DWD's Reviews

Published in 2008 by Penguin Audio Read by the author, Denis Leary Duration: 5 hours (abridged) Denis Leary. If you have never seen his act before, catch a bit of him on the internet and see if he suits your tastes. If he does, this book is just a lot more of the same - Leary's acid commentary on stupid parents, the Catholic Church, why there won't be many female race car drivers, obese people, helicopter parents, George W. Bush, his family and just about everything else are designed to outrage as much as entertain. Do not listen to this book if foul language or rude comments are a deal-breaker. Leary's tales of his childhood are actually quite endearing and they make up the best part of the book. His anger at the Catholic Church is only partially tempered by respect for the Catholic school that he attended as a child (in reality, the Catholic Church becomes the whipping boy for all organized religion) and his politics clearly run to the Democrat side of the spectru...

Duration: Approximately 2 hours Multicast Performance Published by Galaxy Press in 2011. First published in 1935, The Phantom Patrol is part of a large series of books and stories that are being re-published by Galaxy Press as part of their Golden Age Stories series. In reality, they are a collection of L. Ron Hubbard's early works that were published in magazines and as pulp fiction books. Hubbard was a prolific writer and he wrote a lot of action stories that translate quite well into the multicast performance audiobook format. The Phantom Patrol is the story of Coast Guard Chief Petty Officer Johnny Trescott who commands a patrol boat looking for drug smugglers off of the coast of Louisiana. He and his small crew have been working for months to catch one smuggler in particular and are close to catching him. While closing in on this smuggler, they are called away by a distress call from a plane that has made an emergency landing in the water. The smuggler turns the...

A story of a man whose world has fallen apart Published in 2010 by Penguin Audio Read by: G. Valmont Thomas Duration: 9 hours, 40 minutes. Unabridged Way back in 1981 Stephen King released Roadwork under the pseudonym Richard Bachman. Bachman was the name King used to sell pulp fiction type stories so that he could afford to pay his bills and not hurt his reputation as he waited for his work he submitted under his name to take off. King opens this book with an interesting introduction that explains his rather complex relationship with his pseudonym. Roadwork , on the surface, is simple enough. A man in this forties is losing his house, his job and the memories that he holds dearest to the expansion of a highway through his neighborhood. Due to imminent domain , Barton George Dawes will lose his last connections to his son who has died three years earlier due to a brain tumor. He will lose the house that he and his wife scraped and scrimped to buy. He will lose his career at t...

Entertaining Sports Autobiography Published by Ballantine Books in April of 2012 Jim Abbott will always be known as "that one-handed pitcher" and in Imperfect he discusses the fact that his life has always been defined by his birth defect. Or, has it? As I read this book I found myself wondering if his missing hand limited him, propelled him or if he would have gone just as far if he had had both hands? Abbott and Brown work together to create a very readable, entertaining book. I found the descriptions of 1970s and 1980s era Flint, Michigan and his life growing up just as compelling as his stories of how he overcame the difficulties he encountered by having just one hand. I was aware of Jim Abbott as he played but as his career waned I lost track of him. Also, I had no memory of his playing in the 1987 Pan-American games in Indianapolis even though I have always lived in Indiana and those games were a very big deal when Indianapolis hosted them. Abbott tells the ...

Published in 2006 by HighBridge Duration: 1 hour Usually Ray and Tom Magliozzi's "Car Talk" show on NPR is a mixture of humor, stories and lots of advice on car repair and maintenance. This collection, though, is all funny stories (only the barest amount of car advice is given).  There are sixteen stories in all, with topics ranging from the dangers of carrying plywood on the roof of your car to what to do if a customer brings in a really smelly car to how one of the brother's did during his stint in the army as a young man (hint: not well). Some are really funny, some are merely amusing but if you are a fan of the show you will enjoy this collection. Get this audiobook from Amazon.com here: Car Talk: The Greatest Stories Ever Told: Once Upon a Car Fire . I rate this audiobook 4 stars out of 5. Reviewed on April 1, 2012. <br /> <img src="http://wms.assoc-amazon.com/20070822/US/img/noscript.gif?tag=dwsre-20" alt="...

Published in 1986 by Simon and Schuster Read by Leonard Nimoy and George Takei Duration: 90 minutes Abridged. I picked up this audiobook of Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home on cassette at a clearance book sale in the "who's going to want this stuff?" section. Mostly, it was serious junk. Educational software that only operates on Apple IIe,  VHS copies of movies that I've never heard of starring some guy that was on some TV show that I barely remember and DVDs of some pastor's sermons on any number of topics (still in the plastic!). And, suddenly, I find a memory from my high school and college years - a genuine Star Trek audiobook from 1986!...on audiocassette! And...narrated by George Takei and Leonard Nimoy! So, I scuttle out of there like I've found a gold bar and pop it in car's cassette player - one of the advantages of having an old car is that it has a multimedia (CD and cassette) stereo system. Back in the day, audiobooks were almost always ab...

