer who, like some of the science reporters that CNN or NBC actually pay, knows his topics and can actually make them interesting.

After reading this work, you have more than a fair to middling idea that there's a lot more going on behind what you see with your eyes and what you hear and that's how we get through our days. Why do you put on your left sock first and then your right? Why do you drive one way on one day to a stop while on another day you take a completely different route. Yes, you have a rational explanation quite ready: it's easier to raise my left leg first and my Mom made me learn to do it that way.

Each of these is plausible and quite likely true but what levels of your mind do you use to make these and other decisions during the course of your day? What would happen if you put on the right sock first? Would your universe turn upside-down? (In the case of clothing, you'd probably have a bad day and be cranky because "I chose the wrong tie;" "This shirt's collar is too tight," or "The sleeves just don't feel right." Yet, if you put your socks on correctly everything would be fine. As to your daily trips, well, we'll leave that one to your imagination.)

It's Eagleman, whose light touch with the word and excellent use of the proper examples at the right points, who shines here and strips away our preconceptions about how or why we do things. At some times, certain areas of your mind work with your eyes, ears and even your own body chemistry to produce your actions. All of these pieces are working together or forming new alliances - albeit temporary ones - with other areas of your mind and the layers that Eagleman exposes to produce how you handle a situation or how it handles you.

The brain is a fascinating topic that requires a deft touch or the book will be left on the shelf or unread on the eReader, but not David Eagleman's "Incognito." In fact, after reading it you'll find there's nothing incognito about your brain anymore. It's out there for you to see and it can't just hide behind the old "because I've always done it this way" because Eagleman shows that while you think that's the way your brain works, it may end up with "I've always done it..." thinking but you used a whole different set of your brain to get you there.

Roberto Sedycias works as an IT consultant for ecommUS-Books

Book Review: Behind the Iron Curtain: Tears in the Perfect Hockey "GULAG"

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Non-fiction/Memoir
Behind the Iron Curtain: Tears in the Perfect Hockey 'GULAG'
Maxim Starchenko
2011
RoseDog Books
144 pages

Maxim Starchenko was an eight-year-old living in Kharkiv, Ukraine when he was recruited by hockey coach, Ivan Pravilov. His memoir, "Behind the Iron Curtain: Tears in the Perfect Hockey 'GULAG,' recounts the horrible physical and psychological abuse he and the other members of his team endured while playing for Pravilov. This is a difficult book with vivid descriptions of the abuse that occurred throughout Starchenko's ten years with the team. The author courageously shares his story to unburden himself and to encourage his former teammates to speak out about the abuse they suffered at Pravilov's hand.

The Hockey team Starchenko joined as a second grader in 1986 was called Druzhba-78. "Druzhba" means friendship and "78" refers to the year the boys were born. Throughout the book, the author makes note of the "unfriendly" atmosphere that Pravilov created among the teammates as he used violence and brainwashing techniques to pit the boys against each other. The author compares Pravilov to Stalin. Starchenko further compares the GUGLAG (Soviet concentration camps) system of slave labor that thrived on a culture of informants and spies to Pravilov's coaching style which pitted the players against each other. No one wanted to be Pravilov's "focus" and each child would do anything to avoid the abuse.

Starchenko describes several episodes of abuse committed against him by Coach Pravilov including being struck on the back of the knees and on the buttocks with a hockey stick. One particularly disturbing episode the author describes involved Pravilov repeatedly hitting him in the head with a hockey stick. There is also a story in the book that suggests Pravilov sodomized another player with a hockey stick. The hockey stick was often Pravilov's weapon of choice. The violence and humiliation escalated during the teams international travels in the nineties. According to Starchenko, Pravilov frequently demanded that the boys fight each other during these trips. Eventually, the "punishments" took on a sexual tone.

Even though there were laws against child abuse in the Soviet Union during Starchenko's time on the team, Pravilov was rarely confronted by adults who observed the children's injuries. Starchenko's own parents believed remaining on the hockey team was important for their son's future. While Starchenko does not hold back when recounting his parents' behavior during his time playing under Pravilov, he states that he bears no hard feeling towards them. Starchenko's his own loyalty to the coach resulted in Pravilov making him his recruiting assistant after Starchenko's team dissolved.

On February 10, 2012, Ivan Pravilov was found dead while in custody in Philadelphia on charges of child-molestation. Suicide is the suspected cause of death. This new development adds credibility to the accusations Starchenko makes in his book. It also assures that no other child will ever endure the abuse Starchenko and his teammates lived through.

"Behind the Iron Curtain" is not simply another story of childhood abuse. It is a clarion call to parents, educators, coaches and others involved in organized sports to make it their duty to become aware of abuse and to speak out against it.

Melissa Brown Levine for Independent Professional Book Reviewers

Melissa Brown Levine is the author of "I Need to Make Promises: A Novella and Stories"

http://www.melissabrownlevine.com/

The Prince and Pauper by Agu, Jaachynma N E - The Passport to a Greater Life

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To take those limitations off your life and be the real you, this book titled 'The prince and the Pauper,' authored by Mrs. Agu Jaachynma N.E., is the creative tool you need. It is loaded with the logos and rhema that will help you function in the unction of greater glory. This masterpiece is more than a companion if you truly desire a positive change in your life. It is the Midas touch that you need to live a better and higher life. An unselfish person is one who discovers something of great value and shares same with others enthusiastically, that is why I share this with you. Reading this great book blessed my life greatly and I highly recommend it for you to read and be blessed. This enchiridion written by a virtuous woman, teaches us why we should not settle for less but go for the best which is our birthright in Christ Jesus.

In this book, this godly princess shares with us God's words that positively transformed her life and this word can change you and the world positively. This is the book that you need for a positive mental re-engineering and for the renewal of your mind. Many authors of Christian books make their writing boring and tasteless but Jaachynma's book is interesting, inspiring and exciting. This beautifully written book teaches that the pauper is the man or woman that has no knowledge of God's plan and purpose for his or her life. He/she is not in good relationship with God. A prince is a person that is in good relationship with God. This book is enshrined with the knowledge that empowers your personality. After reading this masterpiece, you will be a person of note whose noteworthy legacy is worthy of emulation.

Agu Jaachynma N.E., the daughter of Zion who authored this book is a woman of substance, whose substance of sapience is blessing all and sundry. She is a pastor, educator, mother, wife, sister and a good encourager whose sagacity is ruling cities worldwide. This gifted and talented doyen is a graduate of Languages and Linguistics Department of the University of Jos, Plateau State, Nigeria. She has held several leadership positions in her church and various organizations; she presently works as an administrative officer in the Ministry of Agriculture, Nigeria. Jaachynma is a poet, linguist and a seasoned writer. A woman of dignity and a genius whose geniality is top-notch. Agu, Jaachynma N.E. is married to Dr. Agu Ahamefula, a respected man of God, a gynecologist and an obstetrician. Her marriage is blessed with two powerful boys.

The Prince and the Pauper is a 162-page perfect-bound paperback book, printed and published by Enaz Publications in New York, USA. This ten-chapter book has a dedication, foreword, acknowledgement, introduction, conclusion and bibliography. This power packed book has the ISBN number: 1-59232-199-2. The Prince and the Pauper is a life-changing book that was written under God's inspiration and it is loaded with God's life-transforming power that will take you to greater heights now and forever more. I endorse and recommend this life-enrichment book for all. Read and live a higher life.

?IFEANYI ENOCH ONUOHA