DWD's Reviews

Read by David Stuart. Duration: 8 hours, 27 minutes While not as action-packed as The Last Detective (which follows Indigo Slam in the series, but I've not read a single one of them in order so why start now?), this is a strong book. Lots of smart comments, action and twists and turns, although the very last twist was so obvious that only the clinically brain dead couldn't see it coming. But, that didn't lessen the overall value of the book for me. Elvis is hired by a group of children who have been living on their own for a while to find their missing father. As the investigation progresses, Cole and his enigmatic partner Joe Pike get caught up in the Witness Protection Program, a counterfeiting ring, a crime syndicate and all sorts of other incidents of violence and mayhem. Cole's deep down soft heart and his smart mouth are, of course, an enjoyable part of the story. The audiobook is read by David Stuart who captures the voice of Elvis Cole perfectly. ...

Jack Arute (center)  joking with Tony Kanaan Jack Arute's first Indy 500 was in 1969 as an 18-year-old spectator. His family owns a track in the Northeast and racing is in his blood. His dad passed down a love for the Indy 500 in particular. In Jack Arute's Tales from Indy 500 , Arute only tells stories from 1969 to the present (2004 in the hardback version, 2005 in the paperback version). Nothing too complicated and a real fun read, especially if you want to re-live some of the more exciting, interesting and sad moments from the last 35 years or so. I'd recommend the paperback version over the hardback since it has been expanded to include the 2005 race - the race where Danica Patrick became a household name. This is a quick read - I finished it in just one evening, but to be fair, I did read into the wee hours of the morning because the stories were that much fun. I rate this book 4 stars out of 5. This book can be found on Amazon.com here: ...

A must for Indy 500 fans Part of a series of DVDs produced by the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, this collection reviews all of the races from 1970-1979, including A.J. Foyt's famed and unprecedented fourth win. The collection features original TV & radio commentary, sound and video and lots of interviews with the drivers. Some of the interviews are from the 1970s and some are from nowadays looking back. Janet Guthrie Indianapolis 500: (The 70's A decade Of Legends) Collectors Edition is more than mindless promotion of the race - the lowlights (1973) are exposed along with the controversy associated with the arrival of Janet Guthrie, the first female participant in the 500. Changes with racing technology is highlighted throughout. DVD features include collecting all of the bits and pieces of interviews with several drivers and some owners and adding a few bonus bits. Rick Mears and Roger Penske are especially strong interviews. Well done. 5 stars ou...

An Impressive Amount of Research Jonah Goldberg The traditional left-right concept of political beliefs is incorrect. Understanding this is key to understanding Goldberg's thesis that modern liberalism is the intellectual heir to Rousseau's ideas, the French Revolution and is, at the very least, the intellectual cousin to both fascism (especially Italian Fascism) and Soviet Communism. To fully understand this you have to understand that measuring political philosophy with a one-dimensional left-right line lack the depth to measure both social and economic political philosophies. A quadrant map used to measure political beliefs will more accurately show depth of support for government involvement in economic issues, political rights and social issues. Anarchists lie at the edge of one quadrant, Libertarians a little more toward the center of that same quadrant but totalitarians lie in the opposite corner. Search the web to discover more about the grid concept for yours...

  Important information but not well-presented Mark Steyn I am a genuine fan of Mark Steyn. I am a frequent reader of National Review and his "Happy Warrior" column is what I read first. I picked this book up as a result of listening to a half-hour interview with him on my local radio station. I picked it up less than 4 hours after hearing him. The information in America Alone: The End of the World as We Know It is important, but the presentation is lacking. Steyn repeats himself so often that, if properly edited, this book would only have about 50 pages. Steyn writes brilliant columns. This book reads like a series of columns that overlap information, commentary and theme and was not up to the standards that I expected. Steyn has done a lot of research, includes dozens and dozens of quotes and paraphrasing. However, he includes absolutely no endnotes, no footnotes, heck, he doesn't even include a bibliography! C'mon, Mark, I expect my t...

