jbschirtzinger

BooksAndArticles

⭐ BOOK NEWS 📓

plebpoet

If you have a reviewer copy I'll include it on thebooklight?

spirituality

Was Qumran A Gathering Place and Could The Essenes Be Reviving?

They played the game on legendary, for sure.

AskSN

Cell Phone Answering Calls for Sats?

Yeah,I think that was it, and this is a sucky pivot.

Yep, I think that was it. That sucks they aren't doing bitcoin AND are doing AI. Is there anything equivalent that was doing what they began doing?

tech

The secret origin of grep

StillStackinAfterAllTheseYears

She has an odd shirt choice, although the information is interesting.

science

James Webb Discovery Ignites Existential Shockwave Through Top Astrophysicists

ch0k1

I think I remember seeing some app on here for a cell phone that made people have to pay Sats for spam calls or something? Is that still around, or how did it turn out? 

Book Review: I Am The Doctor

lol. Yeah, this one doesn't even touch on his previous spying war career. He definitely could make the claim he was The Doctor.

Glad you enjoyed it. I found that to do this specific review, more detail than normal was necessary. 

![](https://m.stacker.news/98620)

ISBN: 1852276215

After having reviewed Jon Pertwee's [*Moon Boots and Dinner Suits*](https://booklight.top/posts/2024-11-20-moonboots) which is the autobiography of his life, it was noted that there was another such work by him. That work is this one, also an autobiography, called *I Am The Doctor*.


The first autobiography focused on his life as a whole. It is disclosed in this book, that he wrote that one because his anticipation of being able to continue *Worzel Gummidge* post cancellation was first built up hopefully only to be dashed at the last minute by political maneuverings by the TV executives which were to be the new dispensers of the show on their network which was based partly in Ireland as well as in England. Since *Gummidge* had been what he started doing shortly after his time as The Doctor, it probably spurred him to take inventory of his life since there was an obvious kind of stop.

The same thing happened where his tenure as The Doctor on Doctor Who was concerned, but before we discuss that matter, it seems urgent to mention what frames this secondary autobiography is an answer to something Pertwee posed in [song:](https://youtu.be/hr757sFsIiI)

>I cross the void beyond the mind
The empty space that circles time
I see where others stumble blind
To seek a truth they never find
Eternal wisdom is my guide
I am the Doctor
>
>Through cosmic waste the TARDIS flies
To taste the secret source of life
A presence science can't deny
Exists within, outside, behind
The latitude of human minds
I am the Doctor
>
>My voyage dissects the course of time
"Who knows?," you say
But are you right?
Who searches deep to find the light
That glows so darkly in the night
Toward that point I guide my flight
>
>As fingers move to end mankind
Metallic teeth begin their grind
With sword of truth I turn to fight
The satanic powers of the night
Is your faith before your mind?
Know me
Am I the Doctor?


The title of this autobiography would appear to answer that question in the affirmative, and the entirety of the work can be viewed with the lens that Pertwee was trying very hard NOT to be the Doctor in the sense of being typecast, but at the same time, when it came time to play the Doctor, he was told, basically, to be himself--which he did, and so if he was being typecast as the Doctor he was being typecast as himself.

*I Am The Doctor* walks us through Pertwee's memories of being on the show and certain episodes and what they were like to record. We learn that his sidekick, Katy Manning, was nearly blind and had trouble filming certain episodes due to not being able to see what wasn't there--but also not also being able to see the cues for where the thing ought to be. We learn that the actor who played the evil Master, Roger Delgado, who seemed to inspire fear was, in reality, scared of just about everything and had to constantly face those fears to play his role. We hear of the many ticks Pertwee orchestrates sometimes out of a goodly sense of fun, and sometimes because someone writes him a scathing letter and he wants that person to feel foolish for having done so. Mentioned are the love of cars for Pertwee, and how he helped design the "Whomobile" and how, on at least one occasion, he made another performer take him for the ride on the back of his scooter and chided him for not going fast enough while not knowing the brakes were out on the conveyance and that in order to stop the fellow had to use his feet on the front tire to squeeze it to a stop and so did not want to go terribly fast.