Okay story, great production Published in 2009 by GraphicAudio Multicast performance featuring 26 actors Duration: Approximately 7 hours . Batman is called to duty to fight Enfer, a new villain whose name means "Hell" in French. Enfer is skilled with fire and explosives and suffered a transformation similar to that of Joker but his change involved a massive explosion. Enfer is hired to free the inmates of Arkham Asylum by its director, Dr. Crane. His arson burns the asylum and lets dozens of inmates free, including the Joker. While escaping through Gotham City's sewer system, the Joker accidentally stumbles into a back entrance into the Bat Cave. The Joker assaults Alfred, steals a Bat Suit and the BatMobile and starts a crime wave while pretending to be Batman, turning public opinion against Batman. Enfer continues to burn the city. He wishes to attract the attention of The Joker in hopes of joining forces. Can Batman stop Enfer and The Joker before his ...

Published in 1983 by Recorded Books Narrated by Aaron Lustig and Henry Strozier. Duration: approximately 6.5 hours Unabridged I just stumbled upon Berserker , not realizing that there is an entire series of these books. I'm not terribly surprised, the structure of the first book lends itself to sequel after sequel. The premise of the book is that giant intelligent killing space machines are out to destroy all of the life they discover. Why? We are never told, but we assume that they are by-products of a long-ended war by a long-forgotten people. Fred Saberhagen (1930-2007) Photo by Beth Gwinn This first volume was written in the late 1960s. The only reason I point this out is that I believe that the 1960s was an especially fertile time for science fiction, especially sci-fi that wanted to discuss big issues and themes. For example, TV's "Star Trek" and "Twilight Zone" are often more than a creepy story or a space alien story - they e...

Entertaining Mystery Published by Minotaur Books on March 12, 2012. Carter Ross is a good reporter on the staff of a struggling newspaper in Newark, New Jersey. When a delivery person for his paper is killed in a hit and run accident, Ross decides to do a little human interest piece for the paper. But, as he starts to interview her friends and family for the background material some things just do not add up. Throw in the insistent claims from her sister that she was murdered and the strange behavior of his paper's publisher and Ross gets curious and starts to do som e digging of his own. Of course, things do not Brad Parks .  Photo by James N. Lum.  go smoothly and Ross gets involved in all sorts of dangerous (and embarrassing) situations. Ross is a likeable character and his cast of friends and colleagues that fill the book make this a very entertaining read. This is not a dark,  gritty, hard-edged novel although the mystery is plenty convoluted and quite satisfyin...

Solid history for grade 5 and above. Published in 1991 by Silver Burdett Press 119 pages of text. 9 pages of timelines, sources and and index at the end. David Farragut and the Great Naval Blockade is part of a larger series (The History of the Civil War Series). It is very readable with a good balance of national history versus the biography of David Farragut. Farragut joined the United States Navy at age 9 in 1810, fought against the Barbary Pirates and in the War of 1812. Until the Civil War, Farragut was known as an great officer, the kind of officer that sailors were glad to work under, but also the kind of officer that just missed doing something great. He was not sent to "open" Japan with Matthew Perry. He tried to get involved in the Mexican War but the fighting in Veracruz was over by the time his ship arrived. When the Civil War began, it was assumed that Farragut would go with the Confederacy. After all, he was born in Tennessee, he lived in Norfolk, Virgi...

Published by Regnery Publishing, Inc. in 2012. Winston Groom, forever to be known as the author of Forrest Gump , has busied himself with a series of non-fiction books as of late. His latest is this short biography, Ronald Reagan: Our 40th President . The publisher lists this book as "juvenile nonfiction" but this adult also enjoyed this 148 page biography. This is not a controversial "let's set the record straight" book. I detected no political bias except for the fact that is a generally friendly book towards Reagan. That being said, Groom covers the lows of Reagan's personal (strained relationships with his children, for example) and political life (Iran Contra - it gets more attention than almost any aspect of his presidency) and covers them as thoroughly as a book of this size should. Ronald Reagan (1911-2004) This is a great book for high school students because it is easy to read, does not dwell on topics for too long and covers all parts of...

Parker and Spenser go over old ground, but it's still a lot of fun Published in 2007. Spenser is on the case again. This time, a simple "check and see if my wife is cheating on me" case becomes a double murder and takes Spenser back onto a college campus investigating yet another campus radical. Robert B. Parker  (1932-2010) It is not terribly surprising that Parker is going over old ground - this is his 35th Spenser book. Hawk and others are brought in to help, as happens in most all of the newer Spenser books. However, the interplay between Spenser and the others is one of the best features of a Spenser book so that is not disappointing. All in all, this is one of the better Spenser offerings in years. I enjoyed this book and was well on the way to giving it a 5 star rating until I got to the end. It was just too pat. Still, it's a solid addition to the series and a must-read for fans. I rate this book 4 out of 5 stars and it can be found ...

