Banners Books

Not much more to say about that.

This book has a good selection of designs to use for your sanctuary. My church made the angel trumpet design for Christmas 15 years ago and we still use them today. Nothing wrong with a good foundation.

With masterpieces such as "Airships" and "Ray" under his belt, this one-volume collection of Barry Hannah's two 90s novels comes as somewhat of a disappointment. Barry Hannah is no doubt one of the most gifted and interesting writers in contemporary America, but in the 1990s his best work has to be found in short story collections like "Bats Out of Hell" and "High Lonesome".

"Boomerang" is an obviously autobiographical story, and unlike what you might expect, it is not that exciting. Like "Ray", Hannah's best novel, "Boomerang" consists of small vignettes and lacks a plot. The only thing that holds it together and which makes it interesting to read is the language. There are moment of hilarious and tragic insight in this story of friends and lovers; the one that still stands out to me after two years is the passage about a friend who dies on the golf course: "Maybe he knew he was going to end up on the fairway, on the practice tee. Maybe he was playing for little Jeff his son, and for my son, Po, and for me, and for JoElla his wife - to go away with your sport shoes on, trying to get the ball to go into the sky and hit God's dumb foot" (52). In "Boomerang" the language is there, but the story is not.

"Never Die" takes place in the dying Old West. Rarely has Hannah displayed a set of more bizarre and grotesque characters, but unfortunately the story, and interest for it, gets lost in this postmodern puzzle of honor and revenge. It is not a bad novel, but knowing that Hannah can do (and has done) so much better, it seems only halfway done.

Written about 50 years after the battle, Reedstrom included a remarkable number of photos and illustrations in his book. He injects wit and insight between lots of mater of fact technical material as he led us up to the battle by the middle of the book. The second half, catalogs uniforms, tactic manuals, horsemanship, and weapons. He concludes a rather objective view of the "Red Man" including a lesson in Indian sign language for over 150 words. This book is worth having on your Custer shelf.

This oversize large print softcover contains three traditional-style romance stories.

Description from the book back cover:

Captive Bride by Joy St. Clair
Samara Lacey thought the whole idea monstrous. How could she marry the reckless Argentinian gaucho who'd rescued her? She'd known Ricardo MacGregor less than a day, but he wouldn't take no for an answer ...

Nurse in Attendance by Phyllis Thurlow
Too many men wanted Lenore Lethbridge, a woman determined to hold on to her independence. It wasn't until she was truly on her own that she realized what she'd missed.

My Heart's Ease by Lucy Montagu
Never leaving well-enough alone, Sister Susan Douglas once too often meddled in others' lives. Not only did she bring disaster to a family, but she destroyed her new-found romance with Dr. Peter Ellis ...

This is a very difficult book to review. Based on the first three chapters only, I would have been happy to give it 5 stars. I don't think that some of the endorsements overstate Banner's strong handle on these issues. He has a rather unique position on how Christian ethics should be done, and gives a pretty convincing explanation in the first chapter on dogmatic Christian ethics. The next two chapters, on Christian anthropology at the beginning and end of life, and a critique of the practice of abortion are strongly-reasoned and well worth reading. His analysis is incisive and cuts through the evasions of those whom he critiques.

However, I found myself increasingly disappointed with the rest of the book. Banner is so meticulously thorough in seeing and evaluating almost every angle of various issues, that the reading becomes very tedious. The writing is very verbose and often has ridiculously long sentences with multiple conditional clauses. He is exceedingly cautious not to be misunderstood. Even the careful reader is likely to get bogged down. I did not find the remaining chapters as crisp or interesting as the first three, yet I'm glad to have the book in my library, especially for some of the arguments he makes against abortion. In my opinion, the book spent too much time trying to analyze and unwind all the opposing viewpoints without spending enough time giving a positive statement of the Christian ethic. Yet where Banner does, it is certainly worth paying attention to, and it is clear that the Gospel of Jesus Christ drives his ethic.

As I am going to accompany four of my fourth graders to Christopher Paul Curtis's house to interview him for an article (WOW - what an exciting prospect!), I was very pleased to finally find a biography about him, even if it is just a short picture book. However, the mistakes in the book started with the second sentence and continued throughout the book.

First, the book starts on page five by telling that Curtis is the first African-American ever to win the Newbery Medal - someone might want to check with Virginia Hamilton (whoops, too late - she died earlier this year) and Mildred D. Taylor, both African-American authors who won the Newbery Medal in the 1970's. This misinformation is repeated on page 27.

On page 22, the book says, "Curtis' first book won a Newbery Honor, which the American Library Association gives to just four children's books a year." This is not true - I don't know whether there is an official limit to Newbery Honors in one year, but for the last several years there have been between one and four Newbery Honors per year, and up to five per year in the 1970's (with only two given this year).

The book tells that Curtis worked on Flint's Fisher Body assembly line for 13 years, but gives the impression that this job lasted from 1971 to around 1993 - the author should clarify this.

The bio claims that THE WATSONS "was named one of the year's best books by the Coretta Scott King Foundation." Actually it was named a Coretta Scott King Award "Honor Book," a runner-up for the medal.

The writing is a bit flat in the book - the subject is referred to as "Christopher Paul Curtis" or simply "Curtis" most of the time, even as a child, and occasionally "Christopher," but never "Chris," which is what he generally goes by in everyday life. This makes the book seem much less personal. Page 17 really jumped out at me as being poorly written, and I even had to reread a couple sentences to understand exactly what the author meant to say.

Having done intensive Internet searches about Curtis to prepare for our visit, I recognized a good deal of this book as having come directly out of Internet articles, often word for word, though there are no citations listed. I'm sure there are probably other errors besides the ones I caught - maybe we can ask Curtis while we are in Windsor!

