DWD's Reviews

The best description that I have for this book is that it is like a roller coaster Originally published in 1996. Why is it like a roller coaster? A roller coaster is slow when it starts out and climbs that first big hill. Byzantium is also slow while Lawhead lays the groundwork and has the reader join with an enterprising group of 13 monks from Ireland and Britain that head off for a pilgrimage to Constantinople. Like a roller coaster, once this book finally gets moving (around page 90 or so) the pace never stops and the reader is drawn into a wonderful world and is exposed to four cultures (Irish, Viking, Byzantine, Arab), as the main character is taken into slavery, lives the life of luxury, suffers from religious doubt, climbs to the heights of faith, fights corruption, is betrayed, and also travels the world in a whirlwind fashion. This wonderful story, based on a composite of Irish monks from the 9th and 10th centuries, is a joy to read. Bravo! This is my first Lawhea...

The works of a brilliant essayist are a joy to read. Originally published in 1988. I admit, I was attracted to Thank God for the Atom Bomb because of the title. Our library had it featured on its web page with some excerpts and I was intrigued. I was not disappointed. The title essay is simply brilliant. It is also caustic, blunt and nuanced. I'll refer to it before the next time I teach about World War II. There are two more essays on World War II. I found the two essays on George Orwell to be most interesting. His commentary on the differences between tourism and travel reminded me of the Twain essays I've been reading lately. "Taking It All Off in the Balkans" is the account of his visit to a nudist resort in the former Yugoslavia - very funny and (I've got to say it) revealing. Paul Fussell Two essays were just not interesting to me, being mainly about poetry and I find myself unable to muster the interest to read poetry, let alone rea...

Jesse Stone returns to form After the rather awful Stranger in Paradise I was afraid the whole series was going to just fizzle. I was pleasantly surprised with Night and Day . It is a return to higher standard of reading to which I had grown accustomed. The plot moves along nicely, the witty banter is plentiful. The case is distressing but not super-hero level. I will not go into all of the plot details. Those are outlined by others on the page. All in all, this is a pleasant and quick read. Everything I look for in a Parker novel - detecting, banter, psychobabble and a bit of romance (in a macho sort of way, of course). I rate this book 5 stars out of 5. Reviewed on May 30, 2009. Also mentioned in this review:

WOW! This one starts in a hurry and never slows up! Published in 2009 by Bantam. Normally, I am very skeptical of all of those little blurbs that cover books. This one came with all kinds of blurbs from established authors and professional reviewers, including "Will leave you breathless - Robert Crais", "A one-sit thriller - Michael Connelly" and "The surprises just keep on coming - Charlaine Harris." Well, guess what? Fear the Worst lives up to its praise. I'd never heard of Linwood Barclay before I read this book, but he writes a terrific thriller. The premise of the book is that car salesman Tim Blake's daughter goes to work one day and does not return. No one at her job has seen her before. No one in the area knows anything about her. Her best friends don't know anything. She's just gone. The whole idea comes from the author's daughter who looked at him at breakfast one day and said, "Suppose you came to pick me...

Top-notch techno-thriller, with equal emphasis on the "techno" and the "thriller" Published in 2009 by Signet Daemon is part 1 of a series. I do not know if there will be more than one sequel but the next book, Freedom , is coming in 2010. (Note: Click on this link to see the review I wrote about Freedom ) A computer program created by a mad genius has infiltrated the world's computers and is creating a 'new world order'. A revolution is in the mix and it will be led by the world's disaffected and misfits - the tattooed computer geeks, the pierced gamers, crazed psychopaths that treat all life like it is a NPC in a computer game, etc. There have been plenty of books, movies and TV shows about the computer that has taken over a building or a spaceship, such as 2001: A Space Odyssey . but this is the first one I've heard of in which the entire world economic system has been hijacked. I'm no computer expert, but and I am competen...