We get access to some personal facts about Pertwee--like the time someone shows up to his house with what he believes is an ex-girlfriend but turns out to be the ex-girlfriend's daughter which suddenly explains why she has changed so little. We learn how Pertwee at one point got frustrated with a shoot, and decided to, while driving a vehicle, not to return but to keep on driving much to the chagrin of the assembled crew. Likewise, we learn how on another such occasion, he and Katy Manning got lost also much to the consternation and alarm of the filming crew while not returning after a drive scene and going for a country tour.

Particularly interesting is how, during one episode, Pertwee's wife secretly arranges an episode of *This Is Your Life* to feature Pertwee without his knowing, which nearly ends in disaster before it gets started by his refusal to cooperate with the feints necessary to keep him unaware of the plan. What stands out in this re-telling is how Pertwee was deeply touched by seeing his former shipmates from World War II who he had not seen in years. Especially moving in this matter is the fact that he barely escaped from a ship, the *Hood* before it was blown to smithereens and how several times during *Doctor Who* he was returning to places he had fought battles in during the war. One imagines the dissonance from these events must have been great--to be filming where formerly immense German guns had been placed must have seemed peculiar at the least.

We see glimpses, also, of the Pertwee who was the ladies man who, during a stunt with wires, gets tangled up with a fellow male actor but wishes to try to arrange matters on the re-take to be entangled with the female actress instead.


Finally, we see Pertwee cast about after Roger Delgado dies in a car wreck that almost seems like a dark joke, and many others of the cast begin to depart the show and Delgado's wife, ironically or fatefully named Kismet, cannot get any kind of insurance or help after she is left a widow other than from being given a vocal role in the show which features Pertwee's final moments as the Doctor.

Those final moments as the Doctor, for Pertwee, were apparently racked with physical pain from back trouble he had acquired partly in the war, and partly from skiing in daredevil ways--and so his regeneration which looks peaceful was in reality quite painful. Pertwee really did not want to stop playing the Doctor, it seemed, but since everyone was leaving or dead, it felt to him to be a fitting conclusion to his tenure.

Afterwards, we hear a little about his other roles in some movies and his run of playing the scarecrow in *Worzel Gummidge* and how occasionally he is able to reconnect with the original crew for one event or another where filming certain special editions of *Doctor Who* are involved. One episode that stands out is around the 1994 Children in Need Special--*Dimensions in Time.* Pertwee encounters his fellow actors and actresses in ways that he does not expect, and because he makes observations that do not fit the way the script is written is accused of not having read the same by them. He remarks by this point that "all logic has gone out the door" and the script is a mess logically, as far as he is concerned--which is somewhat ironic in that Pertwee is a stickler for realism and details in the scripts and was accustomed to sending actors notes along with everyone else who regularly performed with him concerning how the actor or actresses fared. While an uncharitable reading of the autobiography might make a person think that Pertwee had become old enough to become careless in reading his scripts, by the end of the work it begins to become apparent that the problem had nothing to do with age whatsoever--but rather the identity of Jon Pertwee. When other members of the cast were to be his companions who were not, originally, his companions, since he had played the Doctor as himself, it simply did not make any sense.

But then, afterwards, we have Pertwee evaluating his work in the aftermath and how it becomes difficult as one gets older to get any other parts mostly because everyone, after you have been in something like *Doctor Who* has not seen you in awhile and so they conclude you are dead. Many other parts were unobtainable because, they said, Pertwee was too recognizable even though he points out that a scarecrow and the Doctor are not anything like each other and he was able to hold those roles and have successful outcomes.

