DWD's Reviews

A True Classic First published in 1939. Winner of The National Book Award in 1940. I read How Green Was My Valley way back in high school more than twenty-five years ago and I remembered it fondly, if vaguely. I found it on the bargain shelf at a local bookseller and I picked it up on a whim. Sometimes, when you reread a book from your childhood it is much worse than you remember because tastes mature. In this case, I found How Green Was My Valley to be even better than I remembered. The book is set in Wales and features a family of Welsh coal miners and is told through the point of view of Huw Morgan, the youngest member of the family. Llewellyn captures small town life and Welsh customs and makes the reader feel the rhythm of their lives. These are turbulent times in Wales - the wages for coal miners are dropping because there are fewer jobs to be had and more men than ever to fill them. Their world is changing and families are breaking up to move to America and other places...

Another winning book by Russell Freedman Published in June of 2012 by Clarion Books (DWD's Reviews received an advance copy for review purposes) Russell Freedman received the Newbery Medal for his 1989 book Lincoln: A Photobiography and he returns to familiar ground with this dual biography. He begins with Douglass and then alternates back and forth between the two men, highlighting important aspects of their lives and the areas that they had in common (such as being self-educated, self-made men). The almost square shape of Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass: The Story Behind an American Friendship lends itself to pictures and Freedmen fills the book with drawings, etchings and photographs of the era, including the image I have included here of a "Watch Meeting." Thousands of people gathered together to await word of Lincoln signing the Emancipation Proclamation (he had promised to do so several months earlier unless the Confederate States returned to the Uni...

Lessons on how to grow and then kill a restaurant chain Published in 2011 by CreateSpace I n Flameout , John P. McDonald tells the story of Burger Chef, the one burger company that outpaced McDonald's and could have taken its place at the top of the fast food heap. In 1971 there were 1,200 Burger Chef restaurants and less than 1,300 McDonald's restaurants. By 1982, what was left of Burger Chef was folded into the Hardee's chain and was no more. I was particularly interested in this book because when I was a kid, the Burger Chef Fun Meal with Burger Chef and Jeff and all of the punch out things you could make with the tray/box were just about the best restaurant experience a little boy could have. This could have been a very boring tale, but McDonald makes it interesting. He tells about the innovations that took Burger Chef from being just a demonstration restaurant (it was designed to showcase the restaurant equipment manufactured by General Equipment) to the fast...

Published in June of 2012 Note: DWD's Reviews received an uncorrected proof advance copy from the publisher (Harper) in exchange for an honest review. Dan Ariely's The (Honest) Truth About Dishonesty is a fun look at a serious topic - lying. Ariely, a professor of behavioral economics at Duke University, describes his simple experiments and details his results in a light, easy to understand way. His results are often surprising and counter-intuitive. For example, it is often considered that people are dishonest because they have calculated the risk of being caught and the reward if they get away with the dishonesty and act accordingly. Ariely demonstrates that this is incorrect and spends the rest of the book showing what conditions are more likely to cause dishonest behavior and what conditions decrease dishonesty. This could have been a stupefyingly dull book, but Ariely has a deft touch and makes it a very fun and very quick read. I rate this book 5 stars out of 5. ...

Published in 2002 by Crown Publishers (Random House) This book is aimed at students from grades 5-12, although I found it interesting and learned a lot. World War II histories abound. Histories of the complete war, various theaters, biographies of units and single officers fill the bookshelves. I have seen books that look at the role of women in the war - the home front, as pilots, intelligence officers and so on. But, I have never seen anything about female war correspondents. I did not even know that there were female war correspondents in World War II - I simply assumed that the sexist attitudes of the day would have not allowed them to work. Happily, I have been enlightened by Penny Colman and her book Where the Action Was . She tells the story of the war through the eyes of several female war correspondents - sometimes through direct quotes, sometimes through reproductions of the headlines of their articles that are placed throughout like in a scrapbook. The history of the w...

Great book for school age kids Published in 2001 by Atheneum Books for Young Readers Stephen E. Ambrose is perhaps best known as the author of Band of Brothers , the book that inspired the HBO mini-series of the same name. His passion for World War II continues in this book aimed at upper elementary through high school students. A Kamikaze plane about to hit an American ship (In the book on page 78) While there is nothing new in The Good Fight , it is a fantastic introduction to the war. All of the major theaters are covered and, perhaps best of all, there is a full page 10" x 10"  picture from the war that show everything from the home front to kamikaze planes to Hitler in a elaborate Nazi rally to Holocaust victims and even more. Those pictures and the little ones scattered on the other pages make the book much more vivid. There are also plenty of pictures of the young men and women that were involved - pictures that make the war seem more real. Th...

