The Mind of Terror by Tass Saada and Dean Merrill. I’d heard about Tass from my Mom. Tass was, at one point in his life, a sniper for Yasser Arafat’s group Fatah. After an encounter with Jesus, he became a Christian—though that is covered in more detail in a different book that’s now high on my reading list. This book discusses the inside of a terrorist’s mindset from a former terrorist, then turns to admonishing and instructing Christians on ways to better interact with Muslims. Hearing from someone who has so deeply absorbed the command to “Love your enemy” was difficult for me in this time. His admonishments often hit home. While I’m not ready to agree with what he says about the land of Israel itself, I don’t think he’s wrong when he says that Christians are meant to be the peacemakers and the ones who love those who curse them, praying for those who persecute them. I’ve bumped his other book Once an Arafat Man up high on my list of things to read soon.
Once An Arafat Man by Tass Saada and Dean Merrill. Fascinating story of Tass Saada. Born in a refugee camp after his father fled and left behind his half of an orange grove business, Tass chafed heavily under Israeli restrictions and the feeling of second-class citizenry in other Arab host countries that his family was shuttled between. He left school early to become a Fatah fighter and engaged with the IDF many times. Once he had enough attention on him that he was a target, he came to the United States and married. The story of how many times his life was saved or his fortunes were turned around is incredible enough, but then he recounts the story of finding Jesus… or perhaps Jesus found him? In either case, he learned to love a Jew (Jesus), and from there to love the Jews, and since then returned to Israel, Gaza, and the West Bank to start childcare facilities that protects and foster love and respect between the different children admitted. It’s a colorful and amazing story to be sure, and briefly delves into some of the cultural differences that have Westerners and Arabs constantly talking past each other.
The Hidden Palace by Helene Wecker. What. WHAT. The Golem and the Jinni has a SEQUEL? WHERE. GIVE. GIVE NOW. Okay. Okay. Oh, that is lovely. Oh, heartwarming. Oh, such good things—WHY. WHY YOU BEHAVE THIS WAY. NO, UNDERSTAND EACH OTHER BETTER. I SHAKE YOU. I SHAKE YOU HARD. Sadness. Mourning. It all falls apart. Why? Tension. DON’T DO THAT. NO, IT WAS ALMOST RECOVERABLE!!! Bittersweet. Ambivalent, bittersweet ending. To sum up: aaaaaaaaitsogoodbutithurtswhyaaaaaaaaaaaaa…
A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Alexander Solzhenitsyn. Haven’t read it since high school. It does a good job of sinking you into one day in the gulag. You feel the sting of every unfair rule or crooked treatment. You feel like you have to become crooked to survive, but then you see the most crooked being assessed as people who won’t survive and you wonder where the line is. You wonder how you’ll survive another day on the bare rations you have. You wonder when you’ll ever be warm again. You wonder if they’ll find the lump of bread you sewed into your mattress. And then… you lift your nose from the book, and thank God you’re not really there. But it’s a good reminder, because camps like this have existed for hundreds of years, and even if the Soviet Union’s Gulag shut down, I doubt humanity as a whole will be rid of such camps anytime soon.
Wicked Lovely series (Wicked Lovely, Ink Exchange, Fragile Eternity, Radiant Shadows, and Darkest Mercy) by Melissa Marr. This is one of those series I got halfway through in my teen/college years and never finished because… I couldn’t find the next one? Didn’t want to wait on hold forever? It wasn’t written yet? Can’t remember, but since it’s all out now, I swooped these five up to blow through… and very quickly had the feeling that I’d outgrown this story while waiting for it to finish. It traces several faerie courts in modern day and the mortals that are drawn into their machinations. It’s a relationship tri… quad… quint?… overlapping?… it’s a mess, but I HAD TO KNOW HOW IT ENDED. Well, I did, and… I was pretty disappointed. The books were somewhat enjoyable, but while reading the last book I had no emotional connection to anything that was happening. The series ended up feeling like one huge internal struggle without a solid point or purpose to it. Nothing felt… real enough. I’m glad I found out how it ended, but I will not be coming back.
What if everything you were taught about the Ten Commandments was wrong? By Eric Tokajer. I kept telling myself that this man is a Messianic Rabbi and I don’t even have a college degree. Even so, this book bothered me on a lot of levels. 1) It is not a book, it is a long blog post formatted with large print and lots of spacing into a skinny booklet. 2) In retrospect, the title is clickbait. 3) The argument is roughly that the ten commandments we find in Exodus 20 are not the actual ten commandments, but that they are found in Exodus 34:14-26. To me, the argument read like someone trying to play Twister, and it bothered me a lot. Maybe I am ignorant, but this book sits very badly with me and I can not recommend it.
Israel: A Concise History of a Nation Reborn by Daniel Gordis. This was a book Ben Shapiro recommended to listeners as being a pretty fair account, so I picked it up. I found it (much to my relief) quite a bit more readable than, say, Paul Johnson’s tome A History of the Jews. I’m already in the process of a re-read, aloud with Sergey, as this seems to be the perfect starting-point book to pick up. Leans towards Israel? Absolutely, but follows the Israeli ethos of introspection and soul-searching, pointing out mistakes made and mourning missteps in the process. It portrays the mindset and ethos of the Jewish people as it evolves time and again under pressure and how this informs their responses at every turn. From this book, I have come away with the impression that nine times out of ten, it is the Israelis who take a hit first before they strike back, rather than the other way around. Now to pick up a book on the opposite side of that perspective…
The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine: A History of Settler Colonialism and resistance, 1917-2017 by Rashid Khalidi. This is still in progress. I wanted to make note that I'm reading this, but as I go through, the rest of this "consumed" list has gotten way too long. Thought I might finish the audiobook this week, then realized I need to dig up some of the sources this author might be citing, so I placed a hold for an e-book version in the library system. I'll continue listening on Audible but I want to do some digging into some of the sources mentioned.