Finally, Pertwee makes a self-appraisal that a role he holds much later--that of a Basque pornographer who happens to be an arsonist--is his best work. He laments that it does not catch on--one infers probably because it was a Basque pornographer who happened to be an arsonist-- and then says he would like to fade out, rather like the Tardis in the show, but not quite yet. Apparently though, that was not to be, since twelve days after this book being sent to print Jon Pertwee had died of a heart attack. In some ways, it reads a little like the "Last Will and Testament" of Jon Pertwee, without, of course, his knowing it was to be so. I suspect he probably would have gotten a kick out of that had he been in on the "cosmic joke".

Jon Pertwee, it seems, was trying to get away from the horrors of war and was trying to return to innocence and happened to play a character that became a kind of avatar of that desire. His secondary role for which he was widely known, that being the scarecrow in *Gummidge*, though not exactly a hero role in the same way as the Doctor was also still aimed at children. Then, like the scarecrow in the *Wizard of Oz,* Jon Pertwee played with some fire on the less than child-friendly side of the spectrum, believed that to be his best work, and then died after confessing, of course, that he was, indeed, The Doctor--the very same Doctor who fights evil and holds his faith before his mind--which is a considerable mind after all. Pertwee tells his fans, almost like a kind of post narration, "Yeah, that's me!" Then, after the big reveal, he exits stage right. What a performance--and what a convoluted way to reach a conclusion!

Pertwee it seemed, lived long enough to be cast as a villian when he was all ready cast by everyone else as a hero. He tried the black hat--it did not fit. In the end, he was The Doctor.

*The original review can be found over at the [booklight.top site!](https://booklight.top/posts/2025-06-30-iamdrwho)*


![](https://m.stacker.news/97794)

Net Force
ISBN: 978-0425161722

*Net Force* is Clancy’s answer to the Matrix if the Matrix were to meet a Federal law enforcement branch constituted by human beings instead of machines. Put another way, imagine an intelligence agency and a counter-intelligence agency squaring off against one another, except the counter-intelligence agency is a web company with a specific vision for the technology future of the world.

The ensuing game is played between, predominately, Net Force Agents, and CyberNation adherents who are somewhat like pirates that cause internet problems to offer their service as a solution to the outage they caused–all without getting caught.

There is also a layer of martial artists that work in various capacities on both sides of the spectrum, and hackers who enter a kind of virtual space where they project a given reality around them while searching for the files they desire.

When digital hi-jinks, assassination, and espionage is not happening, there is a lot of sex going on. Straight sex, gay sex, casual sex, affair sex, BDSM sex–you name it, it is probably happening here.

Actually, there is too much sex, even for a spy thriller which came as a surprise since Clancy novels are not something strongly associated with gratuitous amounts of sex–at least not on the big screen. (Fisher in *Splinter Cell* had far too many other things to do)

The pacing of the writing, though, is designed to keep the reader interested, and one supposes the target audience reading Clancy novels at this point probably found sex motivating. It reminds one that humanity is motivated by two “F’s”. One of them is fighting, and the other one is–well–better left to your imagination.

Speaking of fighting, there is a ton of that here too. An excellent job is done by the writers discussing differing martial arts styles and how they play against each other and what might run through the minds of people using them.

There is a problem in transitioning between scenes in that the reader often has to remember some fragment from before and for awhile it is hard to deduce which people are on what side. Likewise, it difficult to ascertain as a reader which side to cheer for. Neither side is especially righteous or likable. Both of them have their views on life and technology, but neither of them has a great ideal for what that means. This makes the novel more realistic, and puts the reader in a more objective frame of mind. It also creates some emotional distance to all the main characters which might hurt the work as a whole since if any of them pop out during the novel the reader is not going to be especially jarred by their absence.

While this Clancy novel is an interesting read, it probably is not an excellent read. It does what it is designed to do–entertains the reader for awhile and then presents a solution to the problems posed in the narrative. There are no lasting lessons here, and one could probably punch “delete” in their memory files that they ever read it and not miss anything over the course of their life that might make it feel less complete. This is not to say that the work is a “bad work”–but it is more like junk food. A little bit goes a long way. Oh, and by the way, there is some sex in there…

Full Original review available over at [booklight.top.](https://booklight.top/posts/2025-06-24-tomclancy)



Book Review: Tom Clancy's Net Force

Stacker_Stocks

Powell literally saying he understands what happened in 1971.

