Book Review: Confronting the Politics of Gridlock (OT)(Revisiting the Founding Visions in Search of Solutions)

Confronting the Politics of Gridlock (Revisiting the Founding Visions in Search of Solutions), by Steven Ludd (Distinction Press, 2025, $19.99, 285pp)

Confronting the Politics of Gridlock (Revisiting the Founding Visions in Search of Solutions) would be a good choice for an undergraduate seminar in history or contemporary politics. It iis not a hard book to read but the subject matter is detailed and requires a wide base of knowledge to get the best understanding of the subject.

The introduction describes each chapter which is very helpful to refer back to even if nothing sticks the first time through. Chapter 1 sets the stage and within it lies the job description of each of the three parts of our government - the judicial, the legislative and the executive. The reader may refer back to this chapter often.

Rather new terms include the "political elite" and congressional paralysis, the latter being quite illustrative.

My favorite chapter, the fourth, focused on the Fourth Estate, the press. Author Steven Ludd tells us that the dearth of objective reporting lately is caused by the need for newspapers to make a 'financial' living which has been the case for a long time - this book's seminar students might debate whether or not the demise of newspapers and subsequent rise of other forms of media will change this.

Though mentioned in chapter four, 'gridlock' might have been given more attention since it also appears in the title and is such an optical term. The front cover, depicting the signing of our Constituation shows the reader that history will play a large role, on many pages of Gridlock. 

Book Review: Love Rebels (How I Learned to Burn it Down without Burning Out)(OT)

Love Rebels (How I Learned to Burn it Down without Burning Out), by Kitty Stryker (Thornapple Press, $24.95, 193pp, 2025)

Love Rebels: A Book about Activism and Relationships

Love Re-bels' or Love Re'-bels? Reality favors the former. Or the latter. Or both. The answer may be found in the final chapter. Or the first.

Intriguing Title on the Cover (and something very intriguing - the book block)

The front cover is more informative than at first glance with letters of only two colors, red and black, red being the color of the title and black being the subtitle, a black flag replete with a cut-out heart and the flag nearly cut to pieces, and some letters with white smudgeons and other marks. 

The most memorable visual is the book block, the edges of the pages (all of them), this time printed with "Keep Loving, Keep Fighting."

Publishers should adopt book blocks! They would help bookstores and private libraries plus I like them!

A powerful, uplifting, well-organized and conversationally written conversation to boost the spirits of activists and to offer newly minted ones approaches to follow, Love Rebels provides helpful hints for activists, often taken from the author's experiences with details of her own life as a queer woman. The reader has a big sister in author Kitty Stryker.

I especially like the half dozen or so questions at the end of each chapter that bring out the main points. 

Boundaries, families, four-letter words, protests, arrests, all are covered in a stream of consciousness style that makes for easy reading and since there is a plethora of material about the subject matter but not with the style, Love Rebels is welcome.

Book Review: Strong Floor, No Ceiling (OT)(Building a new foundation for the American Dream)

Strong Floor, No Ceiling (Building a new foundation for the American Dream), by Oliver Libby (Advantage Books, 2025, $19.99, 344pp)

Ah! Reading the back cover explains the title. Love it!

So glad this author is considering running for office. He is extremely well-rounded, coming from a European family of academics, physicians, and Nobel Laureates. The author adds just the right amount of personal story to make the book believable and inspiring. Oliver Libby's writing style is fascinating and his writing style, easy reading.

With a puzzling title like Strong Floor, No Ceiling, author Libby has written a book that can serve as a blueprint for the return of the American dream. I would not necessarily use it as a college text but perhaps as a book for an upperclass seminar, along with other books.

I generally look at all parts of a book, from the index to the acknowledgement to the preface and skip over the pre-publication quotes but this time after reading the book, I went to the quotes and counted 29. including many names I was familiar with. This only cemented the value of the book for me.

Well-organized beyond the requisite introduction and conclusion chapters, Strong Floor focuses on severn topics from education to immigration, justice, the economy and more, so the reader can begin with the first and last chapters, then go to the topic chapter of greatest interest. 

Libby's writing style is invisible in that the reader does not notice how he writes, but on what he writes - ideas and content over style of expression.

My only suggestion is to perhaps rename the book to grab more readers and pull them inside Strong Floor. The cover design is crisp and clear but might be made more representative of what's inside. For example, since it is about the new American dream, perhaps a house with a white picket fence.

Book Review: A Perilous Time (OT) ("Keeping Faith During Periods of Adversity")

 A Perilous Time, by N Kurz (Dogwood Publishing, 146pp, 2025, $14.99)

Though the front cover is magnetic, I could not easily make the connection between it and the book's topics itself. In addition, I feel A Perilous Time will resonate with only a small group of readers.

However, even with illustrating key points by using contemporary examples such as the bombing of the Alfred Murrah federal building in 1995 in Oklahoma City, the themes are universal with many questions about faith deserving their own chapter. For example, Is God a Real Person? Where is God? and others like Does He Really Care? How Powerful is God? and What Does He Know?