An entertaining read and a great way to rate the presidents Published in 2012 by Regnery Publishing, Inc. First and foremost, the latest entry in the P.I.G. series is a great read. Steven Hayward is to be commended for making what could have been a very stale read into an entertaining read - he has a light touch. Secondly, how sad is it that grading presidents by how well they "preserve, protect, and defend" the constitution is a unique idea? Hayward begins The Politically Incorrect Guide to the Presidents with a look at what the founders wrote about the office of the president and compares that to the modern presidency. He then looks at the presidency in the 19th century and how most presidents took the restrictions of the Constitution very seriously. As Hayward proceeds to grade the 17 presidents we have had from 1913 until the 2012 (from Wilson to Obama) on an A to F scale (just like in school) he gives a thumbnail sketch of each president with the major issu...

Extraordinarily Powerful As An Audiobook Experience Published in December 2011 by AudioGO Read by Ray Childs Duration: approximately 7 hours. Unabridged. In 1959, John Howard Griffin (1920-1980), an author and journalist decided to go check out the serious rumblings of the Civil Rights movement for himself. Griffin was white and he decided to medically darken his skin (and smooth out the rough spots with dye and shave his head) and go as a black man. His plan was to see if things truly were different on the other side of the color line. Black Like Me is a novelization of his experiences (meaning things were edited and re-arranged to make the story work better) and it starts with him pitching his idea to a publisher and his family. Once he gets funding and permission from his family (after a lot of serious talk about how dangerous this could be) Griffin heads off to New Orleans for his medical treatments. He picks New Orleans because of its more liberal racial attitudes, figuri...

Very enjoyable short listen Published by Blackstone Audio in 2009. Read by Robert Whitfield Duration: 90 minutes This unabridged lecture on Socrates covers all of the major aspects of the life of the famed Ancient Greek philosopher including his personal life, his military career (he served with distinction as a hoplite , the Athenian equivalent of a buck private), the sordid story of his execution by the government of Athens, his influences, who he influenced, his impact, both good and bad, on Western society and more. Throw in the entertaining (and surprisingly approachable considering it is about philosophy) text and the great delivery by narrator Robert Whitfield and this short little audiobook is a well worth listen. I rate this audiobook 5 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: Socrates In 90 Minutes. Reviewed on March 11, 2012. <br /> <img src="http://wms.assoc-amazon.com/20070822/US/img/noscript.gif?tag=dwsre-20" alt=...

Wonderful, just wonderful. Published by Simon and Schuster Audio Read by Cotter Smith Duration: 4.5 hours  Abridged A family friend gave me the abridged audio version of Undaunted Courage . It has been on my "to read" list for years and I'd never quite gotten around to it but, boy, am I glad I finally did. Meriwether Lewis (1774-1809) In Ambrose's hands the story of the Lewis & Clark expedition is lifted from the stale and stilted pages of the history textbooks and it becomes an exciting narrative - full of adventure, wonder and tons of hard work. Ambrose is a gifted writer. I am reminded of the David McCullough quote: "No harm's done to history by making it something someone would want to read." No danger of that with Ambrose. Not only has he read everything there is to be found on the topic but has traveled the route several times. William Clark (1770-1838) Cotter Smith did a great job of reading the text and keeping...

A wonderful introduction to Kahlo (a review of the English translation) Originally published in 1999. If you saw the Selma Hayek movie on the life of Frida Kahlo and want to know a bit more, this book is a wonderful introduction to her professional life. In fact, the movie and this book complement one another quite nicely, since the movie tended to focus on her personal life. Andrea Kettenmann's book follows the life of Kahlo and does a great job of explaining the symbolism of Kahlo's work as it pertained to her personal life, her health setbacks and her political beliefs. In my opinion, the intensely personal nature of her work is what makes her such a compelling artist. She was especially good at depicting her pain, both psychic and physical. This book goes a long way to explaining many of her works. Frida Kahlo with Diego Rivera in 1932 There are 93 illustrations in this book and most of them are of her paintings. Also includes a couple of photographs of Die...

Strong history, only limited by the fact that the book itself is practically an antique At the time of this review, this book is 41 years old. It was published in 1966 by Time-Life books as part of a series of books entitled "The Great Ages of Man." Of course, several of the photos of contemporary Africa are now hopelessly outdated (but you can choose to look at the book itself as a piece of history and look at those pictures as photographic evidence of historical Africa) and any references to contemporary Africa are not accurate - no mention of any of the tragedies that continent has witnessed over the last 25 years - starvation, genocide, AIDS, etc. Fortunately, those references are few and far between. Mostly this is a well-written, accessible history that taught me more than the half-dozen or so textbooks that I read in college as part of my coursework. Its greatest strength is in detailing the civilizations that were built from roughly 1000-1600 AD in West Africa...

Nice history of Indiana's "moment" in the Civil War Published in 1993 by TaylorMade WRITE From July 8-13, 1863, Indiana became the focus of attention in the Civil War. Despite the massive losses incurred by the Confederacy from the surrender of Vicksburg on July 4, 1863 and the Battle of Gettysburg on July 1-3, the Confederacy still had enough life to mount an invasion into the North (albeit small) and it caused a first-rate scare throughout the Midwest. Confederate Brigadier General  John Hunt Morgan " With Bowie Knives and Pistols": Morgan's Raid in Indiana is a good, detailed history of the Indiana portion of the raid (it continued on into Ohio). Taylor starts with a short general biography of Morgan and his famed cavalry unit. Taylor also describes the situation in the Kentucky theater of war and explains the logic behind Morgan's raid and why he went against his orders to carry the war into Indiana and Ohio. What could be a tedious read i...