ValueStockX

I didn't hear him say anything that suggested he understood what happened.

Books & Articles Weekly, Issue 67

siggy47

Book Review: Seabiscuit

Yeah, I lived in KY for a long time. Never went to The Derby though. Expensive hobby for people that like to look important was mostly my read on it. Interesting about your article with all the horses being in Secretariat's lineage, and I'd tend to agree with you about both horse racing and dog breeding being basically evil at this juncture in time. 

![](https://m.stacker.news/93218)

Review note: One of the staff members in the earlier days of Facebook had Hillenbrand as a friend.  Seabiscuit was out then.* **--Booklight staff**

In case you ever want to know how long it takes books to get that weathered yellowing that books of antiquity often characteristically possess, the answer is about 25 years it seems, since the review copy of this work looked like it might have been around as a witness to the races of Seabiscuit during his prime.

Hillenbrand has a nose for stories. Her previous work, [*Unbroken*](https://booklight.top/posts/2024-12-29-unbroken), was reviewed by this site. *Seabiscuit* as a narrative theme, echoes some of what *Unbroken* encapsulated. The idea of the unlikely or unknown coming into a position of world notice only to encounter some insurmountable-seeming obstacle is something that both works share as the subjects of both books had to face uncommon amounts of hardship.

What makes *Seabiscuit* captivating though, is not necessarily the writing, though it is good, but the story itself. Hillenbrand is able to weave the narrative structure together such that the reader is transported back to the early 30's when Seabiscuit was starting his ascent into national domination of horse racing.

Some of "The Biscuit's" retinue is well known since the tale is frequently crossing paths with the likes of Bing Crosby who is surrounded by the kind of people one would expect for his time and place.

If you have ever wondered what the profession of a horse jockey is like, *Seabiscuit* is an eye-opening encounter of the hardships and dangers incumbent on those who pursued the sport and profession. In short, the conditions were barely above awful, and it is a wonder that any jockey stuck around through those years and even now since the same dangers are present.

What one learns, however, is that the jockeys are riding for freedom--or a kind of transcendence that only horse racing provides and arguably only Seabiscut could uniquely channel such than the entire US paid attention to his races above concerns even of a burgeoning World War II. We learn in the book that FDR kept diplomats waiting just to hear whether or not Seabiscuit would win a certain race against another horse that is still well-known who went by the name of War Admiral.

There is a kind of chaos that sets up around the races and the characters in them--and it is not a unique occurrence since it seems to happen in almost each race. Sometimes it happens *during* the race, and this usually portends a jockey either being seriously hurt or dead. 

Seabiscuit seems, at one point or another, to trick everyone or to play tricks on everyone. The beginning narrative deals with Tom Smith, an enigmatic cowboy type, coming into the ranch and discovering what Seabiscuit's psychology is after having discovered him. At the same time "Red" Pollard, Seabiscuit's first real jockey, starts to comprehend what it means to motivate Seabiscuit to win. The fact that Seabiscuit requires motivation is an interesting spin, since most horses naturally seem to run, but Seabiscuit is not a "natural horse" as the story shows.

Pollard acts, at first, as Seabiscuit's savior, and then later Seabiscuit acts more as his. The two of them are intertangled, and although Seabiscuit is ridden by another jockey for a time by the name of Wolf, eventually everything comes back to Pollard at a crucial moment for both jockey and horse.

We also learn about Charles S. Howard, the owner of Seabiscuit, who also kicks car ownership into existence with the early sales of Buicks in California assisted, in a major way, by the California earthquake of 1906.The Quake, we learn, made horses sparse, and cars were, on the contrary, plentiful. (so long as you bought them from Charles S. Howard's lot) Howard, paradoxically, gets into horse racing, which is the animal he is replacing with the newest technology.