I ran across this series at the local library. I'd never heard of it before but I certainly enjoyed You Wouldn't Want to Be in Alexander the Great's Army!: Miles You'd Rather Not March . It is aimed at 4th - 8th grade, depending on the reading level. The cartoonish characters are fun, the history is accurate, although limited. That's okay, it is intended to be an introduction to the topic, not a graduate thesis. The nice thing about it is that it shows that history is not "boring." It is full of fascinating stories. My only complaint about the book is the map. There is one, in the front. I think there should be one for every topic to show where Alexander is moving his men too now! I would gladly include this book in any 4th-8th grade classroom library. I rate this book 5 stars out of 5. Find this book on Amazon.com here:  You Wouldn't Want to Be in Alexander the Great's Army!: Miles You'd Rather Not March. Reviewed on Jun...

A fun way to get your essential bits of history  As a history teacher, I think just about all of history is fascinating - the cultural tidbits, the technology, the religious beliefs, the wars, the governments. It's all fascinating! But...convincing my students is another matter entirely. This series does an excellent job of looking at history from an interesting point of view and showing why it was tough. The art is accessible and just cartoonish enough to not be one of those boring illustrations that fill history books and plenty realistic enough that to clearly see and understand what is going on (for example, the women who are weaving on pages 16 & 17 are cartoonish but their loom looks pretty realistic). In You Wouldn't Want to Be a Slave in Ancient Greece , you learn a lot about slavery in general that can be applied to any time - the drudgery and humiliation, the loss of freedom and the uncertainty. There is also a lot of Ancient Greece-specific infor...

Historically solid and entertaining . I just discovered this series and I've been reading a few of them for fun this summer. You Wouldn't Want to Live In A Medieval Castle is entertaining and it contains solid, accurate history presented in a visually interesting format. While I've been lookig a few of these over for my own personal entertainment, my almost 4th grade daughter has been sneaking them out of the stack and reading them without any encouragement from me.  The book mostly is about a little girl who is brought into a castle to work as a damsel (lady-in-waiting or a bodyservant). The book is also about a real historical event - the siege of Rochester Castle in Kent, England in 1215 by King John who is having trouble dealing with the barons after he signed the Magna Carta. There is also quite a bit about a young page who is trying to become a squire so that he might become a knight someday. Everyday life in the castle is discussed (carrying...

This is a great series I recently stumbled onto the You Wouldn't Want to... series and have found them to be a delightful and painless way to introduce young people to different historical concepts. You Wouldn't Want to Live In Pompeii is a standout in a standout series of books. It teaches about the eruption of Vesuvius in AD 79 that destroyed Pompeii, but it also teaches about Roman culture. The readers will learn that the Romans used enslaved Greek men as teachers for their sons, that the Romans made sacrifices to their gods, foods they ate, types of art, the gladiatorial games and the re-discovery of Pompeii in the 1700s and, more importantly, the archaeological work of Guiseppe Fiorelli in the late 1800s. This would be great for 3rd grade or higher. Even adults can have a good basic understanding of what happened at Pompeii with this little book. I rate this book 5 stars out of 5. Reviewed on June 12, 2009.

An entertaining, historically solid book - for 4th graders and over Originally published in 2001 by Franklin Watts. Illustrated by David Antram. You Wouldn,t Want to Be a Roman Gladiator!  is entertaining and it contains solid, accurate history presented in a visually interesting format. While I've been looking a few of the books from this series for my own personal entertainment, my almost 4th grade daughter has been sneaking them out of the stack and reading them without any encouragement from me. Imagine! Kids surreptitiously reading history! The book details the life of a gladiator that is captured as a slave in battle in Gaul. We follow him to his sale in the market and what kind of jobs he might have been sent to (in the mines, as a galley slave, on the farm, etc.) The slave is sent to gladiator school and we learn about their training, what they ate, the different types of gladiators and how they were punished. We learn about different types of gladiator fights and how g...