Kurz' writing style is quite good (seamless) as is the use of quotes (though possibly overused) and it is evident the author has spent a considerable amount of time researching the topic, a painstaking endeavor. Each chapter focuses on a different question that Christians must come to grips with in order to truly believe.

Well-organized, this third book in the Window of Opportunity trilogy, Perilous almost reads like a sermon, bringing in both the King James Version and the New International Version of the Bible.

Book Review: Conquer the Planet (OT), A modern-day global enslavement handbook

Conquer the Planet, A Modern-day Global Enslavement Handbook, by Sir Lawrence McAlister (Ingsoc Publishing, $24.95,  432pp, 2025)

Not having had any experience with dystopian* books, I was apprehensive about reading Conquer the Planet, so I saved it for last and actually looked up the term, dystopian. However, the title is perfect and the front cover illustration is descriptive. So, I plunged in.

Well-written and well-organized, Conquer the Planet is a thick book that you might not read in chapter order, depending on your interest. If you are as apprehensive as I was, think of Conquer as a parody, which it is. It is also a history book (with unknown/unnamed countries), explaining the steps in how a country has become authoritarian. It also serves as a warning to those who see this slowly happening in their country and wanting to halt it. Conquer has been called an allegory.

World Domination

The purpose here is to take over the world with a process that starts slowly and then gathers speed as it gathers acceptance. This is why it is so hard to overcome the speed - because the populace has been in the habit of accepting small changes at first.

Author McAlister has given us a handbook that reads like a novel.

It reminds me of the (unscientific) story of a frog dropped into a pot of water that is heated will not perceive danger and will eventually boil to death but if the same frog is put into a pot of water that is already boiling, he will jump out. 

What would you have done if you were Jewish in Germany in 1938 before (after) Kristillnacht? What would you do under the circumstances of "First they came for the communists but I was not a communist, . . . . "? When would you leave?

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*authoritarian; the opposite of utopia; an imaginary, nightmarish society characterized by oppression, dehumanization and extreme misery, often under totalitarian control or environmental ruin

Book Review: The Illusory Bargain: Liberty in the Aftermath of the 17th Amendment (OT)

The Illusory Bargain: Liberty in the Aftermath of the 17th Amendment, by Ralph Lehman (Brown Books Publishing, 2025, $24.95, 197pp)

"These are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and sunshine patriot. . . . " (Thomas Paine) 

The 17th amendment (1913) changed the election of senators from state legislatures to the citizenry.  The Illusory Bargain goes into depth reminding us of the history of our government so as to explain various events and types of governing.

Written for both subject matter experts and the average person, The Illusory Bargain brings in what the reader knows OF but may not recall: terms, dates of events, names. This will send many  readers to Wikipedia if they have time (e.g., democracy v. republic). An excellent choice, therefore, for book clubs.

Such a long introduction may not have been necessary but it was fun seeing names from Roman times.

Perhaps using the word, triangle, would bring in more readers - triangles are such an important theme of author Ralph Lehman. He begins with functional, fractional and foundational framework, uses the Triangle of Tyranny, and compares a monarch with an oligarchy and a democracy, in stating when power is in the hands of one, it results in tyranny eventually; in the hands of two, that one of those eventually comes out on top; and in the hands of three, the country gets checks and balances (which the author later debunks). Lehman finishes by saying  that one can win votes if one promises new programs for the populace as demonstrated in the fields of education, medicine and housing (currently highly regulated by the federal government.

The author is quite successful in writing for the common person to understand  - the use of triangles throughout is memorable and easy to picture and understand. The graph on page 113, however, is too small to read, However, transitions from chapter to chapter are helpful as is the explanation of the book's organization, in the front matter.

Book Review: State of Georgia versus Clevon Jamel Jenkins (OT)

State of Georgia versus Clevon Jamel Jenkins, by Robert Kelly (RMK Legal Publishing, 2025, 552pp, $47.95)

Intimidating?

At 552 pages, the State of Georgia versus Clevon Jamel Jenkins' length is intimidating but the story of a possibly wrongly convicted person will keep you on the seat of your pants even when we know how it turns out. 

At first I thought the book might include the transcript (thus explaining the length of the book) of the trial, thereby making it so long, but it does not. Instead it contains background chapters on Jamel the convicted, on the attorney author, on a judge, and if you don't know much about a trial, you will by the time you get to page 552, or sooner. The chapter, "Why Did I Fail?", is especially illuminating.

The legal profession has its own lingo that law students learn in their three years of law school. We may know some of the terms like pro bono, felony, misdemeanor, but that is about the extent of my legal lingo. I can't even defiine habeas corpus although I have heard many many times. I would have preferred each new term defined the first time, perhaps in a footnote.

And even the character's names could get wordy, hard to tell from one another, and add to the confusion of who's who. The five main characters each have a first and a last name and some have middle names as well, each of which is referred to at times.

Parts of the book read like prose but are very detailed, e.g., about the robbery and murder, told twice which helps cement the details in the reader's mind, but other parts of the book remain for legal eagles only to fully understand: they focus on the appeals and the errors made at trial.

Errors?

Reading Jamel's story may cause you to lose faith in our judicial system or it may give you hope in elucidating just what is wrong that can be corrected.