The pacing of *Seabiscuit* is fast, but it never becomes tedious. The story is worth at least one reading, and probably several additional ones as a kind of reminder about adversity and what can be done when the world arrays itself against you--maybe especially the media, gossip, and slander. (and your competition) Seabiscuit overcame it all, and became a legend. So too did the people who managed him. Somewhere in there though, a large portion of faith was involved, because in many given instances, things looked bad at best and hopeless at worst. Know anyone who can use some inspiration?



*The original article can be read over at [booklight.top](https://booklight.top/posts/2025-05-23-seabiscuit)*




![](https://m.stacker.news/85971)

ISBN 0-394-54618-0

The expectations for *Yiddish Folktales* by Wolf and Weinreich require some adjusting. If you believe you will be reading about Elijah against various mythical backdrops, you will be right. On the other hand, if you are not expecting elves, ghosts, witches, and sorcerers, you will not be prepared for what you will find in the pages.

These tales are culled from people who were Yiddish from around the 1910’s and 1920’s. Many of them are Russian in origin. There are also smatterings of stories that have distinctly Germanic origins. Between all of them exists a type of story-telling that is as rich as any other culture when it comes to creatures that are relegated to the fantasy genre in the modern era of reading.

Some historical figures are present too whose influence and exertion of will is still felt during the storytelling time in which this book was composed and based. Tsar Nicholas the First shows up sometimes for the better, and sometimes for the worse. Napoleon also obtains some billing although it seems that many of his tales are cautionary.

There are several accounts that are classed as “Purim Tales” in that they court nonsense or have no ending that makes logical sense. Many of these stories are acknowledged as being these kinds of yarns by a certain kind of Yiddish rhyme that indicates somebody was drinking alcohol, but not the storyteller. (The teller of stories is, after all, the arbiter of truth)

In addition to many of these oral traditions, there are explanations as to how the storytelling was done, and what the climate was like around people who told tales. The primary source of entertainment during the early 20th and late 19th centuries were people who could tell stories and they had an elevated position among their social strata because people wanted to hear what they had to relate. Often, the storyteller appears near a stove, probably because many of these events happened more often when it was cold than when the weather was warm and people would be more active outside.

Satan shows up more frequently than perhaps he ought to, but usually he only makes an appearance to remind the listener that Satan is constantly pulling some manner of tricky trick. There are also prods that one ought to develop their character instead of their bank account, and that sometimes people who are foolish seeming are not inferior to those who are considered smart or wise. (indeed, they often get the better of the deal since being foolish they have no reason to use their intellect in malignant ways)

If there is a latent desire to understand what Yiddish culture developed, this book is an excellent work to give the reader insight into the oral story traditions it commanded. Be prepared, however, to understand the world not through the stereotypical Hebrew lens, but more like *Lord of the Rings* and the *Hebrew Bible* had some strange offspring. By the time you are done, you will probably wonder why these traditions have so few cinematic representations, whereas other cultures and their folktales have so many as to be nearly synonymous with some of these accounts. It isn’t appropriation, after all, when you have spent hundreds of years in a place and developed your own unique experiences with entities that show up in other traditions. By that point, it is the lens your culture uses to parse experiences in those places with its own unique fingerprints. Weinreich and Wolf are as good of a place as any to begin that exploration.

Original review over at [thebooklight.](https://booklight.top/posts/2025-04-06-yiddish)

Book Review: Yiddish Folktales

![](https://m.stacker.news/81059)

ISBN: 1718873980

*Special thanks to https://wisepathbooks.com/ for supplying a review copy of this book. –Booklight staff*

There are not too many books that straddle the line between Christianity and mysticism that are able to negotiate the twists and turns the subject matter entails well. George MacDonald took an early swipe at the future genre in 1881 with this work.

It proves hard to categorize what the author did. There are plenty of allusions and symbolic meanings present in the volume. The quick storyline is that a young man inherits an estate that is on the verge of ruin in Scotland. This is far too simple of a reduction, however, of the rich layers present in this work.

