DWD's Reviews

(Too) Quick and Fun! Like others who have reviewed Life's Little Annoyances: True Tales of People Who Just Can't Take It Anymore , I first learned about it by way of a piece about it on CNN and I am glad that I asked for it for Christmas. Full of short vignettes (1-3 pages) about the inanities of modern life and some people's amusing ways of dealing with it, this is the perfect bathroom book, if you know what I mean. My favorites include: *the man who dealt with the 'adult' bookstore in his community by giving every customer he saw as he drove by a friendly honk on the horn in an attempt to make the customers wonder if someone they actually knew really saw them patronizing a porn shop. Ian Urbina *the man who mailed all kinds of things to the credit card companies in those nifty return envelopes that they include with their offers, including their shredded offers, other junk mail and even strips of metal! *the guy who has a website that...

Much like his mentor, Gross provides a readable, entertaining read Andrew Gross Much like his mentor James Patterson, Andrew Gross has written a readable crime novel with plenty of twists and turns, lots of personal stuff thrown in and written in a pleasant, accessible style. Don't Look Twice: A Novel is the second in a series about Ty Hauck but you do not have to have read the first to follow what's going on in this installment. The story is chock full of short chapters and the trail is complicated, but not impossibly so. My one pet peeve is the Spanish in the book. It only appears on two pages in my Advance Reader's Edition but it is awful. "Victor no es aqui" is not proper or even remotely adequate Spanish. This is Spanish One material. It sounds like something from a translator website. C'mon now, Mr. Gross. There are millions of native speakers throughout the country. Find one and have him or her vet your Spanish in the future. It ...

An interesting head-to-head biography about two gentlemen who went head-to-head quite often during the Civil War. Published in 2006 by Simon and Schuster. James F. Simon's Lincoln and Chief Justice Taney shines an interesting light on two overlooked aspects of 19th century American history. The first overlooked aspect is the Supreme Court, specifically the person of Roger Taney (pronounced Tawney), the Chief Justice most famous for what may be known for all time as his single worst legal opinion, and one of the most controversial and ill-considered opinions of all time - Dred Scott. Roger Taney   (1777-1864) Simon tells the story of Taney's life, including his surprisingly liberal views on slavery and his legal defense of blacks who were seized illegally to be sold into slavery, the fact that he freed most of his family's slaves and even provided a modest pension for the elderly ones. Taney even defended an the rights of an abolitionist preacher to preach his m...

C.S. Lewis' most famous work of fiction. Originally published in 1950 I f you are familiar with Lewis non-fiction writings ( Mere Christianity , etc.) were all that Lewis had written he would have left a wonderful legacy. However, Lewis has a large library of fictional works as well. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe is my only my second piece of Lewis fiction (the other being The Screwtape Letters ) and I found it to be a quick, enjoyable read. The characters are likeable but not particularly well-developed, but that is understandable considering that he intended it to be a fairy tale. How much character development is there in a fairy tale? Christian themes are very strong throughout the book, but the story can be read without any previous study into Christianity. If you are unsure of the themes or want to make sure that you are not missing any, I would recommend that you pick up any of the half-dozen or more companion study guides that Amazon offers. There are...

Originally Published in 2010 by Lulu Press. As the month of May is coming close, this Indianapolis resident and attender of 25 straight Indy 500 races and all of the Brickyard 400s (17, I think) knows what it means to be in love with the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. So, I picked up this book in order to see what another gigantic fan had to say about this experience. Charles West, unlike me, did not grow up visiting the Indianapolis Motor Speedway (my mother's parents lived just a few blocks from the main gate and I clearly remember attending several qualification days and hearing Tom Carnegie's sweet velvet baritone call out, "It's a neeeew traaaaack recoooord!")  Instead, West grew up in Texas and most of his memories were radio broadcasts and delayed TV broadcasts. He also clearly remembers seeing Johnny Rutherford's yellow Pennzoil Chaparral on display as a little boy - that hooked him. For me, it was hearing that distinctive whine of the engines in the...

Ridiculous but entertaining. Published in 2011 by William Morrow. Usually I have a low tolerance for over the top nonsense in my thriller novels. I tend to not like the stories with the unstoppable good guy whose training takes over and causes him to wipe out legions of his opponents. But, this one hit the spot for some reason. The premise of Spycatcher is really quite simple: Will Cochrane is a member of MI6 - the British version of the CIA. He is their super-spy, code-named Spartan. He is nearly unstoppable and pretty much has carte blanche to do whatever he wants to defend the UK. A new intelligence leak from Iran has discovered the existence of a similar type of super spy in Iran and he is planning a very big hit against the West. Cochrane is dispatched to stop him. The chase runs through Eastern Europe and America and of course ends in a dramatic, utterly unrealistic confrontation after sniper fights, special forces commando raids and lots of high level meetings in which C...