And a last complaint - there is inconsistent use of the possessive form of Curtis in this book. Page 11 says, "But Mr. Curtis's patients were all black people..." which is written the way I learned. But the rest of the time it is written as on page 10 - "Curtis' other grandfather..." and page 18 - "...they went to Curtis' car." Right or wrong, the book could at least be consistent. The author and editor were very careless throughout the book.

On the positive side, there are many nice pictures on every other page through some of the 32-page book (except none on pages 11-21). The book does a nice job telling about Curtis's life and writing, and would be a good introduction to Curtis for young readers. However, the glaring errors in this book would make me very reluctant to purchase other author biographies in this series (Roald Dahl, Gary Paulsen, J. K. Rowling, Maurice Sendak, and Dr. Seuss).

Many People Love This Flag! It is a banner of Freedom from oppression by a vile government who had no right to divide the country. James Cameron should know better: in Tennessee, we've had some stubborn retaliations about the original flag. According to this book, the first flag was the one used in the Civil War which the Nathan Bedford Forrest restored Klan adopted, the Confederate fighting flag. I had read and related how Betsy Ross had not designed the American Stars and Stripes but merely sewed it for her friend, George Washington. It seems that many primary school teachers were instructing the young minds that Betsy Ross had indeed made it from her own design. She used her own material, true, as she was a seamstress and used what she had on hand with this request for a national flag with no preparation.

Thank God for the South being first again! Even after the American Revolution in which we were granted our freedom from the British, we continued to use the (red,white&blue) color combination (Spain has yellow and red) as no one was in a hurry to be original. They came up with something in 1777, a year after the Constitution was signed in Philadelphia.

A nearby high school has had their Rebel flag taken from them after all of the heritage and history of the school. In Nashville, a crude silver & gold statute of Nathan Bedford Forrest, as designed and welded by a local attorney, was installed out by I65 with several Rebel flags in a semi-circle. Much was made of this desecreation to a united nation, and they were told to remove them promptly. Years later, they are still in place where they can be seen by all of the travelers going South of Nashville and the locals as they use the Interstate to work.

A flag is a flag is a flag. In the review I did about Civil War poems and songs, there were some about the Stars & Stripes as important to all of the soldiers. In Knoxville, the families were split and all I knew about this dat-blame war was that it was 'brother against brother.' That's how it was in this town and the counties surrounding the Smoky Mountains as shown so clearly in the movie, 'Cold Mountain.'

We paid for a U. S. flag which had hung over the Capital building in Washington, D.C. at the urging of Robin Beard, later an ambassador to Korea. He was our district representative and I had chased him down the halls with my red, white and blue hat flapping.

The flag is a symbol of this country and decorates the caskets of all veterans. It is a venerable treasure, but I let my brother take the one off my dad's, as he already had the one from his son's coffin earlier. Neither died in any war, but had been a member of the armed forces of this country. The flag is for all of us to revere and every family should own one. I know someone who said he would hang the Confederate flag out of his office window if he could get away with it, and yet his family were for the North. He is not a Rebel, nor ever would be, so I was proud of his claims, which proved to be false. He just likes to write controversial things to create some kind of action. This is such a boring, old town. The flag perks up any rally, picnic or gathering (political or non-political). Everyone in America loves that glorious old flag which stands for freedom.

I was hoping this would help us learn more about things to expect on our upcoming cruise. However, it's more about the ships themselves rather than their itineraries.

I picked up a few J. N. Williamson horror novels on the cheap several years ago, but it is only now that I decided to read one of them. The covers are awfully cheesy, and Williamson does not seem to get a lot of respect or acknowledgement in the horror community, so I did not have high expectations as I entered the "doors" of Horror House. Part of the plot did indeed seem intriguing, namely the inclusion of Thomas Edison in this story. This novel is, to some degree, based on fact, at least insofar as the past events related in the novel are concerned. Edison did work on a machine he hoped would enable him to contact the dead, and apparently there was a house in Pittsburgh whose dark legacy served as the starting point for the Horror House of Williamson's story. The early parts of the novel are not bad, detailing the first acts of grisly murder that took place in the house, then detailing Edison's secret visit there to test his new device and the results he obtained when the machine actually worked. Then we are transported to the present and introduced to our three main characters. Laura Hawks is a struggling writer who takes a job working for a small publishing house run by Ben Kellogg, and the two of them begin work on a book based on the hauntings at Horror House; they are joined by parapsychologist and former Antichrist-defeater Martin Ruben, who quickly discovers that his friends are in over their heads on this one. Oddly enough, none of the ensuing action takes place anywhere near the haunted house. Instead, the story involves the discovery and reactivation of Edison's machine and the dire consequences of this action. Shedding logic and believability all along the way as it meanders to a conclusion, the story boils down to an entrapment of all of the world's evil in a localized area and the decision that must be made by our triumvirate of heroes as to how to proceed in a fight against a seemingly unbeatable foe of Evil with a capital E.

Logic aside, the plot moves along fairly well, and I would not consider Hell House a bad or unreadable book at all. That being said, however, the dialogue often sounds quite forced, and more than once I found myself saying "Oh, for Pete's sake," as a particular debate ran on and on with characters repeating the same arguments ad infinitum. I can't say the characters weren't reasonably well developed, but some combination of their descriptions and the commonly stilting dialogue combined to forestall my efforts to suspend my disbelief and let myself really be drawn into Williamson's story. The relationship between Laura and Ben also holds no real spark, making Williamson's occasional use of love scenes seem somewhat annoying and out of place. This novel could be considered ghost-like itself because there really is little of substance here upon which the reader can take hold. Horror House can serve as a nice diversion, but in the long run it proves quite forgettable.