DWD's Reviews

Not the strongest of the series but very, very good Michael Connelly is one of the two best living detective writers, in my opinion, the other being Robert Crais. Having noted in the title for this review that this book is not the strongest in the series, I must also note that it makes this book receive a grade of merely an "A" rather than the normal "A+." Michael Connelly Bosch's books are gritty but not over the top. He is principled but not a boy scout. This particular Harry Bosch novel, City of Bones , deals with an old homicide uncovered in the hills surrounding Los Angeles. Bosch finds romance, has a major career shift and it has a surprise ending. No other plot details to avoid spoilers. You can join the Bosch novels at any point but I'd recommend starting at the beginning. I rate this book 5 stars out of 5. This book can be found on Amazon.com here: City of Bones by Michael Connelly . Reviewed on May 3, 2009.

Oh, how I wanted to be able to recommend this book! As a history teacher I often decry the politically and factually correct, but dreadfully dry and boring history textbooks. I was hoping that this book, The Dangerous Book of Heroes , could be a popular antidote and a return to the famous Landmark books series that I grew up reading. Mostly, A Dangerous Book of Heroes is just that - a collection of biographies - some just a few pages, some longer. They are illustrated with the same kind of line drawings that I remember from the Landmark books. But, this book does have a danger to it, and not the tongue-in-cheek kind suggested by the title. The publisher has declared that it's target audience is 18 years old and above. If this was truly was aimed at high school seniors and college students, we have become an illiterate society indeed. Not that this book is horrible, it is just simplistic. College students should be reading real biographies, not 8 page biographical sketches ...

A prototype of the current crop of approachable books on economics 12.5 hours 10 CDs Read by James Adams Free To Choose: A Personal Statement is the manifesto on the power of capitalism and freedom (and how they go hand in hand) that was designed to be read, digested and discussed by the common man, not the economist. In fact, this is the book that was designed as a follow-up companion to a 10 part PBS mini-series that fleshed out the ideas in the series and addressed issues and further questions that came up in the making of the television program. Listening to Free to Choose as an audiobook is sort of ironic since the Friedman's mention that the book is a superior form for deep thinking on these topics because the reader is able to re-read passages, turn down pages and compare passages at will. Try that with an audiobook, especially with the relatively unsophisticated CD player in my car! Milton Friedman won the Nobel Prize for economics in 1976 (he a...

LeVar Burton creates the framework for an epic yet... Read by LeVar Burton Approximately 3 hours ...he fails to follow through. Have you ever read a book in which the author takes a premise that would, at most, fill about 150 pages and yet he or she stretches it out to 400 pages? This is not one of those books. Aftermath has the opposite problem - an awful future is described and peopled. The cure for cancer and brain disorders is discovered, stolen and recovered with lots of gunfights, chases, psionic warfare, attempted child rapes, attempted suicides, kidnappings galore, slavery and people being skinned alive. However, none of it is fleshed out - we are left with the skeleton of an epic story - a framework of what could have been. Think Stephen King's The Stand told in less than 300 pages. I just wish he'd added more. LeVar Burton I am reviewing this as an abridged audiobook (no doubt the abridgment is part of the problem as well. Too often, too much is ...

Published in 2002 by Berkley It's a collection, and like all collections Alternate Gettysburgs suffers from the fact that it was written by a dozen different authors. Some are very good, most are decent. Two are awful. The gimmick in this alternative history is, of course, 'What if the Battle of Gettysburg had turned out differently?' It is inspired by this Faulkner quote: Confederate Major General George Pickett (1825-1875) 'For every Southern boy fourteen years old, not once but whenever he wants it, there is the instant when it's still not yet two o'clock on that July afternoon in 1863, the brigades are in position behind the rail fence, the guns are laid and ready in the woods and the furled flags are already loosened to break out and Pickett himself with his long oiled ringlets and his hat in one hand probably and his sword in the other looking up the hill waiting for Longstreet to give the word and it's all in the balance, it hasn't happ...

This Edgar Award nominee does it again! Nancy Pickard I've regularly read Nancy Pickard's 'Jenny Cain' series and have been heartened by the growth I've seen in her work. Pickard's detective stories have slowly been growing in power and complexity. This novel, however, may very well mark Pickard's arrival as a true master of the detective story. I admit that I have not read another of this series, but I was struck by its simple cleverness. The writer of a 'true crime' novel becomes unnerved by doubts concerning the outcome of the trials and criminals that she has recently written about. Her own private investigation, interspersed with chapters from her recently completed 'true crime' book that fill the reader in on the back story, causes a great deal of distress and irritation among both the police and the real criminals. Very well done. Very clever. I'll be looking for more in the series. I rate this book 5 star...

