DWD's Reviews of Books, Audiobooks, Music and Video.
More than 1900 reviews over the last 23 years.
Socrates in 90 Minutes (audiobook) by Paul Strathern
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Very enjoyable short listen
Published by Blackstone Audio in 2009. Read by Robert Whitfield Duration: 90 minutes
Socrates (469-399 B.C.)
This unabridged lecture on Socrates covers all of the major aspects of the life of the famed Ancient Greek philosopher including his personal life, his military career (he served with distinction as a hoplite, the Athenian equivalent of a buck private), the sordid story of his execution by the government of Athens, his influences, who he influenced, his impact, both good and bad, on Western society and more. Throw in the entertaining (and surprisingly approachable considering it is about philosophy) text and the great delivery by narrator Robert Whitfield and this short little audiobook is a well worth listen.
Published by Hourly History in 2024. Brian Epstein was a record store owner from Liverpool that heard the Beatles play in a local club and decided that they were going to be really big and he knew how to make that happen. He asked for a meeting to discuss being their manager and about two months later they had an official deal. The young Beatles were impressed by Epstein. He dressed well, had polished mannerisms, drove a nice car, and had the most successful record store in Liverpool. Not much about Epstein's earlier ventures would have indicated that Epstein would have had any success at managing the Beatles. He was a college dropout and had bounced around from one thing to another until his father let him use part of the family store to sell records. He parlayed that into a stand-alone store and became well-known in the Liverpool music scene. To be fair, this was a different music scene than what followed from the 1970s. It was very much a bottom up industry - a band could...
Originally published by Knopf in 2009. Winston Groom will always be best known as the author of Forrest Gump , but he should be equally well known as the author of a series of well-told American histories. Included in those histories is a trilogy of Civil War histories that focus on the Western Theater of the war. Vicksburg 1863 is the second book in the trilogy, but it can be easily read as a stand-alone history. After a short introduction to the war itself, it follows Grant's campaign to take the Mississippi River away from the Confederacy, beginning with a mess of a battle in Missouri that proved nothing of any importance except that Grant was game to fight and push forward, even if the conditions were not perfect. That, it turns out, was pretty much the key to Grant's eventual success in this campaign and in the war. From there, we follow Grant through Kentucky, into Tennessee and the terrible Battle of Shiloh. Although ultimately successful, this marked a low point for Gra...
Published in January of 2025 by Hourly History. Hourly History specializes in biographies and histories that take about an hour to read. In this case, Hourly History has a history of a favorite in my household as I grew up - John Denver. The book gives a good accounting of his early life, his early struggles as a musician, and his impressive drive that just kept pushing him forward until he made it. Once he made it, there was no one bigger than John Denver - He had a series of number one songs, number one albums, multiple awards, and movies and TV show appearances. But, it all seemed to come at the expense of his personal life. This little biography covers the timeline of his life pretty well, but skimps on any sort of analysis on his uneasy position as a Country Music artist. For example, he won their official awards, but many mainstay country music artists considered him an interloper - a folk artist who was sort of assigned the title of "country artist." Still, this was a...
Published by Hachette Audio in 2007. Read by Robert Petkoff. Duration: 6 hours, 49 minutes. Unabridged . The premise of this book is very strong - what if a mafia hitman goes into witness protection, becomes a doctor in a hospital, and then runs into a former mafia colleague who has come to the hospital for a serious surgery. They recognize each other and deadly hijinks ensue. Sounds good, but the follow through leaves a lot to be desired. The main character is unlikeable almost all of the time - deeply unlikeable. The more you learn about him, the worse he gets. On top of that, the parade of horrible events that happened to him is simply ridiculous - literally stuff stolen from a Timothy Dalton James Bond movie, except even more over the top. The audiobook reader is great, but the text of the book - not so much. I rate this book 1 star out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: Beat the Reaper by Josh Bazell .
Adapted by Ryan North. Illustrated by Albert Monteys. Graphic novel published in 2020 by Archaia. Original novel published in 1969. This is my third review of Slaughterhouse-Five. I've reviewed the audiobook , the written novel , and now the graphic novel. All are different, of course. I've given 5 out of 5 stars to every version, but the graphic novel is the weakest of the three. It's a good graphic novel, but it seemed a little thin when compared to the novel. It's good for its medium. I'm not going to review the plot of one of the most famous anti-war books of the last century - it's too well-known for that. Vonnegut can be weird, but he's always approachable. He writes in an friendly, easy to follow style, no matter if it is the audiobook, the written novel, or this graphic novel. But, if the very idea of reading this book intimidates you, read the graphic novel. It hits the main plot points and it would certainly support you if you went ahead and read...
