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P-head

P-head

  • Dunedin, New Zealand
  • member since December 26 2007

Reviews

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  • John Colter: His Years in the Rockies
    • Rated 3 stars

    “Lewis and Clark and Colter are very much a part of the local folklore in awesome Bozeman, MT. Colters famous run from the Blackfeet is commemorated each year at the same spot near the Missouri headwaters. A bit of an academic read, but well worth the effort.”

    P-head wrote this review Friday, October 2 2009. ( reply | permalink )
  • A New Christianity for a New World: Why Traditional Faith is Dying & How a New Faith is Being Born
    • Rated 5 stars

    “Dawkins and Fred Bloom didn't hit me like this book did. Written for those of us who grew up as children in the church, who were told to ask Jesus into a room in the middle of our chests, and told that there was a missing link in scientific explanations of the world that did not agree with an elder's perception of the Bible. Dawkins is antagnostic, Bloom academically so. But Spong is a Bishop who loves Jesus and Jesus's message: that of loving recklessly, being in total being, and living life fullly. Alex Lowe said it differently: be compassionate, confident and kind. Does God live in the clouds and care about you getting to work on time? Dawkins and Spong do not think so, but Spong gives his message in love, and it reached me. The chest room is empty, and so are the clouds, , and I am full of angst.”

    P-head wrote this review Tuesday, September 29 2009. ( reply | permalink )
  • Under the Overpass: A Journey of Faith on the Streets of America
    • Rated 4 stars

    “Here's a kid who actually practiced before he went to preach, then came out deciding on a different sermon. I feel the same way about the church when it comes to the stinky (viscerally or spiritually) and the homeless. Great lesson plan without the fire and brim-stone chapter. ”

    P-head wrote this review Friday, July 24 2009. ( reply | permalink )
  • Forget Me Not: A Memoir
    • Rated 4 stars

    “Alex Lowe is legendary, especially here in the Bozone where Jenni Lowe still lives. Practice Rock is a local crag where climbers look up a long face of difficult 5.11 hard-to-protect rock and think about Alex free-soloing it. I think I have passed Jenni as she's walked to the top of the M trail with Conrad. The gossip about her new partnership with Conrad, shortly after Alex's death, found me as I was climbing with friends at Practice Rock, and we smirked in surprise. This book showed me that Alex Lowe, extremely talented and driven to succeed as he was, was still a human being who was every bit as insecure as the rest of us. Jenni Lowe has laid bare her heart, and the reader is a better person for seeing her strength and journey as a wife, a mother, a sister, and a daughter. ”

    P-head wrote this review Friday, July 24 2009. ( reply | permalink )
  • Liberation Day (Unabridged)
    • Rated 2 stars

    “The scenario of the unfortunately named "Nick Stone" in love with the ruthless boss' daughter, who only goes back to work for the father who just failed to pay for the last job because the father tells the daughter that Nick works for the ruthless father, is right out of a soap opera. But this is necessary so that at the end of the novel the wounded character has some place to limp back to, unsure of the reception he'll get. This poor soap opera bit almost made me close the book unfinished, but I'm glad I soldiered on, the book was a fun read. After Bravo Two Zero, I expected and enjoyed McNab's attention to detail as Nick Stone and his team carried out their missions. Interwining the American invasion of Afghanistan lended even more realistic weight to the story. The portrayal of the "true Muslim" team members who sought revenge on "terrorist Muslims" who distort the true meaning of Islam was a bit too much. The soap opera ending was full of martyrs and explosions and our limping hero.”

    P-head wrote this review Tuesday, April 29 2008. ( reply | permalink )
  • A Thousand Splendid Suns
    • Rated 4 stars

    “ This beautiful novel is a wrenching tribute to the people of Afghanistan. I read it in a few days, staying up late each night turning pages. "And that, my young friends, is the story of our country, one invader after another, Macedonians, Sassanians, Arabs, Mongols ... Soviets. But we're like those walls up there. Battered, and nothing pretty to look at, but still standing." Hosseini paints a personal dimension to the ever worsening spiral into violence after the Soviet withdrawal: the civil war of the Mujahideen; the initial stabilizing effect of the Taliban before the whips were brandished; and finally the avenging Americans. In addition to the rockets and automatic weapons fire and lost loved ones, the women further endure the stifling injustices of a strict Muslim culture. Hosseini also portrays a loving and hopeful side of Islam, a welcome relief from burqa-pushing jealous husbands and the extremists on the 5 o'clock news. Consciousness raising stuff.”

    P-head wrote this review Monday, April 14 2008. ( reply | permalink )
  • The Cowboy Way : Seasons of a Montana Ranch
    • Rated 3 stars

    “ I like David's earthy writing style. This book is the memoir of a "40 year old fart" who decided to live "the cowboy way" for a single cycle on a Montana ranch, presumably with the express purpose to write and sell books about it. I find the book a very moving narrative of life on a ranch, since it follows the path which any arm chair commander would need to take in order to attempt what David does - living and working on a ranch. His inner conflicts about fishing and hunting and land access are direct analogies of the larger social conflicts between "liberals" and "conservatives," city slickers and rural folk, money and/or land rich folk and the rest of us. These dichotomies, of course, slice the human population differently with each new label. I appreciate that David keeps his explicit comments on these dichotomies to a minimum, and rather addresses them mostly implicitly. These esoteric debates take on a visceral quality for David since he is the one hanging and cutting and preparing the trophy animals taken by trophy hunters, you know, the folks with enough money to get on a ranch with a guide and a brand new rifle. This book is a must read for Montanans living in Billings and Missoula and Bozeman and Livingston and Helena, who all have driven by this amazingly beautiful part of the world where David lives the cowboy way.”

    P-head wrote this review Monday, February 11 2008. ( reply | permalink )

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