An interesting piece of history Winston Churchill (1871-1947) Note: this is not written by "THE" Winston Churchill. This one was written by an American novelist and essayist with almost the same name who lived from 1871-1947. Sir Winston Churchill signed his works Winston S. Churchill in order to differentiate between the two. The essay is inspired by a 1917 visit to the battlefields of Europe during World War I. Churchill's essay is an interesting bit of history in that it appeals to old ideals of the old Progressives of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. There are many comments that hold to all of the hallmarks and ideals of the movement, including an obsessive faith in science and psychology (line 200) and a belief that human nature is basically good but just needs to be re-educated (line 228). He advocates a new political party based on the teachings of modern social science (line 290), a centralized economy in order to be more efficient ...

Lackluster characters hurt a very interesting premise Read by David Colacci Published by Tantor Media, November 2010. Duration: 9 hours, 56 minutes, Unabridged. Ultra-prolific author Alan Dean Foster introduces yet another series with The Human Blend , the first installment of a trilogy set in a relatively near-future Savannah, Georgia. In this interesting new world the direst predictions about global warming have come true. America’s southern states have become near-tropical. Flooding ocean waters have buried coastal cities, forced them to move onto stilts or have caused cities to move inland. Much of Florida is underwater, the Everglades have swallowed the rest. Political changes have swept the world as well. The United States is now part of a larger country called Namerica. Several countries in Asia are equal to, if not more important than Namerica. The moon, Mars and Jupiter’s moon Titan have been colonized as well. Alan Dean Foster But, the most important changes ar...

Decent, but not Morrell's best work The copy I have of First Blood includes an interesting forward by the author in which he discusses the Rambo phenomenon that swept the world after the Stallone movies were made. That forward was written several years ago and the Rambo legacy continues today. Just last night I saw a commercial for a Nicholas Cage movie that mentions Rambo twice. David Morrell Anyway, this is Morrell's first novel and it is not bad. Morrell tries to work in several serious themes and tries to make it a piece of really violent literature rather than settle for just a bit of escapism. In fact, this novel was used for several college and high school classes as a novel to discuss until the Rambo movie phenomenon overwhelmed the books. Even though this was regarded highly enough by some instructors to be used in the classroom, I think that it missed the mark a bit too much - the rivalry between Rambo and the sheriff was a bit too contrived and the Spe...

Great book, great movie, great story no matter the format! Originally published in 1973. The author,  William Goldman I wasn't even aware that The Princess Bride: S. Morgenstern's Classic Tale of True Love and High Adventure was even a book until I was looking through the special features on my DVD and they were speaking of the difficulties they had bringing the book to the big screen. Once I found out about the book I just had to get it! So, is it better than the movie? While I certainly enjoyed the background information on Fezzik and Inigo, this is one of the first books that I can honestly say is better as a movie. Notice, that I have given this book 5 stars, so we are distinguishing between very good and very, very good here. Still, the movie is a further abridgment of S. Morgenstern's classic tale (wink, wink) that makes the story even stronger. My edition had a wonderful new introduction the recounted some of the struggles and joys in mak...

A pleasant enough read but at times it was just 'off' The premise of Crisis on Centaurus is that the colony Centaurus is bombed by a terrorist group and approximately 1 million victims die. The planetary government is in a shambles and the Enterprise is dispatched to aid in whatever way possible. However, Enterprise is having a series of computer failures and is not up to full capacity so things get tricky for Kirk and the crew. Ferguson has written an adequate Star Trek novel - his main characters are written very solidly, but his supporting characters are rather like cardboard cutouts. The women weep and the men clench their teeth and pound their fists in anger at the news of the terrorist attack. Having the benefit of hindsight in regards to the 9/11 attacks, I found the behavior of many of the characters to have been implausible at best, including doctors taking time away from the thousands of refugee patients to tour the Enterprise and especially the Mardi Gr...

Some good thoughts but... Michael Waldman Written by a former speech writer for President Bill Clinton, A Return to Common Sense: Seven Bold Ways to Revitalize Democrac y features a series of suggestions for how to improve democracy in America. His seven suggestions are: 1. End Voter Registration as We Know It. 2. Rocking the Vote. (issues such as voter ID, changing election day, changing the primary system.) 3. Stop Political Hacking. (use electronic voting machines but with scan-tron type backups.) 4. Campaign Finance Reform (public financing based on the NYC model) 5. Gerrymandering (stop the creation of "safe" districts for both Democrats and Republicans) 6. Flunk the Electoral College (recommends not changing the Constitution but rather going around it at a state level) 7. Restore Checks and Balances (more Congressional oversight of the Executive branch) I have no problem with many of these suggestions but Waldman is a bit simplistic in som...

