Category Archives: Book Reviews

Book Review: Think and Grow Rich (1937)

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Motivational classic still inspires
by Napoleon Hill
1937, Ballantine Books (1996 edition), 254 pages

NapoleonDuring my early prime-time adulthood, being wrapped in the Ayn Rand critique of impure reason, I dissed any popular ideas that promised riches and happiness through positive thinking, motivational savvy, or winning friends and influencing people.

Such exercises seemed far beneath my heroic noodling out of all the important, planet-saving concepts with my engineering brilliance, then riding off into the smog-filled sunset with the Dagny Taggart of my dreams.

How times have changed, how we’ve all changed.

This inspirational classic by Napoleon Hill is still as pertinent to success as when it was written, during the depths of The Great Depression (1937). Continue reading →

Movie Review: A Better Life (2011), Cherry (2010)

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This week finds me having watched two notable films, the first, A Better Life, dealing with an important sociological/political issue that all the political candidates (that I’ve seen anyway) try to deal with without considering that immigrants are, actually, you know, people. The second movie is a ‘coming of age’ movie in which a brilliant (and virginal) boy goes to Ivy League super college and learns about women, sex, and friendship… even family. Cherry is low budget, yet has good writing and a couple of good performances.

A Better Life ___________ 8.5

A Better LifeStory by Roger L. Simon
Screenplay by Eric Eason
Directed by Chris Weitz

Demián Bichir … Carlos Galindo
José Julián … Luis Galindo
Eddie ‘Piolin’ Sotelo … Himself
Joaquín Cosio … Blasco Martinez
Nancy Lenehan … Mrs. Donnely
Gabriel Chavarria … Ramon
Bobby Soto … Facundo
Dolores Heredia … Anita

Too early for quotes to be listed on the IMDb page, and many of them are in Spanish in subtitles. But the mix of humorous and poignant dialog is especially remarkable and immediate. Continue reading →

Brian’s Column: After 9/11 Truth, Ch. 12

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Leveraging the TLC campaign to other causes

Sunshine“Walkin’ in the sunshine, sing a little sunshine song…” — Roger Miller

This is the ultimate and very important step for all who take up the 911TLC cause.

As a Campaign for Liberty activist strongly urged to me in the days leading up to completion of the book, we need to think of our rather low-effort 911TLC work, really—after all, we’re sending out letters and telling one another how great we are in Master Mind meetings (!)—in the context of the broader liberty movement.

In other words, each of us in the TLC program needs to lend a hand to those out there organizing and fighting for freedom on all the other issues.

Totally! Continue reading →

Movie Review: Bonneville (2006)

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Small movie showcasing realistic Golden Girl roles

BonnevilleCarol: I can’t leave Arlo alone that long!
Margene: Well how would you know?
You haven’t left his side since highschool.
Carol: I have so!
Margene: Trips to the ladies’ room don’t count.

Written by Daniel D. Davis
Directed by Christopher N. Rowley

Jessica Lange … Arvilla
Kathy Bates … Margene
Joan Allen … Carol
Tom Skerritt … Emmett
Christine Baranski … Francine
Victor Rasuk … Bo Douglas

Charming, real buddy movie for 50-something women…

Continue reading →

Book Review: Mayflower (2006)

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A story of courage, community, and war
by Nathaniel Philbrick
2006, Penguin Group, 413 pages

MayflowerMost of us know about the Pilgrims from our history and civics classes.  Or at least we have the Thanksgiving imagery—oven-roasted turkeys, linen tablecloths, silverware, Indians, stern-looking white men with buckles on their hats, stuffing, mashed potatoes, and cranberry sauce.

Well, that’s about it, then.

No, just kidding.  In reality, the second English permanent settlement, consisting of Puritan Separationists, was lucky to have survived the first winter of 1620.

And the main benefit derived from the Indians was the Indians’ forbearance from annihilating the Pilgrims. Continue reading →

Book Review: After 9/11 Truth (2015)

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The Death Star in Ashes: Humanity Rises
by Brian Wright (reviewed by the author)

After_911_Truth_Cover_Front_ReducedMore of a description than a review.  I want to hold a place in Book Reviews for my Coffee Coaster Website, and point to the book both with the intent to encourage sales and to promote the cause-oriented, 9/11 Truth movement activities that the book After 9/11 Truth founds. These activities are a ‘new model’ for achieving success for the truth—’truth’ defined simply as debunking the official story (OS) of 9/11 and beginning to empanel fully empowered grand juries to investigate and bring indictments of legitimate suspects in the case.

My aim was break the logjam in the movement of incessant talk with actions that yet produce no real prospect of a tipping point to a sea change of public opinion… that we require to obtain healing justice for the Crime of the Century. From the book jacket: Continue reading →

Book Review: Th!nk

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Why crucial decisions can’t be made in the blink of an eye
by Michael R. LeGault
2006, THRESHOLD EDITIONS, 336 pages

Think_1On the heels of the popular 2005 book Blink, by Malcolm Gladwell—which argues that we know things a lot more subconsciously and immediately than we often realize—Michael LeGault says, “We make knowledge the old-fashioned way, we noodle it out.”

LeGault holds that to arrive at knowledge requires a good deal of work in the pedestrian fields of logic.  And the book, mainly by reference to modern-day omissions of that logic, shows us the importance of the fading art of thinking.

Think! is best when identifying widespread symptoms of unreason: Continue reading →