DWD's Reviews

Fun and you just might learn something. Narrated by Tom and Ray Maggliozzi Duration: 3.5 hours. Publisher: HighBridge Audio Tom and Ray Maggliozzi's car repair show, Car Talk , has been a NPR staple for years now. The show features the two wise-cracking brothers as they field questions about cars and car repairs from all over the country. Car Talk Classics: The Pinkwater Files features four complete shows from the mid-1990s that featured phone calls from author and NPR commentator Daniel Pinkwater. Pinkwater's sense of humor is different than the Maggliozzi brothers, but they roll with him quite well and those four phone calls are the highlight of the collection. Pinkwater never really has a question for the brothers but instead offers his observations concerning his struggles with getting a car that fits his stocky build, how to know when your dog is going to throw up in your car and the Theory of Displaced Misery (this theory states that a person can only have so m...

A smart spy thriller Read by Simon Vance Duration: 12 hours, 15 minutes Daniel Silva 's Portrait of a Spy features Israeli master spy Gabriel Allon, now semi-retired and living and working in rural England as a restorer of paintings. Europe is suffering a wave a suicide bombings. While in London on business he spots a suicide bomber on his way to blow himself up in a London open-air area of markets and restaurants. He steps in with his weapon but is stopped by UK agents that think that he is the threat and the bomber detonates himself. Allon is told to walk away but he is haunted by his failure. When he is approached with the chance to infiltrate the financial network of the same terror network he leaps at the chance. This is a joint CIA/Israeli operation and the muddled politics of our current administration (make grand overtures, continue the rendition program, bomb some dictators, not others) are mirrored in this fictional administration. Silva has brought the "A...

Published in 2011 by Regnery History Regnery Publishing's newest imprint, Regnery History has found something new to tell about one of the most written-about parts of World War II: D-Day. You may ask yourself, what else can be said about D-Day that hasn't been said? We have had powerful, visceral movies like Saving Private Ryan , The Longest Day and Patton and the famed HBO series Band of Brothers . Article after article and book after book have been written about D-Day, the Battle of the Bulge and the final days of Nazi Germany but somehow we have failed to have had a serious biography of one of the invasion's central planners and one of the men who engineered the entire campaign from the beaches of Normandy until the defeat of Germany: American 5 star general Omar Bradley. The problem with Omar Bradley and historians is that he is not Patton. Patton is brash, daring and iconic. Bradley did not chase headlines and did not wear fancy pistols. He was daring, but not a...

Overreach hurts the overall argument Published in 2011 by Regnery Publishing. I feel I must establish my bona fides here. I am an Iain Murray fan. I really enjoyed his book The Really Inconvenient Truths (to see my review click here ). On my favorite quotes page on this blog, there is an Iain Murray quote (really!). But, while I am a fan, in this book, I think that Murray has made many, many valid points but overreached on others. The over-argument weakens the overall book, in my opinion. Also, in the interest of making everything clear, I have chosen to be a member of public employee union - the Indiana State Teacher Association (we choose to be a member or not in Indiana). I have actually gone to state level meetings as a representative of my local union. I have been invited multiple times to attend trainings so that I can become more involved but I have not done so due to family commitments. That being said, I can clearly see that there are tensions between being a political c...

                                      Not good. Published by MacMillan Audio in 2011 Read by Scott Sowers Duration: 15 hours, 1 minutes Unabridged Multiple Edgar Award-winning author John Hart delivers a dud with Iron House , a book with too many disparate themes, too many stereotypical storylines and characters that might have been stolen from central casting at any Hollywood B movie and with too much detail about the scenery. Combine it with an overly dramatic reading by Scott Sowers and it makes for an altogether unsatisfying audiobook experience. In Iron House we have a mafia crime boss on his death bed. His adopted son, Michael, has asked to be released from his obligations to the family business so that he might pursue a normal life with his pregnant girlfriend. But, as everyone knows, you cannot just walk away from the mafia, especially if you are known as the most effective h...

Steve Martini The book that launched the series Almost 20 years ago, the first book in the Paul Madriani series was released. Over time (and 12 books), it has morphed into less of a legal thriller series into more of an action series with a legal thriller bent to it. But, the first one is a good old-fashioned murder mystery and courtroom drama - and a surprisingly good one for a debut effort. In Compelling Evidence we are introduced to Paul Madriani, a struggling solo practice attorney who has recently left a big league law firm because he was having an affair with a senior partner's wife. In the office next door is a new friend, Harry Hinds (his law partner in later books). When that same senior partner is found dead, Martini is hired to defend the widow in a wild and wooly murder trial in which everyone seems to have a motive, including Madriani. This is truly a great legal thriller. It may very well be the best in a very solid series. It has aged very well and is ...