Read by John MacDonald Duration: 6 hours, 35 minutes Tony Hillerman (1925-2008) Talking God is good, but not the typical Tony Hillerman book. Rather than being based in the Four Corners area, this one mostly takes place in Washington, D.C. Navajo Tribal Police Lt. Joe Leaphorn and Jim Chee investigate a body found in Gallup, New Mexico. Some digging into the case discovers a trail that leads to the Smithsonian in Washington, D.C. and Navajo artifacts that are on display there. It is interesting to see D.C. through Navajo eyes, but we do spend a lot of time in the mind of the bad guy as well, which is to the detriment of the story in my mind. Chee's personal life features prominently as he re-connects with his on again-off again love interest Janet Pete, who is now an attorney in D.C. Leaphorn's painful loneliness and a general feeling of loss pervades throughout the book. I would have rated the book as four stars, but I am reviewing the audiobook. My audio...

A must for Indy 500 fans Part of a series of DVDs produced by the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, this collection reviews all of the races from 1980-1989. The collection features original TV & radio commentary, sound and video and lots of interviews with the drivers and owners. Some of the interviews are from the 1980s and some are from nowadays looking back. 1988 Indy 500: all Penske front row (Mears, Sullivan, Big Al) Indianapolis 500: (The 80's) A decade for The Ages is more than mindless promotion of the race - the lowlights (1981 and the ridiculous court case that determined the winner) are exposed as well. Changes with racing technology is highlighted throughout. DVD features include collecting all of the bits and pieces of interviews with several drivers and some owners and adding a few bonus bits. Rick Mears, Roger Penske and Tom Sneva are especially strong interviews. Another nice feature is the inclusion of an uninterrupted highlight reel o...

    A NASCAR legend deserves better Cale Yarborough's famed 28 car in the 1980s Published in 2008 by Triumph Books. Cale Yarborough is a living symbol of NASCAR from its beginnings to the very creation of the dizzying heights that it has achieved nowadays. Sadly, most of the Johnny-Come-Lately fans have no idea, or at best, only a very dim idea who he is. Sadly, this biography of Cale Yarborough, They Call Him Cale: The Life and Career of NASCAR Legend Cale Yarborough , only covers half of his career. Indeed, most of the book covers his life before NASCAR. There are only 203 pages in this biography and he joins NASCAR full-time on page 169. Considering that the last 11 pages discusses his retirement years, that leaves 23 pages to discuss his amazing run of 3 championships in a row, the famous fistfight at the 1979 Daytona 500, his decision to run a partial schedule for more than 7 years and his 11 year stint as team owner (just 5 pages for that). The book...

A very short short story Dayle A. Dermatis' What Dragons Prefer is a Kindle "freebie"from Amazon.com, at least it is at the time of this review. If it were printed in book form it would be 5 pages or less, I am sure. The plot revolves around a "dragonseeker," a woman who was brought to a small town to deal with a dragon that lives nearby. The dragonseeker knows how to get rid of a dragon, if necessary, but her expertise is really knowing about dragons - how often they eat, what they eat and what they really like. The mayor of the town is a horrible, lecherous man and once his boorish ways get to be too much for the dragonseeker, she turns the tables. The story in and of itself is quite easy to read but it telegraphs its punch line early on. It's satisfying, but not overly so. I rate this story 3 stars out of 5. This short story can be found on Amazon.com here: What Dragons Prefer . Reviewed on July 29, 2011.

Funny story with a grisly ending. Read by the author, Stephen King Duration: 1 hour. Stephen King Read by Stephen King at a live performance in the UK, LT's Theory of Pets is an entertaining short story about a couple with two pets - a cat and a dog - and what the fact that family pets tend to actually prefer one member of the family over the others. LT is a friend of the narrator of the story - they work at the same packing plant in Iowa. LT's wife left him nearly a year before and LT has become quite adept at telling the story of how his wife left him and why she took their dog with her and left the cat with him. LT's telling of the story is quite funny. His wife's "Dear John" note she left him on the refrigerator the night she left him has to be the funniest Dear John note ever written. LT's observations about pets and married life are quite funny. The end of the story has a hurried feel to it. King prefaces the story with a short intr...

