DWD's Reviews

The controversial winner of the 1968 Pulitzer Prize for fiction Here we are, decades years later and The Confessions of Nat Turner is still in the news. Recently, Henry Louis Gates, Jr made comments (positive ones, now. Originally negative impressions, years ago) about the book. The primary controversy is quite simple - how can a white man, a southerner, and the descendant of slave owners write a novel about one of the few slaves who actually stood up and demanded his freedom by leading a rebellion? Some have even asserted that he did not even have the right to write the book in the first place - after all, it is not HIS history. But, is Nat Turner to be forever held apart? Is African-American history to be held apart? Can an African-American write about the Japanese Shogunate? Can an Asian-American write about the Alamo? Of course and of course. Gates makes this point in his comments (correctly). History is human history. Nat Turner (1800-1831) Styron's fictionalized...

Not the strongest of the series but very, very good Winner of the 2003 Anthony Award. Published in 2002 by Little, Brown.  Michael Connelly is one of the two best living detective writers, in my opinion, the other being Robert Crais. Having noted in the title for this review that City of Bones is not the strongest in the series, I must also note that it makes this book receive a grade of merely an "A" rather than the normal "A+." Michael Connelly Bosch's books are gritty but not over the top. He is principled but not a boy scout. This particular Harry Bosch novel, City of Bones , deals with an old homicide uncovered in the hills surrounding Los Angeles. Bosch finds romance, has a major career shift and it has a surprise ending. No other plot details to avoid spoilers. You can join the Bosch novels at any point but I'd recommend starting at the beginning. I rate this book 5 stars out of 5. This book can be found on Amazon.com here: City of Bones...

This Edgar Award nominee does it again! Nancy Pickard I've regularly read Nancy Pickard's 'Jenny Cain' series and have been heartened by the growth I've seen in her work. Pickard's detective stories have slowly been growing in power and complexity. This novel, however, may very well mark Pickard's arrival as a true master of the detective story. I admit that I have not read another of this series, but I was struck by its simple cleverness. The writer of a 'true crime' novel becomes unnerved by doubts concerning the outcome of the trials and criminals that she has recently written about. Her own private investigation, interspersed with chapters from her recently completed 'true crime' book that fill the reader in on the back story, causes a great deal of distress and irritation among both the police and the real criminals. Very well done. Very clever. I'll be looking for more in the series. I rate this book 5 star...

Great book, great movie, great story no matter the format! Originally published in 1973. The author,  William Goldman I wasn't even aware that The Princess Bride: S. Morgenstern's Classic Tale of True Love and High Adventure was even a book until I was looking through the special features on my DVD and they were speaking of the difficulties they had bringing the book to the big screen. Once I found out about the book I just had to get it! So, is it better than the movie? While I certainly enjoyed the background information on Fezzik and Inigo, this is one of the first books that I can honestly say is better as a movie. Notice, that I have given this book 5 stars, so we are distinguishing between very good and very, very good here. Still, the movie is a further abridgment of S. Morgenstern's classic tale (wink, wink) that makes the story even stronger. My edition had a wonderful new introduction the recounted some of the struggles and joys in mak...

Published in 2005 by Bantam. First and foremost - Gates of Fire is a top-notch bit of writing. It is one of the better books that I have read and is a fantastic example of the value of historical fiction. Pressfield takes the Spartans and makes them real. He takes their struggle for independence against a world-shaking power and makes it not just an academic enterprise, but something the reader becomes invested in. He takes these names from history and makes them flesh and blood for the reader. Is that the way they really were? No. Most likely not. But, no history book can do that definitively either. This is Steven Pressfield's most popular book for a reason. He makes the Spartans and the battle between the 300 Spartans (and a few hundred other semi-professional Greek soldiers) against the Persians at the Battle of Thermopylae come to life. This battle was most recently featured in the cartoonish (but still great) movie 300 , which is not based on this book but, of course, sh...

