Saturday, April 29, 2017

Apache Wars by Paul Andrew Hutton

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Good and interested book about an important time in US history when the southwest was undergoing struggles between three different cultures that resulted in a long drawn out conflict that prevented its settlement. The Apache bands raided, murdered, and plundered for centuries because that is the culture they were raised.  This included other Indian tribes, Mexicans, and early American settlers were the target of this way of life that resulted in issue with your personal security.  Life in the southwest depended greatly on how you in contact with them. The author describes the many events that finally resulted in the Apaches surrendering and settling on reservations that for the most part overlaid their original homelands. The author opinions about some of the people he has written about later in the history results in the exact opposite. This is the only issue I see with the book in general, this happens several times throughout the book. If you enjoy history I would give this book a try.

I received a free copy of this book from WaterBrook Multnomah in exchange for my honest review of this book.



Saturday, April 15, 2017

Writing my Wrongs by Shaka Senghor

Image result for writing my wrongs
While we relax in our homes, go to work and talk with our friends we choose to live in a vacuum.  We choose to ignore the struggle of others.  The author of this book takes you on a personal journey how a young man’s life can easily take a wrong turn.  That wrong turn, in the author’s case murdering someone, ended up in serving server decades in prison.  While that is the low point of the book the core of the book shows how the young man survived, learned and grew to understand that he was the only key to making it out of prison.  He goes through many changes in the prison environments, different confrontations and some prisoners who helped him.  While it took a long time for the author to fully understand, forgive and develop a plan to change his life.  He did see a burning desire in himself to not only help himself but could see the many young man and women heading for the same collision course he experienced.  I would like to see this book in our highs schools to teach them what they see on TV is not real but through the writings of the author you can truly see what will happen. This book will make you think carefully.   

I received a free copy of this book from WaterBrook Multnomah in exchange for my honest review of this book.

Sunday, April 2, 2017

The Inkblots Hermann Rorshach, His Iconic Test, and the Power of Seeing by Damion Searls


Fascinating at the start but later the book gets into more of details with in the professional of psychological.  This may go over the head of many but still a great biography behind the man of inkblots.  The story of the of Rorschach life and what lead him to the inkblot testing is an interesting story. The author provides a huge amount of research in this book.  He provides Rorschach childhood, his start in the field of psychology and how it is incorporated into today psychology practices.  The test developed was intended to understand how people see things.  Unfortunately, after his death the true meaning behind the test loses its focus and leads to another path that was most likely not really what he had intended.  The author’s research into how the Rorschach test was originally conceived is what I found the most interested part of the book.  Further research go into detail around what other psychologists and psychiatrists did with the test.  This lead to how it was measured and interpreted.  Again, I find the first part of the book which is mainly his biography the more interesting part of the book and what life events lead him to developing the inkblot test.  The unanswered questions because of Rorschach untimely death makes you wonder what the test could have been like if he had lived longer. 

I received a free copy of this book from WaterBrook Multnomah in exchange for my honest review of this book.