DWD's Reviews

  This is a "best of" list based on the 87 books I read and reviewed in 2023. I do not focus on new books, so there are books on this "best of" ranging from being published in 1939 to being published in December of 2023. The titles are active links to my reviews. *** = Best of the best in that category. HISTORY/MEMOIR/BIOGRAPHY This was a tough category this year. Every one of these is excellent, but it's almost unfair to compare any book to the Pulitzer Prize winning Maus . Maus practically invented the modern genre of the graphic novel and its iconic images with the Nazis as cats and the Jews as mice are unforgettable.  *** The Complete Maus (graphic novel)  by Art Spiegelman Anne Frank's Diary: The Graphic Adaptation by Anne Frank, Ari Folman, and David Polonsky. Pathogenesis: A History of the World in Eight Plagues by Jonathan Kennedy. Che: A Revolutionary Life  (graphic novel) by Jon Lee Anderson and Jose Hernandez. Magna Carta: The Birth of Liberty

  Published in April of 2003 by  Christianaudio.com Alan Noble is a college professor and a Christian writer who writes for Christian and non-Christian publications.  He also struggles with a mental illness that he does not identify in this short book. This book is all about dealing with the depression and struggles that come with mental illness, thus the title. Noble's powerful description of overwhelming depression demonstrates that he understands the issue and how it effects people well. This is important because it shows that he is coming from a place of understanding and that is vitally important. His advice is not easy advice, but it is realistic advice. One of my relatives was advised by well-meaning church members that the best way to deal with depression and suicidal ideation was prayer for God to help with these thoughts. I cannot stress enough that this was sincerely intended to be helpful advice, it was taken as, "If you only had enough faith, God would lift this

Published in 2001 by Delacorte Press Synopsis:  Rachel lives in Australia and is a brand new graduate of high school. She is ready to head off to college but she needs a job and a place to live that is close to the university. She finds both when the enigmatic Mr. Preston offers her a place to live just a few blocks from campus in exchange for watching over a woman named Grace.  Rachel knows that Grace was brain damaged in some sort of accident, but not much more than that. Grace can walk and feed herself - but that's about all she can do. She cannot talk, she cannot bathe herself, she cannot communicate in any way. Rachel spends the night with Grace, feeds Grace and watches over her much like a nanny watches a small child. She gets time off for classes, when the nurses come for physical therapy, and when Mr. Preston comes over to spend time with Grace. My Review: The author I expected nothing from this book. Several year ago, I picked it up from a pile of books that were being shi

Originally published in 1962 Mother Night  is one of Kurt Vonnegut's (1922-2007) early novels (his third) and the first that is not a work of science fiction.  The book features Howard W. Campbell, a defendant awaiting trial in Israel for war crimes in Israel. He is wanted for being a well-known voice for the Nazis on broadcasts that he made during World War II.  Campbell freely admits that he did what they say he did, but he does have a defense - he was working as a double agent for the Americans and was passing secret messages during those broadcasts.  The book sets itself up to be a legal thriller - will the hero of the book be saved? Can he prove what he says is true? But, there's none of that in this book. Campbell probably would have been the voice of the Nazis in the broadcasts no matter if he was recruited as a spy or not? He is just a self-absorbed author of plays that was way more concerned about bedding his German wife than politics or any "trivial" things

  Published in 2023 by Little, Brown and Company in December of 2023. Read by the author, Liz Cheney. Duration: 12 hours, 14 minutes. Unabridged. Liz Cheney is most famous for two things. Pre-January 6, 2021 she was famous for being Dick Cheney's daughter and a leader of the House Republicans.  Post-January 6, 2021 Cheney is most famous for being one of the leaders of the United States House Select Committee on the January 6 Attack.  Cheney was one of the few Republicans willing to incur the wrath of Donald Trump and actually look into the role he played in the January 6 Attack. Cheney calls the book a memoir, but this is not really true. The book offers next to nothing about her childhood or her personal life. You know that she has a husband because she mentions that he helped her proofread various papers she had prepared for the committee.  Cheney starts with former President Donald Trump's election denialism immediately following the 2020 election date rather than her own li

Published by Zondervan in August of 2013. Read by Jim Davis, Michael Graham, and Ryan P. Burge. Duration: 7 hours, 3 minutes. Unabridged. America's church members are dropping out of church at a record pace - millions upon millions over the last 2 decades and, according to the stats, the only thing that will slow the pace is the fact that Christianity in America will be so much smaller that it will statistically impossible to lose so many people without completely emptying the pews. The authors started out to identify a number of things such as: a) Who is leaving - is it the old, the young, the middle-aged? b) Who is staying? c) Why are they leaving? Is it toxic politics? Sex scandals? Abuse? Lost interest? No connection? d) Will they be willing to come back? What would it take? This book draws heavily from a religious attitude survey administered by Baylor University from time to time. I recently r ead another book on Christian Nationalism that used the same surveys and these boo