Fun to read, but be warned... Published in 1982. ...you had better be up on your Civil War basics before attempting to read this book. It assumes that the reader is well aware of the main battles, campaigns, personalities and relative strengths and weaknesses of both the North and the South. Union General William Tecumseh Sherman (1820-1891) As the title suggests, the book is primarily a collection of facts and oddball "did you know?" type of stories that are not really intended to re-tell the story of the Civil War but are mostly aimed at  people who know the story fairly well and are looking for some new stories (in my case, these are new stories I can use to bore my wife in new and different ways with the Civil War). There's bound to be something new in here for everyone but the hardest of the hard core Civil War aficionados. Well-written, breezy, although oftentimes disjointed and random. This book is also published under the titles Our Incredible Civ...

Published in 2010 by Tantor audio Read by Todd McLaren Duration: 14 hours, 4 minutes. Unabridged. Called a “Master of Alternate History” by Publishers Weekly, Harry Turtledove continues on that track in Atlantis and Other Places with a set of 12 short stories. Topics and eras range from pre-history to the Peloponnesian War to the Byzantine Empire to World War II and two stories set in modern times. All of these stories have appeared in other publications. This collection begins and ends with two stories about Atlantis, a topic he has explored more deeply in a trilogy. “Audubon in Atlantis” is the first story that Turtledove published about Atlantis. The famed 19 th century naturalist John James Audubon has traveled to Atlantis to catalog some of its unique wildlife. Turtledove introduces his alternate world, including basics of the history of Atlantis and he introduces the House of Universal Devotion, a religion that is most analogous to the Mormon Church in regular histor...

While not perfect, it is thought-provoking and a quick read Sunny Schwartz Sunny Schwartz is a Chicago-born lawyer who has worked in the San Francisco jail system for 30+ years. This book is a combination of a personal biography and professional recommendations for our nations over-worked, overcrowded and floundering jail and prison systems. Schwartz is not a hand-holding, excuse-making prisoner advocate. She notes several times that she wants criminals to be punished. She notes: "I completely understand the objections and utter impatience people have with criminals. They have hurt us, our pocketbooks, our souls." (p. 197) However, practical experience does offer some hard-won wisdom and Schwartz does have some things to suggest that might very well improve the behavior of our prisoners (remember most will become ex-prisoners some day and it would be nice if they were more in step with the rest of us). She focuses on an anti-violence program that is ba...

School counseling based on character education with a Christian flavor Published in 2008 . It has become the flavor of the month in many schools to teach character education. As a teacher in a school corporation that purports to teach character but does not go beyond banners and slogans in the official school letterhead in our effort I found this book to be enlightening. Baggett is quite open with his religious beliefs throughout the book, which is appropriate - his character is greatly shaped by it. He stresses that it cannot be overtly expressed in his role as counselor at school, but it is present. Baggett sells the concept of the role of character education in schools quite well. He demonstrates the lack of character in schools and the larger society, identifies several areas that need to be addressed and lays out some general ways to address them along with references to how to address more specific needs. Throughout the book he includes literally hundreds of inspiration...

Loud and strong, this book goes at it hard Published by Forge Books in 2009. William Shatner once commented that the results of his directorial efforts in Star Trek V were "loud". One could easily say the same thing about Jon Land's Strong Enough to Die . Strong Enough To Die comes at you with a gunfight on the first page, has lots of gunfights throughout and ends up with guns and explosions as well. Does it work? Well, yeah. This is not fine literature, mind you. It is loud, lock and load, over-the-top Texas Ranger action. There's some attempts at trying to tie in Bush administration anti-terrorist policies and discussions about living with the aftermath of violence but those get overwhelmed by the gunfire. But, that's okay because too much thinking about the internal incongruities of the text on these matters just spoils the fun. It's the famed Texas Rangers and a bad guy who might be a good guy against the Mexican Mafia and an evil Ame...

Comments from a history teacher Published in 1991 by Scholastic. Okay - so hear I am once again reading a kid's book. However, it is for my classroom library - I try to read them all so I can make recommendations. Sgt. William Carney  of the 54th  Massachusetts, the first African American to receive the Congressional Medal of Honor For those not in the know, Undying Glory: The Story of the Massachusetts 54th Regiment   is a brief history of the 54th Massachusetts - the first official regiment of blacks in the American Civil War. The unit was immortalized in the Academy Award winning film Glory , starring Denzel Washington. Cox has the great majority of his facts straight (I have some quibbles, such as when he claims that a good soldier could load and shoot a civil war rifle in about 45 seconds, when the reality was that a competent soldier could do it up to 3 times per minute.) The larger problem goes from being factual to the problem of being written in s...

