DWD's Reviews

Published in 2018 by Convergent Books. Let me address the title of I'm Still Here: Black Dignity in a World Made for Whiteness for all of you that will get hung up on the word "whiteness." Let me use a rough analogy to explain it. I am an overweight person. I used to be even more overweight (I have lost 85 pounds). I weighed enough that I had to buy almost all of my clothes online or in special stores. Most major chains literally sold nothing that would fit me. Certain brands make it very clear that they refuse to make clothes for heavy people because they don't want them wearing their brand. Once, I had a salesperson yell at me from across her empty mall store when she saw me walk in that they didn't carry my size (I was looking for something for my daughter). The normal (easy to find, available everywhere) clothing world was not made for me. I was living in a world designed for thinner people. The author, Austin Channing Brown This is how the author,  A...

A Review of the Audiobook Published by Books in Motion in 2015 Read by Beth Richmond Duration: 11 hours, 40 minutes Unabridged This is my eleventh Posadas County mystery. I have been with Bill Gastner when he was on patrol, when he was being lowered into a mine to find a kidnapper, when he was fighting a man in a little plane and through a whole lot of extra-spicy burritos. Sadly, Bill is a minor character in this book. I understand why - when the series started out he was already old for a sheriff. Now, he's retired and really can't go out and fight bad guys so much. Estelle Reyes-Guzman and Bob Torres carry the load in this book. I enjoyed the Torres story line, but found the Reyes-Guzman story line to be poorly paced and exceptionally wordy (never a problem with Torres since he famously says as little as possible). The Reyes-Guzman story line features a former resident of a Mexican border town that has spent most of his adult life in prison. This character speaks ...

A Review of the Audiobook. Published by HarperAudio in 2017. Read by Bahni Turpin Duration: 11 hours, 40 minutes Unabridged Starr Carter lives two lives. She is an African American high school junior that lives in a rough African American neighborhood. Her best friend was killed in front of her, accidentally caught up in a drive-by shooting, so Starr's parents drive her 45 minutes (one way) out to a "white" school out in the suburbs for her own safety.  She works in her neighborhood, at her father's store, on the weekends but she feels like she doesn't really live there. Most people don't even know her real name - they know here as "King's daughter that works in the store." She feels like no one at her school knows her either - she speaks differently, acts differently and cares about different pop culture things. She has a white boyfriend - a fact she hides from her father. On a Friday night Starr goes to a massive party in her neighbor...

Published by Macmillan Audio in 2017 Read by the author, Gail Saltz Duration: 8 hours, 18 minutes Unabridged Psychiatrist Gail Saltz looks at the larger categories of "brain differences", such as dyslexia, depression and ADD in this interesting audiobook. This is a surface-level look at these brain differences (it comes out to a little more than an hour per difference she discusses - you can't expect any more than surface-level discussion), but informative nonetheless. Considering that the average person probably has no knowledge of any of these differences or, at best, a great deal of knowledge of one or two of the seven she discusses, this book serves as an excellent introduction. Dr. Gail Saltz. Photo by Sigrid Estrada Each chapter starts with a description of each of the brain differences including physical differences, if any. Saltz also introduces the reader to two or three high-achieving people with these differences. Some are celebrities, some are not. ...

Published by Gildan Media, LLC in 2012 Read by Sean Pratt Duration: 18 hours, 54 minutes Unabridged James Oakes takes a unique look at the Civil War in this history - through the lens of the anti-slavery movement. I have read more than 200 Civil War histories and almost all of them cover this part of the story - but, just in bits and pieces. Oakes looks at the anti-slavery movement from its roots in the Revolutionary War era and moves forward with the different Abolitionist arguments until they finally stumbled upon the concept of "freedom national". The argument is over the standard, default setting of the slavery issue. Was slavery legal everywhere, except where it was specifically abolished, or was it illegal everywhere, except for where it was specifically made legal? Or, in shorthand - was it "freedom national" or "slavery national"? This book puts the lie to the idea that the Civil War was over taxes, tariffs or anything else but slavery. Th...