Search Results for: book reviews

1 Minute Book Review (Episode 07)| Blood Will Out by Walter Kirn

by Ben Zornes · Aug 16, 2023

A great book retelling the true story of a peculiar friendship between the author and a psychopath.

1 Minute Book Review (Episode 06) | The Psychology of Totalitarianism by Mattias Desmet

by Ben Zornes · Jun 19, 2023

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Book Review: “Hillbilly Elegy” by JD Vance

by Ben Zornes · Mar 6, 2023

https://amzn.to/3kOyMzN

Book Review – “The Rise & Triumph of the Modern Self” by Carl Trueman

by Ben Zornes · Feb 21, 2023

Another one minute book review. Enjoy!

Get a copy here:

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Book Review – “How Football Explains America” by Sal Paolantonio

by Ben Zornes · Feb 10, 2023

Gonna start doing short reviews of books I’m reading. Here’s the first.

Book Review: “Black Rednecks & White Liberals” by Thomas Sowell

by Ben Zornes · Apr 8, 2021

Black Rednecks and White Liberals by Thomas Sowell
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Sowell was like a skilled chef, everything cooked to perfection, seasoned beautifully, and something for every palette. If you can’t enjoy it, it’s because you choose to hate great food, and you probably prefer Kale chips to potato chips, and would somehow enjoy eating bread made from sawdust. There is a multitude of fascinating takeaways, and Sowell takes us back through history to show that “black culture” is really Scottish clan culture. He makes a compelling defense of why America isn’t an inherently racist country, and explains why the Founders weren’t perpetuating racism by not ending slavery at our founding. Contrary to the statue smashers over in Portland, the Founders laid the groundwork for ending slavery.

Perhaps the most poignant point which Sowell makes is that while every ethnicity has at one time been enslaved, and in turn enslaved others, it was only in the West that this temptation to enslave our fellow man was overcome. It was the cause of liberty which ensured the eventual end of slavery not only in the West but (almost) throughout the whole world. Ironically, it is in places where Western values are not predominant that slavery still exists (I would assert it would be more accurate to say Christian ethics). However, current narratives regarding race/slavery would have us believe that America’s founders simply perpetuated/entrenched slavery, rather than planting the seeds of liberty which would grow the fruit of abolition of the institution of slavery. This book is a potent antidote to the woke-sorcery which has beguiled our universities, press, and culture.

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Book Review: “1984” by George Orwell

by Ben Zornes · Jan 15, 2021

1984 by George Orwell

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Finally got around to reading this classic (is it a classic?). Terrible timing on my part. Basically, reading 1984 it is just like scrolling through a newsfeed in 2021.

Orwell was a prophet in many ways. He saw the temptation of authoritarianism. He saw the danger of what he termed “the mutability of the past.” He was right that the direction our culture is headed is towards the proliferation of sex to the point where sexual enjoyment is nonexistent. Orwell sees that the intimacy which sexual union creates also brings loyalty to an entity outside of the State’s oversight and authority.

He couldn’t have foreseen that Big Brother would be an example of using gendered (and oppressive) language and thus would be guilty of ThoughtCrime, but the Ministry of Truth would correct that in a future edition of the Newspeak dictionary. Big Sibling will suffice, comrade.

The story was well told. It isn’t a warm fuzzy ending. It doesn’t really offer any solutions, only warnings. The solution, I would submit, is hot Gospel. Jesus died for your sins; so love your wife, raise your kids, go to church, work hard.

Some of my highlights:

“It was always the women, and above all the young ones, who were the most bigoted adherents of the Party, the swallowers of slogans, the amateur spies and nosers-out of unorthodoxy.”

“Thoughtcrime was not a thing that could be concealed forever. You might dodge successfully for a while, even for years, but sooner or later they were bound to get you.”

“Now that he had recognized himself as a dead man it became important to stay alive as long as possible.”

“You donâ€™t grasp the beauty of the destruction of words. Do you know that Newspeak is the only language in the world whose vocabulary gets smaller every year?â€

“The aim of the Party was not merely to prevent men and women from forming loyalties which it might not be able to control. Its real, undeclared purpose was to remove all pleasure from the sexual act.”

“The heresy of heresies was common sense.”

“But you could not have pure love or pure lust nowadays. No emotion was pure, because everything was mixed up with fear and hatred.”

“â€¦the object was not to stay alive but to stay humanâ€¦”