  Published in November of 2023 by Little, Brown and Company. Read by Peter Giles, Titus Welliver, and Christine Lakin. Duration: 10 hours, 30 minutes. Unabridged. Synopsis: The seventh book in the Lincoln Lawyer series is also a crossover with the more prolific Harry Bosch series.  Mickey Haller is known as "the Lincoln Lawyer" because, at one point, he didn't actually have an office and he used the backseat of a Lincoln automobile as his office while he rode through LA's infamous traffic. Haller is a high profile defense attorney known for his antics and willingness to make any argument for the defense. But, lately, Haller has started his own version of the Innocence Project - he is looking for cases of truly innocent people who were mistakenly convicted. Harry Bosch is Haller's older half brother (by 15 years.) Bosch is a retired LAPD detective and has always looked at defense attorneys as slimy characters that use tricks to get the guilty people that he arres

Published by Tantor Audio in 2020. Read by Tom Parks. Duration: 6 hours, 44 minutes. Unabridged. Whitehead and Perry are the first sociologists who set out to do an in-depth study of Christian Nationalism and Christian Nationalists. Whitehead (Indiana University-Purdue University in Indianapolis) and Perry (University of Oklahoma) both hail from states where Christian Nationalism plays a strong role in the political and cultural realms. First, you need a working definition of Christian Nationalism. Whitehead describes it as:    "a cultural framework that is all about trying to advocate for a fusion between Christianity — as they define it — and American civic life." I also like this description by a completely unrelated person,  Rev. Skye Jethani :  "Christians participating in politics or influencing society with their values is NOT Christian Nationalism.  Christians believing they have a God-given right to dominate the government & society by excluding & dimin

  Originally published in book format in 2000. Published by Listening Library in 2003. Read by Trini Alvarado Duration: 4 hours, 42 minutes. Unabridged. Synopsis: Esperanza is the main character in a fictionalized version of the author's grandmother's adolescence.  In Mexico, Esperanza is the daughter of a wealthy landowner in Aguascalientes. On this ranch, life is wonderful. She has servants and attends a private school. But, life in Mexico in 1930 is fraught with danger. It is only 10 years after the 10 year long Mexican Revolution and armed bands still roam the countryside. One of these groups kills Esperanza's father and her conniving uncles take the ranch and burn the house down to make sure they keep the land.  The author, Pam Muñoz Ryan Esperanza and her mother join a family of their servants (the ranch manager, the household manager, and their son) and flee to America (California) with false paperwork. They hope to work on American farms and re-establish themselves.

  Published in 2020 by Scholastic Audio. Read by Alaska Jackson. Duration: 7 hours, 18 minutes. Unabridged. Synopsis: High School senior Liz Lighty is depending on a $10,000 music scholarship to be able to afford to attend the college she has always wanted to go to.  When she discovers that she doesn't get the scholarship, she's afraid her grandparents will sell their house to pay for her college. Her high school offers a $10,000 scholarship for the winner of the Prom Queen competition. Enthusiastic band member Liz, supported by her outsider group of friends, joins the competition against all cheerleaders, legacies, and the beautiful people... My Review: In a lot of ways, this is a typical high school ugly duckling story - the underdog great kid goes up against the popular clique. But, there are some additional nuances that make this more interesting.  The book is set in the Indianapolis area (Indianapolis is my adopted hometown) and the high school in the book (Campbell) is a

  Published in October of 2023 by Brilliance Audio. Read by Laura Jennings. Duration: 9 hours, 24 minutes. Unabridged. Synopsis: Set in a future dystopian Arizona in a United States that is collapsing due to pollution and climate change. 19 year old Georgia lives with her father and her 16 year old brother in an outpost in the Arizona desert north of Phoenix. They are hiding away from the polluted city of Phoenix and the few people that bother to venture out into the wilderness.  When Georgia and her brother encounter two "hikers" and their car near their outpost, everything changes... My review: This book starts out very interesting and then settles into a moody story about relationships, betrayals, and discovery - but I made it sound way more interesting than it actually was. In reality, it was an interesting 45 minute set-up at the beginning and multiple hints that something really dramatic could happen and then nothing happened - again and again and again. ****Spoiler Ale

  Published in 2007 by Oxford University Press. The book consists of six essays about the experience of African Americans from the early American period through Reconstruction.  They are arranged in chronological order and, as is the way with all collections, of varying quality. I did not enjoy either of the two essays by one of the editors, Scott Hancock. I did enjoy reading two of them quite a bit. There are two strong essays that read more like small chapters from a Civil War history  about the United States Colored Troops (USCT) - the segregated units of black soldiers led by white officers.  The last essay was by Reconstruction expert Eric Foner. It was a bit tedious to read, but it ruthlessly lays to rest that old Confederate and neo-Confederate lie that Black Reconstruction (when Blacks could actually vote and the old leaders of the Confederacy were not allowed to run for office) just elected illiterate field hands to the highest offices. The men Foner describes were mostly (80%

