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SLEEPYHEAD (Tom Thorne #1) (audiobook) by Mark Billingham

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Originally published in 2001. Published HighBridge Audio in 2013. Read by Simon Prebble Duration: 10 hours, 32 minute s Mark Billingham's Sleepyhead  is set in London and features a serial killer with a twist. Rather than actually trying to kill his victims, the attacker is trying to paralyze them by pinching a spot in their neck for nearly two minutes in an attempt to cause a stroke in the victim's brain stem. The result, if done right, is a person who cannot do anything more than blink even though their brain is entirely functional. This is difficult and the result has been a slew of dead young women and one "successful" victim who is forced to breathe on a ventilator in a hospital. Thanks to the inspired work of a coroner, the local police know what the attacker is trying to do - but they have no idea how to stop him. The star of the investigation is Detective Inspector Tom Thorne, a troubled middle-aged cop with his own demons. Due to a past failure, Tho

THE MEN WHO UNITED the STATES: AMERICA'S EXPLORERS, INVENTORS, ECCENTRICS and MAVERICKS and the CREATION of ONE NATION, INDIVISIBLE (audiobook) by Simon Winchester

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Published in 2013 by Harper Audio Read by the author, Simon Winchester Duration: 13 hours, 33 minutes Simon Winchester's sprawling book, The Men Who United the States , tells a history of the United States organized around five themes: Wood, Earth, Water, Fire and Metal. To be honest, I largely ignored the themes and just enjoyed listening to this magnificent, chaotic, rambling history. Starting roughly with Lewis and Clark (Winchester backtracks a lot), the story of America is told through the tales of the people that made America a more perfect union through their explorations or their inventions. The reader (or listener if you are enjoying the audiobook) is told about Lewis and Clark and the Pony Express and the invention of the telegraph, the first transcontinental rail line, the exploration of the Grand Canyon, the role of New Harmony (Indiana) in the study of American geography,  a con game involving jewels, how George Washington toured the Frontier before he b

SURVIVAL of the NICEST: HOW ALTRUISM MADE US HUMAN and WHY IT PAYS to GET ALONG by Stefan Klein

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Published in 2014 by The Experiment German science writer Stefan Klein looks into the concept of altruism vs. egocentrism and the current thinking behind why people act altruistic or egocentric. This has been a popular topic in many news reports as the idea of a "stingy gene" or a "sharing gene" is discussed.  Of course, the idea of a single stingy or sharing gene is simplistic, but Klein does spend a lot of time discussing altruistic behaviors and egocentric behaviors and why people actually act as altruistic as they do, even going so far as to donate money to people they will never meet in countries they will never go to. Why is that? Klein reports that the current thinking is that simple Darwinian competition is too simplistic to explain altruistic behavior - giving away resources or time that could be used to raise one's own offspring makes no sense in a simple Darwinian worldview. But, when you move out a little bit and look at groups of people an

RUNAWAY HEART (audiobook) by Stephen J. Cannell

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Great Characters, Giant Plot Holes Published in 2003 by Sound Library (BBC Audiobooks America) Read by Nick Sullivan Unabridged Duration: 11 hours, 47 minutes Stephen J. Cannell (1941-2010) was best known as a television writer, producer and the creator of such classic shows as the A-Team, The Rockford Files and The Greatest American Hero . But, late in his career Cannell also wrote a lot of novels, mostly action-based mysteries (not all that surprising considering his history in television). Runaway Heart is, in some ways, a typical Cannell story, but it does have some distinct differences. There are three main characters. The book starts with Herman Stockmire, an overweight, idealistic Los Angeles-based attorney with a bad heart (arrhythmia) who heads up a law firm called The Institute for Planetary Justice. Despite the big name, the Institute consists of Herman and his daughter Susan. Together, they go to court for all sorts of hopeless causes. They have sued mega-co

KILL DECISION by Daniel Suarez

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Great sci-fi always asks, "What if...?" and gives the reader something to think about. Published in 2012 by Dutton (Penguin Group) The premise behind Kill Decision is really quite simple: What if the concept of attack drones was re-thought a bit and instead of having them be small airplanes carrying big missiles, have them be the size of hobby-sized toy helicopters (about the size of a two year old person) and instead of spending almost $17 million per drone (according to Wikipedia) you spend just a few thousand dollars per drone and have them attack low and in close and in a swarm? Think about it. Instead of one $17 million drone that fires a missile that may or may not hit its target,  let's say you have 170 $100,000 drones that swarm over an area using facial recognition software that already exists (the government uses more advanced versions of it but you may already be familiar with the simple recognition system Facebook uses to let you tag people and your

TRUTH and DARE (short story) by Nathanael Green

Published in December of 2013 as an e-book Simon is the second least popular kid in his summer camp.  Sadly, the least popular kid in camp, Charlie Fergle, is going home and Simon knows he will be be the target of the nightly rounds of "truth or dare."  But, Simon does not want to leave his summer camp because he has met the girl of his dreams, Opal Finley. Well, he hasn't really met her properly. He has admired her from afar, he has tried to speak to her and he has failed in spectacular fashion every time. So far, this makes TRUTH and DARE sound like a horrible short story, but it is actually very funny and very sweet.  This is my first short story by Nathanael Green, but I can guarantee it won't be my last. I rate this short story 5 stars out of 5. This story can be found on Amazon.com here: Truth and Dare by Nathanael Green. Reviewed on January 25, 2014