Probably, it would be better to say that a young man learns what it means to mature into an adult spiritually while keeping the Christian teachings close at hand, as well as making sure the soul does not slip from him while balancing the demands placed upon him by the world.

The estate he is to inherit is curious and is not without its ghosts. The walls of the house speak of the ancient history of his family, but indeed also of his mother who the reader learns, has died earlier in his life. His father is a constant reminder of what it means to be noble and to stay meek. The other characters in the house help to tell Cosmo, the boy, about his past, and have key pieces of information about his future.

It is via a chance bad weather meeting that Cosmo meets Joan who is entangled with his life in several key ways and he in hers. While their initial meeting seems to have something romantic about it, there are other possibilities closer at home, and a large portion of the novel concerns itself with how the two reconcile their incipient feelings for one another.

There are, of course, massive doses of supernatural happenings throughout the work. The bulk of these could be summarized by saying God turns what seems to be meant toward misfortune toward good where the Warlock estate is concerned.

It is also curious that the book was named Castle Warlock with the obvious connotations that entails considering that the narrative of the book is very much how to be a good Christian. It is said by some sources that C.S. Lewis used this work to construct some of his other more famous novels. Indeed, there is the courting with the magical smacked up against the Christian as one often finds in his novels. While the two themes move fluidly enough between one another in a Scottish castle, it would require a place like Narnia for Lewis to make the confluence happen.

One difficulty in accessing this work is that the accents are authentic to Scotland. Indeed, there even exist alternative language versions written in Highland kinds of tongues or Scots-English. After awhile, it becomes easier to understand what is being said as the reader begins to develop the vocabulary meanings through context and repetition. Still, there are some key moments where the reader might not have everything said easily understood and these moments require a later clarification when they contain key pieces of plot.

This kind of work is not a modern undertaking in any sense of the word since the entirety of the story exists as a kind of parable as well as a tale. Still, there is a richness accessible to the determined reader that most modern literature cannot replicate. One could do worse than spend several evenings by the reading light decoding some Scottish turns-of-phrase.


*The entire original article can be read over at [thebooklight.](https://booklight.top/posts/2025-03-07-castlewarlock)*

Book Review: Castle Warlock





![](https://m.stacker.news/76853)


978-1959666455

*Special thanks to https://wisepathbooks.com/ for supplying a review copy of this book.*  **–Booklight staff**

“Old Grog”, the author of *On Ruling*, has undertaken a difficult task against the current political climate. He has attempted to weave a helpful narrative toward Christian men that acts as a beacon concerning masculinity and what it ought to look like under a relationship with the acceptance of Messiah as the cornerstone. In many ways, he has succeeded in this.

The book hopes to supplant any future books about Christian male leadership and notes, wryly, that most men that have many books on Christian leadership seem to be the worst at exhibiting it. There is a tongue-in-cheek method of relational tale-bearing that works concerning the tone of the thesis. Since the intended audience is mostly young men, this device is well-suited toward that goal.

The focal point of the exposition is the induction of men into a status that is referred to as a “viceroy”. A viceroy is defined, loosely for the purposes of this review, as an appointed ruler under a king to carry out certain duties necessary to the functioning of the kingdom. The King is then wisely referred to as the Messiah. This neatly sidesteps the problems inherent when believers think of themselves as Kings in the manner of Israel or lost tribes, but not as examples like David. Even with this language, though, there is a reminder that a ruler ought to be humble first and foremost in case anyone who begins to carry out the viceroy mentality begins to inflate their self-worth in a manner that might incur the wrath of the King of Kings.

