Posts

NATIONAL BURDEN: CORPS JUSTICE SERIES, BOOK 5 (audiobook) by C.G. Cooper

Published by Tantor Audio in 2017 Read by David Colacci Duration: 8 hours, 17 minutes Unabridged The Corps Justice series continues its tales of SSI (Stokes Security International), a private security firm that sometimes doubles as the President's personal private paramilitary army that acts when he just can't do things politically. The President is in political trouble. There is a plot to frame the President and a very connected contact of SSI is concerned about strange movements in the stock market. So, he contacts his friends at SSI to give him a hand. And, they soon discover that things are much worse than they had ever imagined... Politics, as portrayed in this book, are just not realistic. For example, the President appoints a new Vice President (it was a vacant position) and he just goes to work as the VP. No hearings. No fuss. No muss. No Congressional approval (as required by the 25th Amendment). Imagine all of the squabbling and all of the controversy that wo

THE OTHER WES MOORE: ONE NAME, TWO FATES (audiobook) by Wes Moore

Image
I Blasted Through this Audiobook. Published by Random House Audio in 2010. Read by the author, Wes Moore. Duration: 6 hours, 12 minutes Unabridged Wes Moore, the author of this book, is originally from a tough Baltimore neighborhood. His family struggled with loss, poverty, his neglect of his own education and rebellious flirtation with crime. But, he "made it", eventually becoming a Rhodes Scholar, have a career in international finance (which was interrupted when he volunteered to serve as a paratrooper in Afghanistan), and now heads two educational foundations, writes articles and makes political commentary. One day, Moore was sent an article about another young man from Baltimore also named Wes Moore. The other Wes Moore is a convicted murderer and is serving time in prison. This prompted the author to reach out to the other Wes Moore and eventually write this dual biography about how they both ended up in two very different places. It is not a judgmental book.

THE STATE of JONES: THE SMALL SOUTHERN COUNTY that SECEDED from the CONFEDERACY by Sally Jenkins and John Stauffer

Image
Published by Random House Audio in 2009 Read by Don Leslie Duration: 13 hours Unabridged Newton Knight (1837-1922) I am an avid reader of Civil War era histories (I own more than 100 and who knows how many that I have read from the library) and it is rare for me to find a book that covers new territory for me. This book did. I knew as an abstract fact that there were thousands of white Union soldiers that came from the Confederacy. They are mentioned in many histories, but they are rarely a focus. The State of Jones focuses on the family of Newton Knight, an unwilling Confederate soldier who was forcibly drafted, fought in multiple battles and eventually went AWOL.  Newton Knight was not afraid to fight and kill for what he believed in. When the government tried to force him back into the military he  started an anti-Confederate insurgency movement centered in Jones County, Mississippi. Those renegades tied up Confederate military assets and virtually stopped in-kind tax

BECAUSE I SAID SO!: THE TRUTH BEHIND the MYTHS, TALES and WARNINGS EVERY GENERATION PASSES DOWN to ITS KIDS (audiobook)by Ken Jennings

Image
  Published in 2012 by Tantor Audio Duration: 5 hours, 2 minutes Read by the author, Ken Jennings Unabridged Ken Jennings takes his famous encyclopedic knowledge of trivia that served him so well on Jeopardy and applies it to 125 bits of folk wisdom that we've all heard of the years that we all know but never really think about, let alone question. Do you really need to wait an hour after eating before you swim? Will your eyes really freeze that way? Do you really need to drink 8 glasses of water or will you ruin your eyesight if you read in low light? Ken Jennings does the research and finds the answers in a short, succinct and sometimes snarky fashion. I am only rating this audiobook 4 stars rather than 5 for one reason - the narrator. The author, Ken Jennings, read the book himself and there is always a danger when an author reads his or her own book rather than hiring a professional.  It must be great to keep it all "in house" but there's a reason why most

PARADISE VALLEY: A NOVEL (Cassie Dewell #4) by C.J. Box

Image
Published by Macmillan Audio in July of 2017 Read by Christina Delaine Duration: 10 hours, 6 minutes Unabridged Cassie Dewell moved to North Dakota in her last book, one of the few experienced police officers in an oil boom town. The boom has mostly died down now, with the drop of petroleum prices but it is still a much busier place than it was before the boom. The local sheriff is pondering retirement and wants Cassie Dewell to replace her. But, Dewell has other goals - and one of them is the pursuit of the serial killer known as the Lizard King. He is a long haul trucker who specializes in killing truck stop prostitutes (known as "lot lizards", thus the serial killer's nickname). He was also part of a conspiracy that resulted in the death of her mentor and partner, Cody Hoyt and nearly killed her. Dewell has a plan to capture this serial killer - a plan that is not officially on the books with the department. But, when the trap is finally sprung, things go side

IS SCIENCE RACIST? (DEBATING RACE) by Jonathan Marks

Image
Published by Polity in March of 2017. If you have ever had the misfortune to run across one of the alt-right's pseudo-scientific webpages that discuss the genetics of race and how science proves one race is smarter/better/nicer/whatever than other races you will see the need for this book. Sadly, an author I used to Tweet back and forth with a little re-Tweeted some posts from one of these sites and I got my fill of them during one long evening. They are the internet's version of those young men marching in Charlottesville with the white polo shirts and khaki pants. Like those men, on the surface these sites were pleasant enough until you pay attention to what was being said. They wrap themselves in pseudoscience that, unfortunately, is twisted around to sound reasonable. It is these types of people that Jonathan Marks is talking about when he notes: "Every science has had its own set of ethical issues - chemistry and poison gas; physical anthropology and grave-robb