DWD's Reviews

An entertaining superhero story with a twist Published 2011 by Tor. Imagine if your parents were both legendary superheroes and you have no super powers at all. In fact, the closest you have come to being physically heroic is winning a silver medal at a high school swim meet.They have been "outed" and everyone knows them by their regular identities and as superheroes and you are a frequent target of various super criminals who kidnap you to try to influence your parents. It happens so often that it would be funny if it wasn't interrupting your attempt to blend in, be normal and succeed in your career as an accountant. Carrie Vaughn That's the premise of After the Golden Age , a book that promises a superhero story with a twist and delivers. Celia West is a promising young accountant whose parents are the larger-than-life superhero duo of Captain Olympus and Spark. He's a Superman knock off with the nasty attitude and wealth of Batman. She creates fire a...

The book that launched the series Originally published in 1992. Back in 1992 the first book in the Paul Madriani series was released. Over time, it has morphed into less of a legal thriller series into more of an action series with a legal thriller bent to it. But, the first one is a good old-fashioned murder mystery and courtroom drama - and a surprisingly good one for a debut effort. In Compelling Evidence we are introduced to Paul Madriani, a struggling solo practice attorney who has recently left a big league law firm because he was having an affair with a senior partner's wife. In the office next door is a new friend, Harry Hinds (his law partner in later books). When that same senior partner is found dead, Martini is hired to defend the widow in a wild and wooly murder trial in which everyone seems to have a motive, including Madriani. This is truly a great legal thriller. It may very well be the best in a very solid series. It has aged very well and is a must-read for...

One of Hillerman's best Originally published as a traditional book in 1980. Read by George Guidall Duration: 7 hours, 2 minutes Unabridged. People of Darkness is one of Hillerman's best and happens to be the first of the Jim Chee novels. It is set, like most of Hillerman's mysteries, in the Navajo reservation in the Four Corners Area. In this case, Jim Chee is working in the southeast corner of the reservation, in an area commonly called the "Checkerboard" because it consists of a series of parcels of reservation and privately-held land parcels that are interspersed with one another. Even though he is an officer with the Navajo Tribal Police, Chee is contacted to do some work as a private citizen who lives off of the reservation using his vacation time. It seems a multi-millionaire's wife wants Chee to investigate the theft of some of her husband's private "momentos." Chee starts to look into it and his curiosity draws him to ...

"If something cannot go on forever, it will stop" Published in 2011 by Regnery. The above quote is from the economist Herbert Stein. Besides being a clever little bit of the obvious, a Yogi Berra-type quote, it is also part of a scary thought about America itself that Mark Steyn points out in After America - America cannot keep doing what it is doing forever and hope to lead the world - it will stop. It cannot keep  borrow 40% of its budget forever and hope to keep its economy afloat or offer its children a decent future. America cannot hope that a post-America world will be pleasant - as Steyn notes on page 14 "...it's not hard to figure out how it's going to end." After America: Get Ready for Armageddon is really the sequel to America Alone: The End of the World As We Know It a book that details how low birth rates, a general cultural malaise and a nanny state stupor threatens to overwhelm the same countries that once led the world in political, mil...

Wonderful Published in 2000. I absolutely love the Bill Gastner series. I have read a few unsatisfying novels lately and Dead Weight was a real joy. Gastner is the nearly 70-year-old insomniac sheriff of a small town in New Mexico. He consumes great quantities of coffee and very spicy Mexican food (even for breakfast!) while he juggles a homicide investigation, a mysterious accusation against one of his officers and a landlord/renter dispute. Small town politics and good police work don't necessarily go hand-in-hand, but Gastner makes it work anyway. Havill's characters remind me very much of those of fellow New Mexican author Tony Hillerman. For me, this is very high praise since I absolutely love the Leaphorn/Chee novels. If Havill and Hillerman are par for the course in the world of New Mexican authors than I am going to looking for more of them. Truly a delightful read. I rate this book 5 stars out of 5. This book can be found on Amazon.com here: Dead We...

Lovely speech - a joy for any history lover Narrated by the author, David McCullough Duration: About 40 minutes I am a high school history teacher - not the type of history teacher who got into it so he could also coach. I am a REAL history teacher. I love history. I read histories for entertainment. I go on trips to see historical places. History is exciting and important to me. The Course of Human Events , McCullough's wonderful 40 minute speech on the Founding Fathers, history and great literature made my soul sing. I learned a lot but mostly I found the joy of listening to a kindred spirit discuss history and its importance and the joys of learning.  McCullough is a two time winner of the Pulitzer Prize and a winner of the National Book Award for his histories. David McCullough I also found myself being a bit envious of McCullough's wonderful speaking voice and the fact that he writes so well. However, I quickly recovered since McCullough is not stingy ...