A great introduction to the Civil War by a first-rate historian Published in 2002 Pulitzer Prize winner James McPherson's foray into children's literature, Fields of Fury: The American Civil War is a beautiful, well-written book that fits the bill perfectly. McPherson briefly covers all aspects of the conflict, from "Bleeding Kansas" to the difficulties in Reconstruction. As a Civil War buff (I have over 75 books and have read dozens more) I can think of no main topic he did not touch upon. In fact, I added a few stories to my repertoire for my classes. Most topics are covered with a two page spread - text on the even pages and a full page photo, map or painting spread on the facing page. Also, with every topic there is a "Quick Facts" section. A famous photo of an escaped slave named Gordon. This is one tough images I mention in the review. The picture is entitled "The Scourged Back" McPherson's descriptions of the personaliti...

Be prepared - this is only half the story Published in 2010. 18 hours, 44 minutes Read by Katherine Kellgren Connie Willis continues her on again/off again time travel series with Blackout , a book about time travelling historians from mid 21st century Oxford who are visiting World War II England. Katherine Kellgren does a fantastic job of nailing the great variety of English accents and the one American accent as well as the male voices. Time travel has become routine for these historians - they have teams to help prepare them for their jumps into the past, including clothing, paperwork and implants to help them with accents. They are also able to learn vast amounts of information by way of sleep learning, which can be helpful for memorizing such things as every location of a V-1 attack or what time all of the air raids happened during the Blitz. But, the routine of time travel belies a deeper problem - that of "slippage".  The trips back and forth are becoming less ...

An irreverent look at the vice presidency Published in 1992. In Bland Ambition: From Adams to Quayle - the Cranks, Criminals, Tax Cheats and Golfers Who Made it to Vice President , Steve Tally looks at America's vice presidents and gives us the inside scoop on each of these men's foibles and character flaws. The chapters are short and sweet and hilarious! Tally introduces us to Vice Presidents who assumed that they were really assistant presidents, vice presidents who never really showed up to work, vice presidents who showed up to work but really shouldn't have bothered and vice presidents who never really grasped the idea that they were supposed to work with their presidents to get things passed through the Congress. For the research paper writers out there, Tally's work would be inappropriate to use as the main source of your information, but it would make a fantastic book to add that little bit of extra to make your paper more interesting to read! This was tru...

Originally published in 2002. To America: Personal Reflections of a Historian  wanders and meanders its way through American history and, while this may bother others, personally, I love it. For me, it was as if I were able to sit and listen in on a conversation with a master story-teller. Ambrose discusses such things as the hypocrisy of Jefferson ('unalienable rights' for all men - how about your own slaves?) and most of the Founding Fathers - but still he does not just topple them for their hypocrisy - he also points out, with wonder, that they accomplished the near-impossible. He also notes the seeds for social change that they all planted, such as universal education (Jefferson). In fact, he directly confronts the 'but he was a slaveholder' mentality - acknowledge the terrible fault - in fact, insist on acknowledging it. But, judge them by the whole of their work. Stephen E. Ambrose (1936-2002) Ambrose covers such flawed men as Andrew Jackson, Theodore Ro...

Check out the audiobook - it is worth it Published by Phoenix Books Read by Burt Reynolds Duration: 6 hours, 52 minutes Unabridged I avoided this audiobook performance of Chance because its read by Burt Reynolds and I figured that if anybody has a chance to ruin a Spenser novel it would be Burt Reynolds. Not that Burt is a bad actor, but he tends to do what he wants to do rather than what he's told to do. Boy, was I wrong. Despite his talent for finding bad movies, Reynolds is, underneath it all, a real actor. He finds the voice for the wise-cracking Spenser and hits it dead on. Spenser's observations and one-liners are read perfectly. Not only that, but he covers the voices of all of the mob leaders and his characterization of Shirley Meeker/Ventura gives the reader a great deal of sympathy for how truly pathetic and harmless she was as she got herself caught up in events beyond her control. Burt Reynolds Reynold's portrayal of Hawke was different (more...