I know I have little or nothing to add that has not already been said... ...but I'll try. First and foremost - Gates of Fire is a top-notch bit of writing. It is one of the better books that I have read and is a fantastic example of the value of historical fiction. Pressfield takes the Spartans and makes them real. He takes their struggle for independence against a world-shaking power and makes it not just an academic enterprise, but something the reader becomes invested in. He takes these names from history and makes them flesh and blood for the reader. Is that the way they really were? No. Most likely not. But, no history book can do that definitively either. This is Steven Pressfield's most popular book for a reason. He makes the Spartans and the battle between the 300 Spartans (and a few hundred other semi-professional Greek soldiers) against the Persians at the Battle of Thermopylae come to life. This battle was most recently featured in the cartoonish (bu...

2000 years in 387 pages - A great effort but somewhat unsatisfying. Published in 1997. Don't get me wrong - I am came to The Middle East: A Brief History of the Last 2,000 Years as a true fan of Bernard Lewis. His book The Crisis of Islam: Holy War and Unholy Terror was one of the more thought-provoking books I read last year. However, this book is quite different than 'Crisis'. It's scope is massive, and it is a history book rather than a work of examination and informed conjecture. Lewis addresses these shortcomings in his introduction and admits that it will be a difficult undertaking to do it well. He acknowledges that whatever format he chooses to cover this history, it will be unsatisfying for some. I give him credit for doing it well, but not as great as the other books and articles of his that I've read. Bernard Lewis The book is broken up into three general sections. The first is a general overview of the Middle East over the last 2,...

A fascinating read How to Break a Terrorist: The U.S. Interrogators Who Used Brains, Not Brutality, to Take Down the Deadliest Man in Iraq is a fascinating must-read for anyone who is interested in the war on terror. I was handed this book by a friend and I assumed it was going to be a typical anti-war screed that demands that terrorists be "understood" and coddled. There is also little fear of coddling with Alexander. He is repulsed and haunted by the senseless butchery that went on in Iraq and was sickened by those that were willing to kill innocents with suicide bombings. Alexander's techniques only prove that his eyes were strictly on the goal - stop Zarqawi. Alexander's techniques are hardly "touchy-feely" - in a way they are a form of psychological trickery. He fools his interview targets into giving him the information he wants and then exploits their trust. It is also the type of technique that any regular viewer of TV detective shows see ev...

It started out so strong but... David Ignatius The Increment started out so strong, the characters were so strong, the plot was crisp and the whole thing just felt right. The plot centers around two characters. One is an Iranian nuclear scientist that is disillusioned with the Iranian regime. The other character is a veteran CIA chief - the head of the Iranian desk. Like I said, the book starts out very strong. I was intrigued by the characters, the situation and the back story of the two main characters. By the end of the first page I was convinced I was reading a 5 star book. But, the characters started to change. They started acting differently. For example, the head of the CIA is a retired Admiral. He comes off as a principled, with-it kind of leader who is just out of his element when he's not commanding a ship. Fine. Later on, he has multiple scenes in which he just plays with toy ships rather than making decisions. He goes from being a leader to ...

The commentary is actually more interesting than the story Mark Twain (1835-1910) Literary critic Edward Wagenknecht called 1601 "the most famous piece of pornography in American literature." Just to be clear, it's not really pornography, at least not by modern standards. Rather, it's a short story featuring Queen Elizabeth I, Ben Jonson, Beaumont, Shakespeare, the Duchess of Bilgewater, Sir Walter Raleigh and a few other people all in a closet talking about passing gas and sex. Sound strange? Well, it is and only so-so funny. 3/4 of this download is a fairly interesting commentary on the history of the story and about the characters. We learn that Twain wrote this as a diversion after the publication of Tom Sawyer (while he was working on Huckleberry Finn) during a time of writer's block. Twain showed it to some friends who published a few copies and then it snowballed. Twain's 1601 went "viral" before there was an intern...

Recommended for middle schoolers through adults    Limiting The House of the Scorpion to a young adult audience is a disservice to the book and to the themes it brings up. This would be a fantastic book for an adult discussion group - there are so many themes and controversial topics that a group could discuss for hours and hours. Nancy Farmer That being said, I nearly quit listening to this audiobook after the first hour. It was sooooo slow to get started. On top of that, it was often dark and opressive. However, after the character Tam Lin comes in to the story the whole book changes and you would have had to fight me to get me to give the book up. By the time the end came around I felt like I had lived a life with Mateo and was thoroughly satisfied. So, what kind of themes are there? Well, this book, in my opinion, points out the dangers that many of the more Conservative thinkers warn us about with our current policies towards bio-technology and,...