DWD's Reviews

Published by Recorded Books in 2012. Read by L.J. Ganser. Duration: 16 hours, 10 minutes. Unabridged. In 1783, at the end of the Revolutionary War, Loyalists (Americans who opposed the American Revolution and stayed loyal to Britain) had a choice to make - stay and ride out the anti-Loyalist bias in the United States or move somewhere else. In the two years between the last major engagement (Yorktown) and the official end of the war and withdrawal of British troops the British decided to evacuate any Loyalists that wanted to go to other parts of the British Empire. One of the biggest advocates of this position was Guy Carleton, the British commander in America after Yorktown who later went on to become the Governor-in-Chief of Canada. He had more to do with what happened in this history than any other single person. Guy Carleton (1724-1808) The British government made an effort to make things right for these Loyalists. Not many Loyalists were completely reimbursed, but the fact that an...

  Published in 2001 by Forge (Tor). Treason has been in my to-be-read pile for a long time. I was inspired to finally read it after watching the musical  Hamilton on a streaming service. As you may know, the character of Aaron Burr plays a large part and I got to wondering exactly what happened to Burr when he went west after his term as Vice President. The problem, as the author points out, is that we don't really know exactly what Aaron Burr did. He went on trial for treason, but it was a hurried and botched trial and Burr was found not guilty. Nevin does a solid job of explaining what Burr might have been doing. Nevin goes along with the popular theory that Burr was working with the commanding general of the U.S. Army, James Wilkinson. In 1854, letters were discovered that showed that Wilkinson was in the pay of the government of Spain and was feeding them all sorts of information. Aaron Burr, 1756-1836. Nevin supposes that Wilkinson gave Spain false information designed ...

Published in 2006 by Tantor Media. Read by Grover Gardner. Duration: 10 hours, 10 minutes. Unabridged. Winston Groom, best known as the author of Forrest Gump , is also a historian of sorts. He has written 14 non-fiction books, using his research skills he honed as a journalist to investigate a historical topic. In this case, the topic is the Battle of New Orleans. Most people know everything they know about the battle from the catchy Johnny Horton song: I n 1814 we took a little trip,  Along with Colonel Jackson down the might Mississip We took a little bacon and we took a little beans And we caught the bloody British in the town of New Orleans. I knew a little bit more, having read a little about the battle. I didn't know much, however, not really being a fan of the War of 1812 or Andrew Jackson. But, I am a fan of Winston Groom so I decided to give it a try. Groom is skilled at telling a narrative history and at the end, I had a much better idea of how the Battle of New Orl...

Published in 2015 by Blue River Press Not many people know about the horrible story of the Sultana , a paddlewheel steamboat that sank into the Mississippi River in April of 1865. It is the worst maritime disaster in American history but was largely overshadowed by the events surrounding the assassination of Abraham Lincoln and his dramatic funeral train tour from Washington, D.C. to Springfield, Illinois. The Sultana  was grossly overcrowded. It was designed to carry 376 passengers, but it was carrying 2,155 passengers when three of its boilers exploded in the early morning hours of April 27, 1865.  Most of its passengers were survivors of the infamous Andersonville prisoner of war camp that were being shipped home.  This book is technically a sequel to Saint Patrick's Battalion . It continues the story of a boy who traveled with an American army during the Mexican War. In Fire in the Water , that boy has grown up and become a famous war correspondent. He is trav...

Published in August of 2005 by HMH Books for Young Readers. Written and illustrated by Don Brown The story of Hurricane Katrina has been told many ways in many different formats but this graphic novel by Don Brown is undoubtedly one of the more powerful re-tellings. The powerful combination of the simple text combined with the simple, sad drawings of this tragedy work together to move the reader. There is no main character to the book, just a simple re-telling of the story, starting with the birth of the storm, continuing on with the multiple mistakes leading up to the flood, the horror that followed and finally following on to the re-building of the city.  From time-to-time an unknown person will speak directly to the reader, such as when a FEMA employee says, "When I have a nightmare, it's a hurricane in New Orleans." At another point, a train conductor stands on any empty train platform next to his train and says, "We offered...to take evacuees out of h...

