DWD's Reviews

Read by Paul Boehmer 10 CDs 12 hours Gary Leger lives Massachusetts and is forced to make do with a miserable job in a plastics factory with no real prospects of doing anything but making ends meet at a job that offers little for his very active imagination. A natural athlete with no interest in sports, Gary finds solace in long walks in the woods behind his house and in his dog-eared copy of The Hobbit . While on one of these hikes, Gary sits for a bit of reading and finds himself staring at a real life pixie who shoots him with a tiny drugged arrow that causes him to faint. When he awakens he is no longer in Massachusetts – he is in the magic-filled world of Faerie. Gary finds that he has been kidnapped from his own world by a leprechaun named Mickey McMickey in order to wear the armor and carry the broken spear of a long dead human king named Cedric Donigarten in an epic quest led by a grumpy elf named Kelsenellenelvial Gil-Ravardy (but everyone refers to him by Kelsey, a f

> A good, tight story 7 CDs 8 hours, 20 minutes Read by Robert Crais , the author I am a gigantic fan of Crais' Elvis Cole novels, a series that introduced Joe Pike to the world as Cole's enigmatic, tough and very quiet partner with a soft spot for mean old cats. But, I have been reluctant to get into the Joe Pike novels due to a fear that Joe's facade would be burst wide open and mysterious Joe Pike would be laid wide open and no longer be a mystery. Not to worry. We learn more about Joe, but what makes Joe Pike tick is still a mystery. Plus, as a bonus we get a healthy serving of wise-cracking Elvis Cole throun in as a bonus to make the story even more fun.  Robert Crais The First Rule 's title comes from an Eastern European thieves code that demands that no gangster have a family so that their loyalties will never be divided (much like the story of Keyser Soze from the movie The Usual Suspects ). A friend of Pike's from his days as a mercen

Disappointing. I really enjoyed The Little Ice Age: How Climate Made History, 1300-1850 (I gave it 4 stars) . I was not thrilled with The Great Warming: Climate Change and the Rise and Fall of Civilizations (I gave it 2 stars) and I have to say that I do not care much for The Long Summer: How Climate Changed Civilization either. In fact, to be short and sweet let me suffice it to say that if you follow this link: http://dwdsreviews.blogspot.com/2010/08/great-warming-climate-change-and-rise.html and see my review about The Great Warming  and add in an extended discussion about mankind in the Ice Age you will pretty much have the substance of The Long Summer . The two books could have easily have been made into one slightly larger book. I rate this book 2 stars out of 5. This book can be found on Amazon.com here:  Reviewed on December 18, 2010. Also mentioned in this review:

While I am sympathetic to a point, Kauffman drives his point home with so much rancor and vigor that I ended up being both bored and repulsed. Bye Bye Miss American Empire takes what should have been a fun look at the various groups that want to split apart current U.S. states and/or make independent countries out of U.S. states and turns it into a long, repetitive, angry rant about American foreign policy, both Presidents Bush and the United States (indivisible, as the pledge goes) in general. Kauffman starts off on the right foot with an introduction to these various splinter groups (or groups that wish to splinter America, to be more accurate) by taking the reader to a meeting of secessionist movements from all around the country in Vermont. For me, this was the first and last enjoyable chapter. Kauffman then launches into an extended discussion of secessionist movements in America in which he "scores points" by making multiple snide comments about the Constitutio

   Very approachable history The Revolutionary Paul Revere is a great history for newbies to the Revolutionary War's history as well as a solid history for those that are more well read. Joel J. Miller begins his history with Paul Revere's father, Apollos Rivoire, a French Huegonot who fled to Boston for religious freedom as an indentured servant. Miller follows the family and weaves into the narrative the complex and often tense relationship between England and its American colonies. Despite the very informal tone of the book, this is a fairly detailed biography of America's most famous messenger, who was also a founding member of the Sons of Liberty and who personally knew John Adams, Sam Adams and John Hancock. Most people know that Revere was a silversmith, participated in the Boston Tea Party and of course the famed "Midnight Ride of Paul Revere." But, what happened after that? For most of us, Paul fades away from the history and disappears. Paul

Steve Martini gets better and better (from an occasional reader of Martini) I'm not the biggest reader of Steve Martini. I'm inclined to discount his work precisely because he is a "name brand" author. Plenty of authors that have made it to the top  start to crank out books like a factory and the quality drops and I always think that Martini will do the same. Guardian of Lies  is my fourth Steve Martini/Paul Madriani novel. I went back and checked my reviews of them. I've enjoyed them all and have been surprised by the fact that I have enjoyed them as well. I was expecting churned out novels and have always been pleasantly surprised. Steve Martini Guardian of Lies is the most ambitious Martini/Madriani novel I've read. We move from a simple courtroom case to international terrorism. Madriani gets swept along in a multi-country chase to find out the truth and to clear his own name. Along the way, he gets stalked, betrayed, nearly blown up and fra