How can I effectively heap praise on a book that has already won the Pulitzer Prize? Originally Published in 2003. What else can I do but chime in with my own little two cents worth of opinion and join the crowd? The Known World is a complex, rich, frustrating, fascinating, compelling, comforting, detailed work that is filled with 3-dimensional characters that draw the reader into the complex, confusing, often brutal world of slavery on the Virginia frontier in the 1800s. Set in a fictional county in Virginia, The Known World revolves around the Townsends, a family of ex-slaves. Henry Townsend is a former slave who owns a plantation replete with slaves. The irony of that situation strikes one his slaves who notes to himself that it is odd for a black man to own slaves, but really no odder than the very idea that one person may own another in the first place. The author, Edward P. Jones, does not tell the story in a linear fashion. Instead, he bounces his readers al...

A quick, enjoyable read Published in 2006. I came across Blue Screen yesterday afternoon and I snapped it up immediately. I think that I have read through the entire Parker collection at this point and I immediately pick the newest one up as soon as I see it (I have been holding back on reading my last two Michener books since there will be no more ever written and once they're done...) This is really a tale of two stories. One is a mystery and one is a bit of soap opera. The mystery part is pretty good but really comes off as a bit of a hodgepodge of Parker's enthusiasm for baseball, 'Get Shorty' and the Spenser book 'Back Story'. Witty banter and familiar faces keep the story moving along. I have no idea if this story could stand alone or not. Probably not. If this might be your first foray into Sunny Randall, pick an older one first and than move to this one. Robert B. Parker (1932-2010) The soap opera is the merging of the worlds of ...

A strong, short biography of the correspondent who gave us the GI's "worm's eye view" of WWII Published in 2006 by Indiana Historical Press. Ernie Pyle (1900-1945) was a nationally syndicated newspaper columnist who wrote for Washington, D.C. and New York City newspapers before the war. But, he became a beloved figure due to his Pulitzer Prize-winning work during World War II, especially in the European Theater. As one of the soldiers quoted in this biography said, "He was...our spokesman. It was not that his column told us things we did not know or feel, but the fact that we knew you folks at home could read it, and get to know and understand." The Soldier's Friend: A Life of Ernie Pyle is published by the Indiana Historical Society Press because Pyle was originally from the small town of Dana, Indiana, near Terre Haute. The Indiana Historical Society has access to literally millions of Indiana-related historical photographs and that libra...

Tremendous. Unbelievably strong. Published in 2003 by Hachette Audio. Read by Len Cariou. Duration: 19 hours, 37  minutes. Unabridged. Allow me a rare moment to gush over Lost Light by Michael Connelly. I've reviewed over 500 books and rarely do I gush, so please permit me this indulgence. Harry Bosch has retired. He no longer has the power and the protection of the badge. He also no longer has the limits and restraints of a cop. He is enticed to start investigating a case that he never solved and soon gets sucked into way more than he bargained for. Connelly leads us into the dark world of criminal conspiracies, police bureaucracy and the FBI counter-terrorism unit. Len Cariou, the narrator, did such a strong job that I can honestly say that I have never heard a better job of narration, and maybe only one or two that equal his effort. Cariou is especially strong reading the part of Lawton Cross, a former LAPD detective who is a quadriplegic due to an i...

Thoroughly enjoyable audiobook Published by Hachette Audio in 2004. Read by Len  Cariou Duration: 11 hours, 1 minute. Unabridged. Fans of Harry Bosch know that he is named for the Renaissance painter Hieronymus Bosch. Bosch the painter specialized in sweeping panoramic paintings of hell, with details of how individual sinners were being gouged, burned and otherwise tormented by gleeful demons. Connelly has commented many times that Harry Bosch is meant to be our tour guide through the hellish side of Los Angeles - the world of serial killers, hidden sins and chaos. Interestingly, Bosch the detective sits in his house high in the hills of Los Angeles looking down on the panorama of it all, just as the viewer of a Bosch painting sees hell from high above. In The Narrows , Bosch spends a great deal of time in Las Vegas. It would not be inappropriate to say that Vegas is "Sodom" to LA's "Gomorrah" - twins in sin. Bosch is worried that his daughter...

Don't know much about economics? Well... Published in 2003 by W.W. Norton and Company. If, like most, you don't know much about economics, than I strongly recommend giving yourself a painless, entertaining introduction to the major concepts by checking out Naked Economics: Undressing the Dismal Science . Serious economists are sure to argue all sorts of fine points with Charles Wheelan , but the broad strokes of economic theory are laid out in an easy-to-read, fun, informative format that uses no graphs, charts or mathematical formulae. The experts may love all of those tools and jargon, but they do get in the way for most everyone else. Wheelan is one of those rare people who speaks technical econ-speak and regular English and can translate for the majority. This is a strong enough book that I would seriously recommend it for anyone taking a basic econ class as a primer. I would also recommend it as a supplemental textbook to go along with a basic econ textboo...