Published by Brilliance Audio in 2025. Read by Luke Daniels. Duration: 8 hours, 25 minutes. Unabridged. My synopsis: Elvis Cole is back on the case in The Big Empty . This time around he is working for a social media personality that specializes in making muffins and making people who watch the videos feel included, like they are talking to the girl next door. This social media star wants to hire Cole to figure out why her dad went missing about 10 years before. She hired an quality Private Investigations firm earlier, but the results were inconclusive. Her handlers are not enthused about reopening old wounds, but she overrules them. Cole heads out to the small town (by L.A. standards) where her father disappeared and finds lots of stuff - including people who are determined to keep the secrets of the past buried in the past... My review: This was a complicated mystery with an ending that leaves a lot of moral questions about what is best for just a few people vs. what is best for...
Multicast performance Duration: 3 hours, 25 minutes National Public Radio (NPR) has gone through its archives and pulled out almost thirty stories about World War I in honor of the 100th anniversary of the start of the war. The stories include interviews with soldiers and historians and various authors. World War I flying ace Eddie Rickenbacker (1890-1973) in his Spad plane in October of 1918. Topics include a look at pre-World War I Europe, a look at the creator of the Sopwith Camel, discussions of several battles, hand-created masks for men whose faces were damaged in the war, a mini-biography of America's famed flying ace Eddie Rickenbacker, a look at the post-war Bonus Army during the Great Depression and audio visits to several World War I museums, including one that recognizes Herbert Hoover's efforts to feed Belgium during the war (mostly forgotten in America). The audio quality of all of these stories is excellent since they were all originally broadcast o...
Good, but needed more detail Published in 1996. Thomas Sowell, a noted conservative thinker and a genuinely interesting person (I've heard him as a guest on a local radio station several times) writes an effective book against the actions of those whom he calls 'The Annointed.' The Vision of the Anointed: Self-Congratulation as a Basis for Social Policy is effective, but not a great work. Who are The Annointed ? He uses the term in a sarcastic way here to illuminate those 'Teflon prophets' (he uses that term because some of them are still considered credible despite no evidence that their predictions have ever come true) that scream doom and gloom and offer the direst of predictions unless we immediately give them the power to save us - since we are too simple to see the problem for ourselves and take the actions needed to save ourselves. Thomas Sowell It does not necessarily need to be someone with world-shaking problems, like Paul Ehrlich a...
Published in 2007. Ken Ham is a lightning rod of a figure for outspoken atheists, especially for those who use evolutionary biology as the basis for their beliefs about religion. The internet is full of attacks and counterattacks on this topic. Ken Ham gets a lot of attention from people who have really not read his work. Whether you disagree with a person or not, it makes no difference to me, but at least be somewhat familiar with the person's work before you attack it. Darwin's Plantation: Evolution's Racist Roots , in particular, has attracted some attention, mostly because of its provocative title. So, let me start this review with a general rundown about Ham's theses. Ken Ham's point in the book is this (made in this quote by a quite famous evolutionary scientist): " Biological arguments for racism may have been common before 1859, but they increased by orders of magnitude following the acceptance of evolutionary theory. " - Stephen Jay Goul...
A thriller that totally sucked me right in even though I knew I was being manipulated. Published in 2008 by Minotaur Books C.J. Box goes right for the blatantly obvious emotional heartstrings in Three Weeks to Say Goodbye , a thriller that totally sucked me right in even though I knew I was being manipulated. Jack and Melissa McGuane are the proud and loving parents of a nine month old baby girl that they adopted at birth. Everything is going well even though their budget is stretched and Jack's time is stretched with a high-pressure job. Everything is going well, that is, until Jack gets a phone call from the adoption agency they used saying that the birth father never gave up his rights (although the agency assured them that it did) and the birth father wants the baby. When the McGuanes protest they quickly discover that the baby's grandfather is a powerful federal judge who is so connected that he is on the fast track to the Supreme Court. The judge seems to be ver...
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