Book Review: In the Beginning...There Were No Diapers

In the Beginning . . . There Were No Diapers: Laughing and Learning in the First Years of Fatherhood by Tim Bete.

This is a great book. Laugh out loud funny. Much of it reminded me of my own experiences as a new father a few years ago.

The chapters are short enough to get through if you only have a few minutes of reading time, and each ends on a postive note about God's work in our relationships with our children. Though it's billed as a humor book, it is also quite inspirational, especially the last chapter. Tim Bete makes it clear God always has a plan, whether or not we can see it or understand it - even when children are acting like children. And the author definitely shows a love for his children through his writing.

I only had two minor - very very minor - issues with the book, and I hesitate to even mention them because they are rather petty on my part. A couple of times it seemed the author kept going with the humor even after we had gotten the point. And it seems like I've always seen "badda bing badda boom" spelled that way instead of the way the author spells it ("botta bing botta boom") Again, that's just me. I did a Google search on both spellings, and it seems both are used. Those two things didn't spoil my enjoyment of the book though. I recommend any father read this book - and I'm going to try to get my wife to read it too just because it's
that good!

This is a review for Mind&Media, the author provided the book to that website for distribution for this, and other, reviews.

Free books are cool!

Upcoming Reviews

For Mind&Media, I'll be reviewing several products:

How To Write, by Herbert E. Meyer and Jill M. Meyer.

This is an ebook available for only $1.99 and is published by Storm King Press.


Another book I'll be reviewing shortly (I'm almost finished with it!) is In the Beginning . . . There Were No Diapers: Laughing and Learning in the First Years of Fatherhood by Tim Bete. He also won the grand prize in the 2005 Writer's Digest Best Writer's Web Site contest.


And finally (so far), I'll shortly be reviewing is a CD by
Paul Aldrich called Mock and Roll.

Book Review: The Armageddon Strain

Just finished reading "The Armageddon Strain" by Sharon K. Gilbert; Christian "supernatural" fiction set in the author's on-going series of interrelated novels called the Mytharc series.

While I don't usually like "killer-virus" stories, mostly because they usually use the virus as the actual antagonist in the story, The Armageddon Strain doesn't do that. Instead, the virus is just another tool being used by the bad guys.

This is a good book. I look forward to reading more by the author, as well as her husbands upcoming contributions to the Mytharc series. The ...method of the Mytharc series reminds me a bit of the Repairman Jack series - a series of interconnected stories building up to a "final showdown" between good and evil. The Gilberts' impending showdown is real however, whereas F. Paul Wilson's showdown is purely fictional.

In The Armageddon Strain, I especially like the fact that much of the story takes place relatively close to home in Southern Indiana - granted not in Evanspatch and Southwestern Indyucky that I call home - but close enough.

The main character, Maggie Taylor, is a nice normal perfectly human medical professor and an extremely busy person. It's nice seeing a character who's life is so hectic that she forgets she made appointments - that's a nice human touch. Most of the other characters aren't as well developed, serving supporting roles to Maggie. But that's okay - because it's Maggie's story.
Family life is portrayed very favorably, as is eating! I always enjoy reading about characters enjoying a meal at a local establishment.

Grab this book if you want a good supernatural thriller, and an exposure the war going on all around us.

Armageddon Strain

By Sharon K. Gilbert / Whitaker House Publishers

After her father dies suddenly, Dr. Maggie Taylor receives a mysterious package with a message of universal doom. Confronted by a vast conspiracy to destroy the world, Maggie must discover the link between her father's dying, the deaths of two dozen other scientists---and the secret BioStrain weapon. Will she find the truth in time? 302 pages, softcover from Whitaker.