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.

Book Review: We the Men: How Forgetting Women's Struggles for Equality Perpetuates Inequality (OT)

We the Men: How Forgetting Women's Struggles for Equality Perpetuates Inequality, by Jill Hasday (Oxford University Press, 2025, 301pp, $34.99)

Well organized into four parts (Erasure, Distortion, Consequences, and Hope) and seven chapters, We the Men uses the introduction 'Forgotten Women' to expand upon these which also serves as an excellent review of the book.

On the other hand, We the Men is not a textbook. A textbook goes into great detail in explaining concepts while We the Men seems to include as many facts and quotes from source material as possible: think breadth not depth.

With a title like We the Men, author Jill Hasday could have penned an expose or an insightful treatise. Instead, we seem to have been given a list of quotes and facts, albeit put into paragraphs, about some wonderful topics, prime among them being the invisibility of women in, e.g.,  the media (newspapers and other print materials), due to credit given men even if belonged to women. Erasure. Fogetting. Period.

"How Forgetting Women's Struggles for Equality Perpetuates Inequality," the subtitle, makes perfect sense to serve as Hasday's thesis with chapters that can be read in just about any order.

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*I. Courts Ignore Women's Struggles for Equality

Remembering America without Remembering Women

II. Courts Declare Victory Early and Often

Popular Culture Announces Women's Emancipation

III. Courts Protect and Perpetuate Inequality

Anti-Feminists Capitalize on America's Misremembered Past

IV. Building on the Past to Create a More Equal Future

Book Review: Overcoming Information Chaos (where is the true information?)(OT)

Overcoming Information Chaos: A Guide to Cultivating Peaceful Communities in a Digital Age, by Danielle Reiff (editor) (Upriver Press, 2025, $29.95, 440pp)

She wanted to write a book and the topic finally came to her after COVID.  The next step was to find experts to write a chapter each and she did. Some were PhDs and some were librarians. Others were other things. All are good writers, perhaps because they write a lot in their areas of expertise. 

I wish book covers were attributed like magazine covers are - along with an explanation. This cover with red circuits (?) on one side and blue-green circuits on the other side are perfect for this reviewer who may be wrong (me).

One particularly fascinating chapter explained the history of the election process and the differences among states. Not really how to get elected but the procedures how the states differ in their boards of election and what the various jobs are in the voting process. 

I have very little to say about the writing styles - I saw nothing I didn't like except possibly to make the text more exciting. 

Information disorder and the media are the main topics covered - they appear as sections under which the chapters fall. Misinformation, disinformation, disorder, election integrity, media literacy - all are covered in detail by experts.

Book Review: Women Who Talk to the Dead (OT)(cold cases)

Women Who Talk to the Dead: The True Story of 200 Forgotten Murder Victims and the Relentless Pursuit of Justice by an FBI Agent and a Detroit Police Detective, by Katherine Schweit (82 Stories, 2025, 215pp PB, $21.99) 

Do you know that Detroit is a murder capital - and why? Are you intrigued by police, FBI and detective stories, movies, TV programs and college majors? Then this book is for you. You will learn why the field of body-finding and identification is replete with women, why they are so perfect for the fields of anthropology and related majors. You will follow two women - an FBI agent and a Detroit police detective as they try to find and identify the unknown, even if they have to dig them up! You will learn how exacting and detailed those in this job must be and yet how sensitive to the families concerned. And you will learn patience.

Why Detroit?

You will learn the history of Detroit and what made it so prone to murders.

You will follow too many cases of babies left outside alone on purpose to die most likely because their new mothers were overwhelmed.

You will learn about body parts and how those in the field of anthropology can identify bones by feel and you will learn how the new science of DNA helps, though it is costly.

This book has its flaws but they are easily glossed over. I suggest reading it rather quickly.