While it does not feature any factual errors, you start to wonder... ...is this a book that really had to be written? Published in 1992 by Squire Boone Village I know that the top-rated, best-selling history authors depend a lot on writers like W. Fred Conway in order to get the more popular, wider-audience histories written. Why? Because Conway is a fan of Indiana history and he has done a lot of research that people like James McPherson would never have time to do simply out of a love for his local area. This is one of the many books he has written about Indiana, Kentucky and/or Ohio and life along the Ohio River. Conway knows his stuff but... Boyhood of Lincoln by Eastman Johnson, 1868 Well, I am also a proud son of the Hoosier state and I found Young Abe Lincoln: His Teenage Years in Indiana to be more than a little pointless. The important facts could have been written in about 10 pages, maybe less. A little more than 5% of the book is the hopeful reminiscings...

Reviewed by a history teacher seeking reading material for his classes I picked up No Promises in the Wind without much in the way of expectations since I am not that big of fan of Irene Hunt's most famous novel for the younger set, Across Five Aprils . However, I am pleased to say that this is a much better book. No Promises In The Wind is about two brothers who leave home during the Great Depression simply because there is not enough money at home to buy enough food to feed everyone. They head off from Chicago with no plan except to try to survive as best as they can. A soup line during the Great Depression As a teacher, what I like best about this book is its portrayal of the complete and utter economic collapse that the Great Depression entailed. Most students have no conception as to the breadth and depth of the Great Depression. By looking at this small family, readers gain an inkling as to what went on. Modern readers might question why this fami...

A different look at our most written-about  president Duration: 42 minutes Produced by Teaberry Tapes Everyone knows the facts about Lincoln - the 16th president, the Civil War, the Emancipation Proclamation, the Gettysburg Address, his assassination. But, do you really know Lincoln?  This CD offers a completely different look at the myth that the man has become by offering a look at his humorous side. Lincoln was a master storyteller and he often told his stories to prove a larger point. There are plenty of those types of stories on this CD.  Sometimes he just told stories to disarm an audience - the editor of this collection notes that Stephen Douglas feared the ability of Lincoln's homespun humor to win a crowd more than his arguments. Lincoln's stories were known to persuade juries and sometimes they were just for fun. His wife noted that Lincoln's sense of humor - his quick smile and laughing eyes were never present in his photographs - he always looked so sol...

Goldberg takes aim - both left and right (but mostly at the left) Just so you know, I was officially tired of the Coulter / Moore slamfest format about two years ago and I went cold turkey for quite a while. Mostly, they end up being long lists of high crimes and misdemeanors committed by the other side and while that is interesting it also starts to get silly after a while. Does either party or any party have a perfect record? No. Both have loudmouths and losers that shoot off their mouths and write insane things. I'm a Republican and there are Republicans that I would just as soon sit down and shut their mouths - they've said enough idiotic things to last a lifetime - let someone else have a chance! Bernard Goldberg Now, Goldberg is in a different class (mostly) from the partisan bashers. He avoids the acid comments (a la Coulter, Savage, Franken, Moore) and he really knows how to write. Bias and Arrogance are the reason I picked this one up - they ...

Lord Byron as a vampire Performed by Richard E. Grant Duration: 3 hours Lord Byron (1788-1824) I picked up this audiobook version of Lord of the Dead: The Secret History of Byron because I very much enjoyed Holland's non-fiction book about the end of the Roman Republic, Rubicon: The Last Years of the Roman Republic . I am not particularly a fan of vampire books nor of Lord Byron (who I can believe was a vampire considering the level of his debauchery and self-absorption) but I decided to give Tom Holland another try and trust that he would make it interesting. The abridgment of the book contributed to my enjoyment, I am sure. There were many long stretches that were so bloated by flowery speeches, especially in the first hour or so of the audiobook, that I probably would have bailed on an unabridged version of the book. However, the last two hours were so interesting and so well-performed by Richard E. Grant that I had to bump the score up to 4 stars. The r...

"There's nothing as mighty as this in the world." - Nigel Mansell, F1 champion, Indy 500 driver Part of a series of DVDs produced by the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, Indianapolis 500 (The 90's) Collector's Edition reviews all of the races from 1990-1999. The collection features original TV & radio commentary, sound and video and lots of interviews with the drivers. Some of the interviews are from the 1990s and some are from nowadays looking back. The video is more than mindless promotion of the race - the lowlights (poor officiating in several races, for example) are exposed along with the controversy associated with the infamous CART-IRL split. The DVD features include collecting all of the bits and pieces of interviews with several individual drivers and some owners that were in the feature and showing them in a longer format and adding a few bonus bits. The interviews highlighting many of the family connections are especially strong, a...