Believe the hype - this is a fantastic book! Originally published in 2010. Sometimes books, movies, or restaurants get a lot of hype and buzz but really are not what they are cracked up to be.  Unbroken is everywhere nowadays - bookstores, my local grocery store is selling it. I just saw online that there is a movie deal.  Is it the real deal?  Laura Hillenbrand  Yes, Unbroken is an amazing biography, and it is most definitely the real deal. I plowed right through 450 pages of text in near-record time, devouring chunks of a story that continued to take new twists and turns and lead me to follow Louis Zamperini from the heights of athletic glory in the 1936 Berlin Olympics to the literal pits of despair in a digging out prison camp latrine with his bare hands in order to earn enough grains of rice to barely fuel his ravaged, starved body. Louis Zamperini grew up as a juvenile delinquent in Torrance, California - a restless kid who, at the...

An enthusiastic 5 stars! A fantastic book. Published in 2009. I was offered  Joker One  as part of the Amazon Vine program and I decided to take it because I am a history teacher and I decided I needed to read a book about the Iraq War just to have a greater sense of what was/is going on and to be able to speak more intelligently about it to my classes. So, I picked  Joker One  and I let it sit on my pile of books. I let it sit and sit because I was afraid it would be preachy, depressing and difficult. Finally, with classes over I picked up  Joker One  and I was hooked by page 2 with Lt. Campbell's description of an explosion that he had just avoided. It was filled with honest emotions, including a bit of honest, self-deprecating humor. I shot through Joker One . I carried it everywhere I went. I read passages to my long-suffering wife. I told her shortened versions of the stories. Literally, I laughed (his account of their first night missio...

Fits the Bill Perfectly Published in 2004 Some people have criticized this book for not having enough detail. Well, this book is just intended to be an introduction to a number of the world's great religions: Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, Confucianism, Taoism and Shinto. The descriptions are short (20-40 pages) and full of enough detail to give the reader a useful outline of the religion's teachings. For more detail on a particular religion, I would recommend the 'Complete Idiot's Guide to Islam (or Buddhism, or Judaism, etc.) I was searching for a textbook to use for my school's new 9 weeks-long program on world religions. This book fits the bill perfectly - there is enough here to get us off to a very good start towards discussing any of these religions. Less useful are the sections on similar ideas that span all world religions and the section on ancient and (basically) dead religions such as worship of the Ancient Egyptian...

"This is the devil's country...and you are fighting the devil's war" Published in 2007 by Doubleday The Afghan Campaign is one of two pieces of historical fiction that Steven Pressfield has written about Alexander the Great (the other is The Virtues of War ). Pressfield has written about several historical eras but his real area of interest seems to be the Greek and Hellenistic eras. His most famous and, in my opinion, his best novel is Gates of Fire: An Epic Novel of the Battle of Thermopylae . Alexander the Great (356-323 B.C.) The Afghan Campaign is a solid novel. Pressfield does his best to put us on the ground with the troops, much like he did with Gates of Fire .  The reader follows a group of young Macedonian recruits as they ship off to join Alexander's army as it approaches what is now known as Afghanistan.  Pressfield's choice to view the war from the level of a raw recruit (Matthias) as he learns to fight and eventually becomes a sergea...

 Excellent beginner's history to Luther and his times Published in 1966 by Lutheran Church Press. Fischer's book on the life and works of Luther is obviously intended to be a school-age biography of the great leader of the Reformation. I would suggest it for Middle or High School age students.  Luther has several simple pencil illustrations spaced throughout the book that neither add nor detract from the text as a whole. This would also be an appropriate book for anyone new to Martin Luther or the Reformation. Martin Luther (1483-1546) Fischer starts by setting the scene for the reader. His description of life and politics in pre-Reformation is Europe is one of the best short summaries that this world history teacher has ever read. Fischer sets the scene wonderfully for the reader to understand Martin Luther and the magnitude of his demands for the Church to reform itself. Fischer takes great care not to cast the Catholics as devils and Luther as an angel. All of L...