A fascinating read How to Break a Terrorist: The U.S. Interrogators Who Used Brains, Not Brutality, to Take Down the Deadliest Man in Iraq is a fascinating must-read for anyone who is interested in the war on terror. I was handed this book by a friend and I assumed it was going to be a typical anti-war screed that demands that terrorists be "understood" and coddled. There is also little fear of coddling with Alexander. He is repulsed and haunted by the senseless butchery that went on in Iraq and was sickened by those that were willing to kill innocents with suicide bombings. Alexander's techniques only prove that his eyes were strictly on the goal - stop Zarqawi. Alexander's techniques are hardly "touchy-feely" - in a way they are a form of psychological trickery. He fools his interview targets into giving him the information he wants and then exploits their trust. It is also the type of technique that any regular viewer of TV detective shows see ev...

Recommended for middle schoolers through adults    National Book Award, Young People's Literature, 2002. Published in 2002. Limiting The House of the Scorpion to a young adult audience is a disservice to the book and to the themes it brings up. This would be a fantastic book for an adult discussion group - there are so many themes and controversial topics that a group could discuss for hours and hours. That being said, I nearly quit listening to this audiobook after the first hour. It was sooooo slow to get started. On top of that, it was often dark and opressive. However, after the character Tam Lin comes in to the story the whole book changes and you would have had to fight me to get me to give the book up. By the time the end came around I felt like I had lived a life with Mateo and was thoroughly satisfied. So, what kind of themes are there? Well, this book, in my opinion, points out the dangers that many of the more Conservative thinkers warn us about ...

An informative historical adventure Follett's A Place Called Freedom was one of the most requested books when I worked at a now-defunct used book store more than 10 years ago. I finally got around to reading it and I can see why it was in such demand. Ken Follett Follett introduces the reader to the turbulent politics on 1760s England, Scotland and America. He throws in a liberal dose of romance and the reader will be reminded of the Tom Cruise / Nicole Kiddman epic movie Far and Away . There are plenty of similarities - both feature poor, rural heroes who fall in love with the landlord's spunky daughter. Nevertheless, it's a great read and unique enough to stand up in its own right. I recommend it to anyone who is interested in a view of England's politics and turmoil on the eve of the American Revolution - it puts America's arguments for revolution in a clearer context - it even strengthens them. On top of that, the book is a great read....

A wonderful book - it creates a world for the reader and at the end you are sad to leave it. Originally published in 1967. For me, when I read an absolutely excellent novel, I have a hard time getting into another one - you end up rejecting the new one because it's not as good as the last one. This is one of those novels for me. So, I guess I'll be cleansing the reading palate with a few magazines. I first read I Heard the Owl Call My Name when I was 14 or 15 years old. I haven't thought about it for years until I came across it at a book sale and picked it up on a whim. I approached re-reading it with some trepidation - I was afraid that it would not be as good as I remembered and I would be disappointed. Well, it wasn't as good as I remembered - it's much better! Age and experience make you appreciate some things more, I suppose. I shot through I Heard the Owl Call My Name in less than 24 hours - a new record for this slow and steady reader. Gr...

Fantastic! Originally published in 2002. D'Souza starts Whats So Great About Americ a with a thorough indictment of America. In a 30 page chapter entitled "Why They Hate Us" he honestly and thoroughly lays out all of the arguments about why America is reviled by so many. By the end of the chapter the reader begins to wonder if there really is anything so great about America. The balance of the book is spent answering every charge leveled in the first chapter. I have rarely read a book on contemporary politics in which I agree so thoroughly with his analyses. I may be just a high school history teacher but I do a lot of thinking about history and a lot of reading. The big ideas such as those of Locke, Rousseau and Jefferson fascinate me and I like to think about what their philosophies mean for us if implemented in the real world. D'Souza's comments on the West being an inheritance from both Athens and Jerusalem (pp. 60-61) closely mirror a concl...

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...