Introvert Book Club Reads
Judgment Prey by John Sandford. Murder mystery. Why did a murderer kill not only a high ranking judge, but his two young sons? The surviving wife/mother is struggling to figure out who’s done it before the two top officers in the area do, intent on bringing justice at the end of a gun. Well written, very nicely done. Lovely descriptors throughout.
Walk the Blue Line by James Patterson and Matt Eversmann. Okay, so apparently I need to give Patterson books a chance, even if they have a 50% miss rate with me. This was excellent. It’s a collection of stories police officers tell--each chapter a different officer--about what their service is like. It’s gripping and well-written and sometimes pretty wrenching to read. Definitely don’t read while eating, they experience some things straight out of horror movies. 100% worth a read.
12 Months to Live by James Patterson and Mike Lupica. A real twisty-turny courtroom drama with a side of murder mystery. This is a good read for one specific reason: It shows you how to properly write a hardbitten, asshole main character that the reader still loves and sympathizes with. Good read to kill some time.
Games
The Lost Ember. This is a game with a fascinating concept and beautiful execution. You play as Wolf, supposedly a “Lost Ember” which is a deceased human spirit who has been turned away from the City of Light (the heaven of the Yanranna people) and entered an animal. You and a lost spirit (who appears to you as a ball of light) set out to find the City of Light and reconstruct your life story along the way. The cool mechanic of the game is that you can travel into any animal you see, becoming that animal and using each animal’s unique mechanics to explore the world around you. The major weak point of the game is how the story is delivered. None of the dialogue is believable, and it is often not delivered believably by the voice actors either. The story itself, if you step back from the delivery, is compelling and might have been better served by removing all dialogue and finding a way to visually convey everything in silence. They come close to that already, so it could have been done. As it is, the delivery of the story fell pretty short. But it was still a good game to play.
Lifeless Planet. You are an astronaut stranded on a planet that was supposed to be full of life, but is completely barren. Mostly walking simulator with some puzzles to solve, the game feels… meh. The visuals are beautiful, but the story feels like a bit of a mess, especially at the end. Sergey says the voice actors speaking Russian actually know how to speak Russian, so points to them for managing what the Marvel movies didn’t even bother to do: hire native speakers. Some puzzles are overly simple and some are deeply frustrating. Overall, not a terrible game, but I wouldn’t play again, or pick up its sequel.
Donut County. Now here is an incredibly short and delightful game. You control a hole in the ground that swallows up small things, then the hole gets bigger, then the hole can swallow up more things. There’s a story there, but it’s ridiculous and stupid in the most delightful way and I can’t really cover its stupendous absurdity here. It's a game that only takes three hours or so to play. This is utterly delightful and definitely qualifies as a therapy game, would absolutely pick up a sequel if it existed.
TV Shows
Star Trek: Discovery. I could only stand one season. The first two thirds of the season were reasonably good and enjoyable, but the last third was just… I would need an entire super-ranty old-fashioned episode of my long retired review show, Storytrollers, to go into all the reasons why I hate this. In a nutshell, though, the main character is a MarySue. I hear she goes on to be captain later in the show. I refuse to pull my usual and rank her among the other captains, because she is not even a good character. You all know how I always put Janeway at the bottom of the captain list? That’s because of who is and isn’t a good leader, not who is and isn’t a good character. If I reorder that same list based on excellent character studies, Janeway is my #2, FOR THE SAME REASONS that make her the least qualified captain. So point one, Michael Burnham (our main character of Discovery) is not even a good character in my opinion, and I will therefore not even rank her on the captain list. Point two, the storytelling falls apart in the last third of season 1. Point three, WHO IS THE BRIDGE CREW??? One of the absolute BEST things about all the different Star Treks is that every show, you get to know the new bridge crew by degrees so that by the end of the first season, you are pretty well attached to most of them. Sometimes you even get to know and care about some insignificant ensign on the lower decks, depending on which show it is. You get to watch them grow and see everyone's connections deepen over time. SO WHEN SOME BIG DISASTER HAPPENS, YOU GIVE A DAMN. GUESS WHAT’S MISSING? This story is ALL about Michael Burnham, to SUCH an extent, that in spite of the visually diverse and fascinating species that make up Discovery’s bridge crew, we only really get to know ONE other officer to any extent. I hate this show's concept so much. < / end rant >
Anime
Ragnarok. This is an old anime based on a MMORPG by the same name. You will have a real leg up on understanding this show if you have played either Ragnarok or a similar game like World of Warcraft. If you haven't, or if you don't understand the dynamics of those games, much of this story won't make sense. The story follows a young female acolyte (healer) named Yuufa and a swordsman, Roan. Roan is not very good, but determined to protect Yuufa, as her older brother charged him to do so right before he was killed. The two slowly grow a party that raids dungeons to get stronger, when they find out that Yuufa’s brother didn’t die as they thought they had, but he has… changed… What’s interesting about this story is that the storytelling itself is fairly primitive and not that great, but the archetypes within are solid and interesting archetypes. It definitely picks up in the last quarter of the story. Wouldn’t have picked this one up for myself but I’m not sorry I saw it.