An important look at a terrible act Published in 2001 by Palgrave Macmillan On August 7, 1930 a crowd of hundreds, possibly thousands swarmed around the Grant County Court House in Marion, Indiana with the intent to remove three black teenagers and kill them by hanging from the trees on the Court House lawn - a lynching. Two of the young men were lynched, the third was spared for reasons that no one seems to remember. The survivor claims it was a miracle that he was released and put back into the jail, and it may well have been so. Nevertheless, it may have mostly disappeared from America's collective memory except as an aberration from the stereotypical norm of lynchings being a mostly Southern phenomenon. That is, it may have been forgotten except for the picture taken by a local photographer named Lawrence Beitler who printed off hundreds of copies and sold them to gawkers the next day. Those copies made their way across the state and eventually across the world to be reprin...

A nifty little biography Published in 2011 by Thomas Nelson Mark Horne's J.R.R. Tolkien is an enjoyable biography of the famed writer of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings trilogy. It is not a large biography (130 pages) but, if you are like me and knew just a little about Tolkien and wanted to know a bit more, this biography fits the bill perfectly. Horne begins with quite a bit of detail about Tolkien's early life, especially the difficulties caused by the loss of his father when  he was very young and the death of his mother when he was 12 years old. His mother's faith and the difficulties she endured when she converted to Catholicism are very important foundations of Tolkien's young life. Tolkien's relationship with his wife Edith (both before and after they were married) are covered quite well. Horne skimps a bit on his children and we almost completely lose track of Tolkien's brother, who endured the same difficulties but chose a different path...

Published in 2008 by Brilliance Audio. Read by David Stuart. Duration: 8 hours, 27 minutes. Unabridged. While not as action-packed as The Last Detective (which follows Indigo Slam in the series, but I've not read a single one of them in order so why start now?), this is a strong book. Lots of smart comments, action and twists and turns, although the very last twist was so obvious that only the clinically brain dead couldn't see it coming. But, that didn't lessen the overall value of the book for me. Elvis is hired by a group of children who have been living on their own for a while to find their missing father. As the investigation progresses, Cole and his enigmatic partner Joe Pike get caught up in the Witness Protection Program, a counterfeiting ring, a crime syndicate and all sorts of other incidents of violence and mayhem. Cole's deep down soft heart and his smart mouth are, of course, an enjoyable part of the story. The audiobook is read by David Stuart ...

A must for Indy 500 fans Part of a series of DVDs produced by the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, this collection reviews all of the races from 1970-1979, including A.J. Foyt's famed and unprecedented fourth win. The collection features original TV & radio commentary, sound and video and lots of interviews with the drivers. Some of the interviews are from the 1970s and some are from nowadays looking back. Janet Guthrie Indianapolis 500: (The 70's A decade Of Legends) Collectors Edition is more than mindless promotion of the race - the lowlights (1973) are exposed along with the controversy associated with the arrival of Janet Guthrie, the first female participant in the 500. Changes with racing technology is highlighted throughout. DVD features include collecting all of the bits and pieces of interviews with several drivers and some owners and adding a few bonus bits. Rick Mears and Roger Penske are especially strong interviews. Well done. 5 stars ou...

An Impressive Amount of Research Published in 2208. According to Goldberg, the traditional left-right concept of political beliefs is incorrect. Understanding this is key to understanding Goldberg's thesis that modern liberalism is the intellectual heir to Rousseau's ideas, the French Revolution and is, at the very least, the intellectual cousin to both fascism (especially Italian Fascism) and Soviet Communism. To fully understand this you have to understand that measuring political philosophy with a one-dimensional left-right line lack the depth to measure both social and economic political philosophies. A quadrant map used to measure political beliefs will more accurately show depth of support for government involvement in economic issues, political rights and social issues. Anarchists lie at the edge of one quadrant, Libertarians a little more toward the center of that same quadrant but totalitarians lie in the opposite corner. Search the web to discover more about the gr...

A must for Indy 500 fans Released in 2005. Part of a series of DVDs produced by the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, this collection reviews all of the races from 1980-1989. The collection features original TV & radio commentary, sound and video and lots of interviews with the drivers and owners. Some of the interviews are from the 1980s and some are from nowadays looking back. 1988 Indy 500: all Penske front row (Mears, Sullivan, Big Al) Indianapolis 500: The 80's -  A decade for The Ages is more than mindless promotion of the race - the lowlights (1981 and the ridiculous court case that determined the winner) are exposed as well. Changes with racing technology is highlighted throughout. DVD features include collecting all of the bits and pieces of interviews with several drivers and some owners and adding a few bonus bits. Rick Mears, Roger Penske and Tom Sneva are especially strong interviews. Another nice feature is the inclusion of an uninterrupte...