Many hated it but I think it may be Crichton's best book Published in 2006 by HarperCollins I have not read all of Michael Crichton's books but I have come close. His best books are generally warnings about the dangers of science without the guidance of ethics: Just because you can do something - does that mean you should do it?  Next delivers that theme in spades. It is all about genetic manipulation - not just genetically modified corn or houseflies. No, Crichton is talking about genetically modifying people to eliminate certain behaviors and even splicing human DNA into animals. The book comes at the reader in a kinetic mish-mash of bits of plot from several plotlines, news headlines and news articles. This mess finally coalesces into a real story about halfway through the book and I assumed that Crichton's writing had deteriorated when he wrote this thing and he was just not able to juggle it all. Michael Crichton (1942-2008) Then, I got it. This out-...

A unique biographical collection - a new angle on the Civil War Published by PublicAffairs in 2003 I am a big fan of Civil War histories. I have more than 75 fiction and non-fiction Civil War books on my bookshelf (mostly non-fiction) so I am hardly a newbie to this area. When I comment that this is a new angle, I an really saying something. It's not that James M. Perry has uncovered new documents or new information in Touched with Fire , but he has re-shuffled the "same old" information into a new pattern. In this case, he has focused on the five Presidents that fought in the Civil War (Grant, Hayes, Garfield, Harrison and McKinley). Perry includes a modest pre-war biography of each of the men and then goes into greater detail on their war experiences. The level of detail is neither skimpy nor excessive - he strikes a nice balance. As a group, they all had many things in common. To a man, they all became competent officers of brevet Major or higher, t...

A review from a Mellencamp fan from way back Released by Island in 2007 I was kind of torn about giving this collection a 5 star rating - not because it is not a quality sampling of his work, because they are all good choices. But, there's so much that has been left out. But, reality has to set in and the CD publisher just has to leave stuff out - there is only room for ten songs in this collection series. I always check out the "20th Century Masters" series when I am browsing in the CD section because they usually get a strong cross-section of an artist's work. This is fairly easy if the artist is a flash-in-the-pan type, but Mellencamp has been cranking out hits for more than 25 years. Sure, his best days as a top seller are long gone, but he continues to put out quality work and scores an occasional top 40 song. The wealth of hits to choose from must have made the choices a bit tricky. This album is arranged in reverse chronological order, cov...

Inspired by an event in the author's life, a bit of "film noir" on paper First published in 2003. If you are familiar with the movie style called "film noir" than you get a good idea what Chasing the Dime is like. In a "film noir" movie the protagonist is a regular guy with a secret. He gets sucked into the criminal underworld (or into the world of spies) by events he cannot control and does not understand. Betrayals make him question everything and his old life is shattered. Well, all of that happens here. Henry Pierce gets a new phone number and a series of calls intended for the old owner of the number. He gets curious as he tries to tell the old owner, a prostitute who advertises herself on a porn site as an escort, to change her number. From that point on he gets sucked in to an out of control situation. I wasn't in to this one for the first 75 pages or so. But, once it gets going this one really had me. Connelly noted in the...

An Entertaining Take on English History Published in 2007 by W.F. Howes Ltd. Read by the author, Robert Lacey Duration: 6 hours, 15 minutes Abridged. Robert Lacey's quirky 3 volume collection Great Tales from English History was truly a joy to listen to. Volume III ran from the late 17th century to the 1990s and covered such topics as John Locke, The Boston Tea Party (a remarkably even-handed presentation of the American Revolution in general), King George III, the beginnings of the Methodist movement, the Industrial Revolution, Bonnie Prince Charlie, the Charge of the Light Brigade, Darwin, Queen Victoria and World Wars I and II. If you are listening to this audiobook to get a complete history of England, you will be sorely disappointed. This series cherry picks the interesting and fun stories (the type I love to tell  in the classroom) and strings them together for a most entertaining listen. Lacey reads the book himself and does a very good job. Sometimes it can be a...

A twist on the L.A. detective novel Published in 2012 by  Hay House Visions . For years, Los Angeles has been the home of the detective story. For Raymond Chandler, Dragnet , Robert Crais, Michael Connelly and even videogames like L.A. Noire , Los Angeles has been the seedy, diverse world that has all of the secrets that our intrepid detective heroes must dig up and expose. The First Rule of Ten brings us a different take on the L.A. Detective STory. Tenzing Norbu (he goes by Ten) is a different kind of detective in that he grew up in a monastery and used to be a Buddhist monk but moved to America at the age of 18. His literary hero is Sherlock Holmes and he has just retired from LAPD as a detective because the job was simply getting too bureaucratic - too much paperwork, not enough mystery-solving. Ten may not be a monk any longer but he is still a practicing Buddhist. That's a different twist, and in some ways a refreshing twist on the stereotype of the alcohol-abusing...