  Published in 2020 bt Harper Audio. Read by Lisa Cordileone. Duration: 6 hours, 3 minutes. Unabridged. As the title says, his book is intended to be a primer on the history of elections in America and how elections work now in different states. It was thorough enough without drowning the listener in details. The book does a solid job with both of those major topics without feeling partisan. Those topics comprise the first and last two hours of this audiobook. The middle two hours just felt like padding. There was an extended discussion of how to raise the voter participation rate that just dragged with discussions of how businesses can encourage employees to vote, ad campaigns from local government, and so on.  I would rate the first two sections 4 stars out of 5, but the middle section is a 2 out of 5 at best. That makes a final score of 3 out of 5. This book can be found on Amazon.com here: THANK YOU for VOTING: THE MADDENING, ENLIGHTENING, INSPIRING TRUTH ABOUT VOTING in AMERICA (

  Published in 2010 by Indiana Historical Society Press. Alex Vraciu (1918-2015) was a World War II flying ace, ranking fourth in the U.S. Navy in World War II. He destroyed 19 Japanese planes in the air and 21 on the ground.  This short book is very approachable and tells the story of Vraciu's childhood during the Great Depression in Northwest Indiana (now commonly known as "The Region") and his college years at DePauw University in Greencastle, Indiana.  Vraciu took advantage of a U.S. government program that trained civilians to be pilots with the understanding that if the U.S. went to war those pilots would become military pilots. He trained in Muncie, Indiana and immediately joined the U.S. Navy after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. Vraciu had a remarkable military career over the next 23 years. Besides destroying 40 Japanese planes, he lost multiple planes, including being shot down over the Philippines and leading a group of guerrilla figh

Published in 2023 by Random House Audio. Read by Dion Graham. Duration: 5 hours, 40 minutes. Unabridged. As of the day I am writing this review, 7 of the top 10 richest people in the world live in the United States (the least wealthy has $80 billion.) The rate continues on when you go down the list - 14 of the top 20 live in the United States.  The United States has 650 billionaires. But, the official poverty rate in the United States at this moment is 11.5% - the highest rate in the in the leading industrialized economies of the world. This chart shows that it has bounced around between 10.5% and 15%, depending on the economic recessions and the like f or the last 30 years . During this entire time, the United States has been the leader in wealth creation for the entire planet. The author, Matthew Desmond Sociology professor Matthew Desmond set out to find out why. It's easy to look at those billionaires and note that they don't pay their fair share. The tax code is tailor mad

  Published in 2017 by Blackstone Audio, Inc. Read by Bronson Pinchot Duration: 8 hours, 28 minutes. Unabridged. Synopsis: A Colorado police chief named Colton has organized a search for a young girl he suspects has been abducted. He reaches out to the best tracker he knows, Sam "Raven" Spears, for help. Raven is part Sioux and part Cherokee - an important fact because he soon suspects that the abductor is acting out a Cherokee legend featuring cannibals.  While Colton and Raven are on the hunt, there is a North Korean EMP attack on the United States. For those not aware, EMP stands for Electromagnetic Pulse. Nuclear weapons emit a pulse that absolutely fries most electronics. If you bomb a city normally, the pulse is limited by hills, buildings, and lots of other things. But, if you blow a nuclear bomb up high up in the air, the bomb doesn't do a lot of damage but the EMP kills all exposed modern cars (older cars have no computer systems, electrical systems, power plants

  Published in 2020 by Penguin Audio. Read by Stephen Mendel. Duration: 9 hours, 59 minutes. Unabridged. Synopsis: Peter Ash is a veteran of the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars. He served with the Marines and even though he is back at home - he is not. He wanders because he can't stay indoors due to PTSD manifesting as claustrophobia. As he wanders, he finds good people in trouble and he tries to get them out of trouble.  In the past he's been in Milwaukee, Oregon and Washington State, Colorado and Memphis. This time he's in Iceland.  Ash has been hired by a rich grandmother to find her son-in-law and her grandson. Police in Maryland believe that her son-in-law killed her daughter, kidnapped her grandson, and took him to his home country - Iceland. So, Peter Ash somehow braves an airplane trip and arrives in Iceland only to find that this case is way more complicated than he ever imagined... My Review: Despite the obvious plot hole of a man with SEVERE claustrophobia riding on a

  Originally published in serial form in Raw magazine from 1980-1991. Originally published in book form in 1991 by Pantheon Books. Winner of the Pulitzer Prize in 1992. Years ago, the high school where I used to teach had a daily silent reading time. We were encouraged to build a classroom library and I had a great one. Two stand alone shelves (one tall, one short) and a little rug in the corner with a chair. I had a lot of books from a lot of different genres but the star books were Of Mice and Men and the two volume paperback version of  Maus . Kids kept on stealing Of Mice and Men (If a kid likes it so much that he doesn't want to return it - fine by me) but so many students read Maus that the paperback binding broke and the pages fell out. It was held together with binder clips and big rubber bands.  What I remember about that book is that every student reverently took off that ridiculous clip and the big rubber band, spread the pages out and just read. Students who "ha