Nonetheless, the comparison to what Kings do oftentimes makes the distinction fuzzy. While the work makes the concept of Kings in general a natural thing, sometimes Kings from the past are used as a reference point. (or at the very least, that is the inference) This has the unintended effect, possibly, of making the viceroy step into the shoes of a King, whether or not the author is intending for the viceroy to do so. This becomes highly important later when the reader is told about the behaviors Kings might exhibit–such as showing up unannounced and gathering resources and making alliances. These suggestions are made in terms of enlarging the dominion of God on the Earth, but for young men, as anyone can tell you, sometimes the nuance is lost.

Predictably, the book leans heavily toward what the behavior ought to be for the home, the wife, and having children. There are some hard-won pieces of advice present here. Certainly, the characteristic of having worked long in the business culture is evident. Generally speaking, it is probably good advice, although some of the examples used about vaccinations and being a pharmaceutical sales person are puzzling. What happens, for instance, when the King of Kings says that certain businesses, like the types mentioned in the book, are not working for Him?

Furthermore, the guidance the Messiah gave was to sell all possessions and follow Him in most circumstances and to share all possessions in common among the disciples. The model in this book does not incorporate that specific teaching which is a crucial one to understand properly.

There is an acknowledgement, obliquely, which underlies why this point bears emphasizing. The reader is told that fifty years ago a book like *On Ruling* would not need to exist since there was a common agreement on what a masculine role ought to be. The trouble, though, is that role is under assault because some of the lessons in this book were put into practice and not always under the Will of God. In the language of the book, “A whole lot of hay was cut”, but the collective values were wrong. Many viceroys were mistaken.

A guiding lesson is given concerning how these values were corrupt enough to warrant this book’s existence. A young man who comes from a home where he has “two mothers” impregnates a girl in college. He is, of course, fearful, but his problem is what this book is trying to address–namely that he has no idea what a Father is because he never had one. An immediate lesson is offered to this young man in the form of responsibility for his new family, consequences, and new priorities.

A most interesting part concerns the criticism that the advice given might turn the home and family into an idol since that is the clear priority throughout the reading. The author takes a kind of “the ends justify the means” outlook here in that the children produced from this implemented strategy will more than make up for any suspicion that the home is an idol. Whether or not this succeeds as an argument depends on whether a person agrees that the children ought to be emphasized in the way this book purports.

The biggest visible stumbling block in the arguments expounded concerns the choice of the word “Kings” and the monarch allusions. In the end of days, there comes a personage, it is told, who comes in the guise of a King. Many young men, it seems to the reader, do not have a problem with being royals. What they have trouble with, though, is submission of their “royal impulses” to the Higher Will–and certainly the consequences that come when that fails to happen appropriately. The biggest ill concerns the quality of restraint more so than the characteristic of regal identity. Of course, “Old Grog” might be seeing an angle the reviewer is missing. Sometimes one has to “build up” before one can “tear down”.

On the other hand, it is also told that Israel is eventually to become a nation of Priest-Kings. “Old Grog” does not take this stance, but rather emphasizes the more Pauline position that he is speaking as a kind of “grafted-in” pagan which many Christians likely relate to. Perhaps this work is framed from that vantage point, although if it is, it did not seem to state that point plainly enough as to make an impression on the memory after reading it.

As a composite, the work is an interesting read with a lot of life advice from the aspect of a young man who is going to start a family and will be out in the working world. On the other hand, depending on how close the Kingdom is to arrival, this might be unnecessary advice. The world is changing faster than most people can keep a fix on. The nature of work and how faith is arranged in society has changed drastically in the last five years. Still, the qualities “Old Grog” puts forth will be important, regardless of the backdrop in which they exist. The work undertaken here is pertinent for men of faith to read, and men in general can derive value from considering the ideas put forth.

If you are a young man, this book will make you think about what you want to do. If you are of middle age, it will make you think about what you are doing. If you are an older man the book makes you consider the kind of advice you would give to men younger than you in light of your life and spiritual growth. Wherever it is you are or were, it will make you think about the definition of what it means to be male and what expressions that ought to take with submission to Messiah as an intrinsic emphasis.

The full original review can be read over at [the booklight.](https://booklight.top/posts/2025-02-09-onruling)