2014 – Justin Daniel

This is a list of the books I read in 2014. All the reviews were written in 2014 and are archived on this site in (roughly) the order I read them in.

Book Reviews 2014

- Without Remorse, Tom Clancy
  September 25, 20192014 / Book ReviewsEver since reading Rainbow 6, I was captivated by Clancy’s literary style. I was recommended to read “Without Remorse” which chronicles the beginnings of John Kelley, or John Clark, the CIA mastermind behind Rainbow 6. It was a fitting novel to follow up Rainbow because it tells the backstory of the main protagonist. As we have discussed, some fiction novels do not always have a coherent message behind them: some are purely for entertainment purposes. This novel however, is chock full of subtle political and social messages. Essentially, the novel begins with John Kelley picking up a strange women who joins Kelley on his boat and home. We later find out that she is a prostitute that has escaped her captors who provide her with involuntary drugs. He falls in love with her but she dies when they go to stake out the old stomping grounds. This enrages Kelley and he goes on a rampage to end the lives of her captors. At the same time, Vietnam is still raging on in the Pacific. Kelley was a Master Chief Petty Officer with the Seals but has fulfilled his obligations to his country and is living the civilian life. His shadowed past included an operation that put his life in grave danger in the jungles of Vietnam. He trekked through miles of a river to a base deep in enemy territory to rescue a fellow Seal. Sometime in the book after he retired, the CIA approaches Kelley to help guide another team into the same base where the Soviets and North Koreans are holding POW’s with vital national security information. Right off the bat, there is a signification moral issue that arises in this book: “Is it a moral obligation to right something you know is wrong?” In the case of Kelley’s lover, he knows that more women are being held captive by these evil men. When he starts murdering them systematically and rescuing the imprisoned women (dropping them off at nurses house), a moral conflict is raised by those who are informed of the situation: is Kelley justified in exacting vengeance outside of the law when he knows there is evil being committed? Perfectly mirrored by the conflict in Vietnam, as a superior fighting force and a nation with the power to intervene, were we (are we) obligated to engage in foreign war by military intervention when we know there are atrocities happening in the country? This interplay between the two stories is quite captivating. The book does a great job between dishing out a fantastic story while interweaving a complex socio-political message underneath. I am sure this will not be the last Clancy book I read!...

The Cross of Christ

Washington: A Life

Strange Fire: The Danger of Offending the Holy Spirit with Counterfeit Worship

When We Were on Fire: A Memoir of Consuming Faith, Tangled Love, and Starting Over

Starship Troopers

Mao: The Unknown Story

Refugee (Star Wars: Force Heretic, #2)

The Story of Christianity, Vol II: The Reformation to the Present

The Lord of The Rings: Fellowship of the Ring

The Lord of the Rings: the Two Towers

The Courage to Be Protestant: Truth-Lovers, Marketers, and Emergents in the Postmodern World

The Lord of the Rings, Return of the King

Total Truth: Liberating Christianity from its Cultural Captivity

The Japanese and Christianity: Why is Christianity not widely believed in Japan?

First to Fight: An Inside View of the U.S. Marine Corps

Strange Glory: A Life of Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Black Hawk Down

Rainbow 6

Why We’re Not Emergent (By Two Guys Who Should Be)

The Last Stand Of Fox Company: A True Story Of U.S. Marines In Combat

Without Remorse

John Macarthur: Minister of the Flock

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

I Heard My Country Calling: a Memoir

Animal Farm

1984

Fight Club

Mission at Nuremberg: An American Army Chaplain and the Trial of the Nazis

The Lion’s Gate: On the Front Lines of the Six Days War

The Good Spy: The Life and Death of Robert Ames

The Dead and Those About to Die: D-Day: The Big Red One at Omaha Beach

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

Daniel Commentary

Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller

The Life of the Automobile: The Complete History of the Motor Car

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

American Sniper: The Autobiography of the Most Lethal Sniper in U.S. Military History

No Easy Day: The Firsthand Account of the Mission that Killed Osama Bin Laden

Level Zero Heroes: The Story of U.S. Marine Special Operations in Bala Murghab, Afghanistan

A Christmas Carol

The Giver

The Aviators: Eddie Rickenbacker, Jimmy Doolittle, Charles Lindbergh, and the Epic Age of Flight

Visions Of America: A History Of The United States

Debt of Honor

The Hobbit

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

My Men Are My Heroes: The Brad Kasal Story

The Last Battle: When U.S. and German Soldiers Joined Forces in the Waning Hours of World War II in Europe

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

Saving Leonardo: A Call to Resist the Secular Assault on Mind, Morals, and Meaning

Justin

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