A literary phenomenon Published in 2006 Read by Kerry Beyer Duration: 4.5 hours Unabridged I teach high school Spanish and history but even if you don't have much interaction with young people, you'd have to live in a cave not to have noted the literary phenomenon that is the novel Holes . Although my students don't read Holes in my class, they have mentioned it so I decided to listen to it as an audiobook during my drive to and from school. The plot itself is fairly unique in that there are literally no loose ends. Nothing is introduced that does not have a consequence later on, be it the prison guard quitting smoking and chewing sunflower seeds instead or the references to peach preserves, it all ties together. All of that makes the story less believable, more like a dark fairy tale but all of the more enjoyable. Louis Sachar The story itself is pretty solid. There's a mystery, a sense of camaraderie and an awful tale of injustice in the flashbacks. It i...

Interesting Characters. So-so mystery. The Corruptible is the second in the Ray Quinn mystery series. It is written by now-retired police officer Mark Mynheir who adds a touch of authenticity to his work (although he misses the most obvious clue at the beginning of this mystery). Ray Quinn is a former Orlando police officer turned Private Investigator who was forced to retire due to disability as a result of being shot through the hip. His replacement hip is painful and he needs to walk with a cane and he often deals with the pain (physical and emotional) with a few stout shots of Jim Beam. He has a partner named Crevis who is trying to pass the entrance exam to be a police officer and a parochial school teacher that also helps him keep his business records straight. In this story, Quinn is hired by an investment company to recover stolen client information by downloading it onto a portable hard drive. The number one suspect is a an acquaintance of Quinn, an employee of th...

A throwback to the early days of 'Spenser' Published by Putnam Adult in 2005 This edition of Spenser reminded me of the early days of the series - the days before Spenser would assemble a gigantic posse of bad guys and policemen (ie, Potshot ) in order to get the job done. Thankfully, this one is also basically Susan Silverman-free (not that I mind Susan, it's all of the repeated conversations about their relationship - it just gets old!) Unfortunately, School Days is also Hawk-free, so the experienced reader of Spenser books will definitely miss the witty banter the two often share. However, Spenser manages to get in a few good lines without the extra help and he does get a bit of outside help from some unusual sources from the past. I rate this book 4 stars out of 5. This book can be found on Amazon here:  School Days (Spenser) Reviewed October 9, 2005.

This is my first Forsyth novel and for the first 250 pages... ...I had determined that it would be my last. Forsyth spends the first half of of the 500+ page  Icon just setting the reader up for the real plot of the novel. Unfortunately, the setup consists of a series of disjointed flashbacks interspersed with seemingly unrelated tales of what is going on in the present of the novel (1999-2000 in the old USSR, now Russia). Frederick Forsyth Suddenly, once the flashbacks work their way up to the present time the real story starts and it is a great adventure story! The meandering story redeems itself. There is a lot of action, intrigue and a bunch of frustrated Nazis. Unfortunately, the ending is just too neat - it ends the book with everything too well resolved. I rate this book 4 stars out of 5. This book can be found on Amazon.com here: Icon by Frederick Forsyth . Reviewed on October 9, 2005.

A prototype of the current crop of approachable books on economics Originally published in 1980. Duration:12 hours, 15 minutes Read by James Adams Unabridged. Free To Choose: A Personal Statement is the manifesto on the power of capitalism and freedom (and how they go hand in hand) that was designed to be read, digested and discussed by the common man, not the economist. In fact, this is the book that was designed as a follow-up companion to a 10 part PBS mini-series that fleshed out the ideas in the series and addressed issues and further questions that came up in the making of the television program. Milton Friedman won the Nobel Prize for economics in 1976 (he always credited his wife for helping develop his theories so I would imagine he considered it a shared prize). The audiobook follows the lead of the mini-series and has 10 broad areas that it covers, including: -The Power of the Market; -The Anatomy of a Crisis (an in-depth study of the Great Depress...

Published in 2002 by Berkley It's a collection, and like all collections Alternate Gettysburgs suffers from the fact that it was written by a dozen different authors. Some are very good, most are decent. Two are awful. The gimmick in this alternative history is, of course, 'What if the Battle of Gettysburg had turned out differently?' It is inspired by this Faulkner quote: Confederate Major General George Pickett (1825-1875) 'For every Southern boy fourteen years old, not once but whenever he wants it, there is the instant when it's still not yet two o'clock on that July afternoon in 1863, the brigades are in position behind the rail fence, the guns are laid and ready in the woods and the furled flags are already loosened to break out and Pickett himself with his long oiled ringlets and his hat in one hand probably and his sword in the other looking up the hill waiting for Longstreet to give the word and it's all in the balance, it hasn't happ...