DWD's Reviews

Published by Beacon Press in May of 2018. Read by Ron Butler. Duration: 11 hours, 17 minutes. Unabridged. Howard Bryant's The Heritage: Black Athletes, a Divided America and the Politics of Patriotism takes a hard look at athletes, particularly African-American athletes, using their position to make commentary of social issues. Bryant brings a wealth of experience as a sports writer for ESPN.com, ESPN the Magazine and NPR.  Tommie Smith and John Carlos in the 1968 Olympics  Bryant does not come at this topic as a person critical of athletes taking political stances. Rather, he is very much in favor of it since athletes have a very large soapbox that they can climb upon and shout from, if they chose to do so. Some have. Bryant speaks in great detail about Jackie Robinson, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Tommie Smith, John Carlos and especially Muhammad Ali. Bryant starts, oddly in my mind, with someone who was an athlete (played 15 games in the NFL in the 1920's for teams that n...

Published in 2011 by Gildan Media, LLC. Read by Grover Gardner. Duration: 14 hours, 9 minutes. Unabridged. Carthage has forever been relegated to the second fiddle of the Ancient Mediterranean world - the last power to offer the Roman Republic any sort of serious threat. The also-ran that could have been what Rome became...if only. But, unlike Rome, no one seems to know much about Carthage except for that they were a sea power, they had battle elephants and Hannibal crossed the Alps leading them in a war against Rome. Dr. Miles' effort is a bit hamstrung from the lack of original sources from Carthage itself - it was looted and destroyed at the end of the Third Punic War. But, he is able to reconstruct a history based on the writings of other countries, including such sources as the Bible, Greek and Roman histories, temples, changes in religious thought architecture and coinage.  I do appreciate how difficult this must have been, but this book often gets bogged down in mul...

Published in 2015 by Random House Audio. Read by Dick Hill. Duration: 14 hours, 3 minutes. Unabridged. Photo by DWD This is the 20th novel-length entry in the Jack Reacher series. But, readers of the series know that the books are not written in any particular order and there are a lot of short stories and novellas in the series as well. If you are trying to read everything in chronological order (from Reacher's point of view), this is entry number 37. In the middle of the night, Jack Reacher gets off of a train bound for Chicago in an small town in Oklahoma named Mother's Rest. Yes, Mother's Rest. And, no, no one seems to know why it is named that. He is immediately met by a former FBI agent turned private detective named Michelle Chang. She had initially confused him for an associate of hers that has gone missing in Mother's Rest. Reacher is intrigued by the situation (and the fact that no one in town seems to have any idea where the name came from) and starts...

The Elvis Cole novels have been coming out for 30 years and this book would be a fine place for the series to end - not that I want it to end Originally published in 2017 by G.P. Putnam's Sons Robert Crais. Photo by Mark Coggins. The Elvis Cole novels have been coming out for 30 years and this book would be a fine place for the series to end, especially considering the last 20 pages or so. Not that I want it to end - I will read them as long as Robert Crais wants to write them, but this book goes out of its way to include all of the hallmarks of an Elvis Cole novel, almost like it is going down a checklist one last time. Those items include: 1) Joe Pike is there and Joe Pike is scary, full of tech knowledge and lurks in dark places; 2) Elvis' car gets a special mention; 3) Elvis' cat is in several scenes and full of his special "charm"; 4) Elvis shows off his culinary skills; 5) Elvis does his martial arts workout; 6) Elvis goes to his office (the e...

Published in 2015 by GraphicAudio Performed by more than 25 voice actors. Duration: Approximately 5 hours. Scott Lang, better known to superhero fans as Ant-Man, has moved to New York City with his teenage daughter to take advantage of some job opportunities in the tech field. If you only know Ant-Man from the Marvel Cinematic Universe, there are a few differences in this book, but nothing that is insurmountable. Scott Lang's criminal past comes back to haunt him when a former partner in crime breaks out of prison. People connected with his conviction are dying all across the country - and the FBI thinks that Scott Lang is next. Why? Because Lang testified against him in the plea deal that turned him away from a life of crime. Lang knows that he doesn't really need police protection - after all, he is a superhero. But, he can't tell the FBI that. Meanwhile, his daughter is having typical "mean girl" problems with a classmate when it occurs to her that she ...

Published by Little, Brown and Company in 2018. Read by Christine Lakin and Titus Welliver Duration: 10 hours, 39 minutes. Unabridged. Harry Bosch is now long-retired from LAPD, but in Dark Sacred Night he continues his work as an unpaid reserve officer with the tiny San Fernando police department  (see this linked video to see the author explain the situation). He is investigating a cold case murder of the leader of a gang based in San Fernando. Bosch is determined to solve it, even if most people would just let it go because of who was killed. His motto is "Everyone Counts or Nobody Counts" - even gang leaders. But, he is also working on another, more personal case. In a previous book, Bosch broke up a prescription drug ring and met an addict who fell into addiction because she was self-medicating to kill the pain of her daughter's murder. Meanwhile, LAPD Detective Renee Ballard continues her work as an overnight detective - part of the "Late Show". She f...

First Published in 1973. Denial of Peter by Rembrandt (1606-1669) Shusaku Endo was a rare thing - a Christian from Japan. He also grew up mostly away from Japan (in China) and spent a considerable amount of his young adult life in France. When he was in Japan, he was different because of his religion. When he was in France, he was different because of his ethnicity. This re-telling of the Jesus' life emphasizes this idea of being an outsider. Jesus is never want people want him to be. John the Baptist's followers want him to continue to teach like John the Baptist. His early followers want him to perform miracles all of the time. His later followers want him to overthrow the king and drive out the Romans. Meanwhile, Jesus is teaching lessons about love and forgiveness that no one seems to want to hear. Endo's Jesus is a melancholy man - who wouldn't be when your main message is ignored and everyone wants to you be something you can't be? Endo chooses to pass ov...