Good, but not great Hillerman.  The Shiprock formation in New Mexico Originally published in 1996. Joe Leaphorn has just retired and Jim Chee continues his exploration into cross-cultural dating (and difficulties). Officer Bernadette Manuelito becomes a full-fledged character in the series. In fact, this may be the best characterization of her in the series. There are actually two mysteries in The Fallen Man . One is a cattle-rustling caper. The other is the long-dead body of a climber that is found on Shiprock (Rock With Wings). If you ask, "What's a shiprock?" than you haven't been to the Four Corners area since this giant exposed interior of a volcano dominates its local landscape like some sort of gothic tower created in the imagination of Stephen King. This is not Hillerman's best work, but it is enjoyable for any fans of Hillerman. This would not be a good one to start with if you have not read any of the series. I rate this book 4 st...

Two short stories about the dark side of human nature Published in 2010 by Simon and Schuster Audio.  Read by Craig Wasson and Mare Winningham Duration: 2 hours, 40 minutes Unabridged This audiobook is actually two short stories. The first and longest story is called "Blockade Billy" read by Craig Wasson, the second is "Morality" read by Mare Winningham. **** "Blockade Billy" is the reminiscences of a retired coach of the fictional New Jersey Titans, an American League baseball team. The coach is being interviewed by a man named "Mr. King." We never hear what Mr. King asks, only the story of a former player named "Blockade Billy" as told by this old coach who lives in a retirement home. Stephen King is at his descriptive best in this story as he re-creates the world of 1957, when baseball ruled the sports pages. At times, it is like listening to Bob Costas or George Will, both writers who can wax on eloquently about this golde...

My Favorite Stephen King Story Published by Phoenix Books in 2206 Read by Eric Roberts Duration: 45 minutes. It is true that with all of Stephen King's lengthy tales, my favorites are usually the shorter ones and Quitters, Inc. is probably Stephen King's shortest story. It was originally part of his book of short stories Night Shift and was one of three stories in the 1985 movie Cat's Eye . Stephen King The premise of the story is really cleverly simple. What if you went to a non-smoking clinic that was run by the mafia? Dick Morrison meets an old friend who has kicked the smoking habit who tells him that if he visits Quitters, Inc. they will get him off cigarettes and change his life for the better. Morrison laughs off the suggestion but eventually does go for an initial consultation out of curiosity about their methods. I cannot divulge any more about this very short story without introducing spoilers except to say that their methods are anything but AMA ...

An up and down work I will admit, the title of South Park Conservatives: The Revolt Against Liberal Media Bias got my attention and it was the reason that I picked it up. For the record, I am not a big fan of South Park, but I could see where he might go with it based on my limited exposure to the series (I've seen maybe 10 episodes of the show). I was not disappointed with the "South Park" section of the book. However, that is only a small section of the book. The first 1/3 or so is your traditional "Look how they are slandering us in the media!" finger-pointing exercise that both Liberals and Conservatives use in their books. While useful for setting up the rest of his book, I could have done without it. I've been there, done that and, frankly, I am tired of it. The middle part, the part concerning Conservative comedy, such as South Park, Dennis Miller and Colin Quinn was very good. Anderson sets up the jokes so that they usually ...

A teacher's review Michael Gurian More informative than Boys and Girls Learn Differently , The Minds of Boys: Saving Our Sons From Falling Behind in School and Life is a fascinating look into the specific reasons why boys are doing so poorly in school nowadays. Very, very awful if you did not know - Boys are the overwhelming majority of special education students, are more likely to drop out, and are much less likely to attend college. Gurian's strategies to help come off as a bit vague - few concrete solutions are offered. As a teacher, I want to know what a 'boy-friendly' classroom looks like. Precious few good examples are provided. But, enough information is provided to at least alert the teacher that there is a problem and that he or she needs to be on the lookout for struggling boys. I would imagine, like most things in education, the answer is not simple and it requires quite a bit of individualization, which is difficult if, like me, you see ...