  Not a great movie, but a must for Richard Petty and early NASCAR fans (from a Petty fan from way back) Just so you know, I've given this movie 4 stars - not because it is a great movie. It is not, unless you are a die hard Petty fan. But, it is a valuable piece of NASCAR history - a little gem that I picked up in the super-cheap DVD section of a local store. It is a snapshot of the beginnings of the modern heyday of stock car racing. Released in 1972 and full of footage from the early days of NASCAR, the production values in this one are not great, which is a mixed blessing. The old footage does not stick out from the rest of the film because the film itself is pretty grainy and has questionable sound at times. Richard Petty plays himself and he comes off as a fairly wooden actor, which would be a pretty unfair assessment to make if you are not familiar with Richard's personality. He is slow-talking (careful with his words), casual, straight-backed and w...

Thoughtful Ruminations of a born and bred Hoosier Published in 1997 by D and C Publishing Chuck Avery writes a column for the Richmond Palladium-Item , the local paper in Richmond, Indiana. His typical essay could be classified as one of those slice-of-life pieces - a little reminiscing, a little wry observation, a bit of good-natured humor. Avery is also a teacher. I never heard of Chuck Avery before I picked up this book at a local book sale (ironically, he describes picking up books in a similar sale in one of his essays  - the essay that gives the book its title). A Committee of One is one of those rare books that gets better as it goes along. I particularly enjoyed the essays "Clevenger's Pond" (a humorous look at human nature and why his farm pond is no longer open to the public), "The Allure of Instant Esteem" (a look at the self-esteem movement in the classroom and why it makes no sense unless you have actually done something), "Solitude an...

Exposes the vulnerable state of the American (and the world) economy Published in 2012 by Regnery Publishing, Inc. When I was reading Secret Weapon I was tempted to make a sort of smart-aleck introduction about the complex nature of Kevin Freeman's warning about the dangers we face by way of economic terrorism. After all, Paul Revere just rode through the streets yelling, "The British are coming! The British are coming!" and that was enough. But, after a little thought I realized that Freeman can't just yell, "The economic terrorists are coming! The economic terrorists are coming!" It has to be explained and that explanation is long and can be full of statistics and new terminologies. I am a licensed high school economics teacher and I can honestly say that I knew just enough about finance, the real nitty-gritty of the to and fro of the markets, to say that this book is downright scary. It is the proverbial "firebell in the night" that screa...

Good - but comes with problems Published in 1996. If you do not already know something about the War of 1812, I cannot recommend this book for your reading pleasure. Why not? The author, David Nevin, goes into the story without much of an explanation of who the characters are and just assumes you know who they are. I would have recommended a small two to three page introduction that laid out the issues of the day and something about the personalities of the day as well. Instead, we spend page after page getting these introductions as a part of the story. Along the way, Nevin introduces us to the innermost thoughts of such people as James Madison, Andrew Jackson, Winfield Scott and Dolley Madison. Nevin seems fascinated in exploring each of these characters as sexual beings. We get to read about James Madison's lusting for Dolley (he refers to her breasts so often that I blush when I see Madison in my history book). However, the book is saved by his descriptions...

A very solid but one-dimensional look at the Civil War Originally published in 1926 Photographic History edition published in 2009 by Konecky and Konecky. Unabridged. Walter Geer's title for this book, Campaigns of the Civil War: a Photographic History , certainly describes it - this is a no-frills look at the battle action of the Civil War with little analysis of the political situation that led to the war or influenced the way it was prosecuted.  There is no chapter about the daily life of the typical soldier. There is nothing about home front difficulties or even much about the navies of either side. So, if you are looking for an in-depth history of the war, this is not your book. But, if you are a serious student of the war, especially the land campaigns, this is a very solid history. Union General Lewis "Lew" Wallace (1827-1905) The text is strong, but almost all of the original maps are too busy. They are clearly the style of map that was popular when the...

Two Classics in One Package Published in 2011 by AudioGO. Narrated by William Dufris Duration: approximately 13 hours. I am reluctant to admit this but although I was very aware of these classic detective tales, I had never read either of these two books nor seen any of their many movie adaptations (however, I have seen many clips from the Bogart version of The Maltese Falcon over the years). So, when I found the unabridged audio versions of both of them I just had to get them - if for no other reason than to just end my ignorance. The Thin Man was originally written in 1934 (although it is set in the late 1920s) and is Dashiell Hammett's fifth and last novel. It features a wealthy husband and wife crime-fighting duo. They are in New York City to renew some friendships, paint the town red and have an all around good time. Nick Charles is a former private detective who has quit the business to help his wife manage her extensive business holdings.  A mystery involving a f...