Published in 2012 by HighBridge Multicast performance Duration: 1 hour, 7 minutes NPR has searched its archives for stories about America's National Park System for this enjoyable collection. These stories don't just tell us about the park but tell us an interesting story in the park. Thaddeus Kosciuszco  (1746-1817) The stories vary from the humorous (the story about the smallest National Park - Thaddeus Kosciuszco National Memorial in Philadelphia which consists of a single room and covers .02 acre to honor this figure from the Revolutionary War) to the wondrous (Death Valley in full bloom after a once-in-a-lifetime rainstorm). The listener learns about the small city of employees that run Grand Canyon National Park, spooky tales of love at White Sands, an effort to preserve the music of New Orleans and a park employee who charts and maps the roadkill that he finds as he goes about his work.  The audio quality is, of course, excellent since these stories were...

Audio edition published by Tantor Audio in September of 2014 Read by Tom Perkins Duration: 13 hours, 29 minutes Unabridged Years ago, when I reviewed Doris Kearns Goodwin's monumental history of the Lincoln Administration, Team of Rivals , I noted that it was way too long and that I wished she had made it even longer by continuing to write about this team as they transitioned into the Andrew Johnson Administration. This book is similar to Team of Rivals in that it looks at individuals in the Lincoln Administration (and thus covers a lot of territory covered more thoroughly by Doris Kearns Goodwin) but it does continue on. Nathan Bedford Forrest (1821-1877) The book is mostly detailed through a series of biographies, ranging from Lincoln to Charles Sumner to the conspirators in the Lincoln assassination to O.O. Howard and even to Nathan Bedford Forrest. After Lincoln covers a lot of ground without really coming up with anything new, at least not for this serious studen...

  My daughters and I give it 5 stars Published in 2007 by HighBridge Company Multicast performance Duration: approximately 1.5 hours NPR has a series of audiobooks published through HighBridge Company called Driveway Moments with the added thought that these are "radio stories that won't let you go." These are designed to be the types of stories that you sit in the car in your driveway and continue to listen to after you've arrived home. In this collection the stories are about animals. We've got cats, dogs, raising baby hummingbirds and letting them go (it brings a tear to the eye), a giant turtle in Vietnam, a drive through pig semen store, a parrot that talks with the voice of the storyteller's deceased mother's voice and a farm for retired racehorses. There is also a long story about how pets made it through the chaos of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans. This is a tough story with lots of sad stories and great stories of re-uniting people...

Published in 2013 by Harper Audio Read by the author, Simon Winchester Duration: 13 hours, 33 minutes Simon Winchester's sprawling book, The Men Who United the States , tells a history of the United States organized around five themes: Wood, Earth, Water, Fire and Metal. To be honest, I largely ignored the themes and just enjoyed listening to this magnificent, chaotic, rambling history. Starting roughly with Lewis and Clark (Winchester backtracks a lot), the story of America is told through the tales of the people that made America a more perfect union through their explorations or their inventions. The reader (or listener if you are enjoying the audiobook) is told about Lewis and Clark and the Pony Express and the invention of the telegraph, the first transcontinental rail line, the exploration of the Grand Canyon, the role of New Harmony (Indiana) in the study of American geography,  a con game involving jewels, how George Washington toured the Frontier before he became pr...

Read by Will Patton Published by Simon and Schuster Audio 2013 First published in 1982 Duration: 5 hours, 23 minutes James Lee Burke is a prolific writer with more than thirty books, most set in New Orleans and Texas.  Two for Texas takes place in both places. Son Holland is the main character. He has been falsely accused of being involved in a crime ring and sentenced to hard time in a Louisiana penal camp by the French gentlemen that control the city. While in this camp, Holland meets Hugh, a loud-mouthed, opinionated, walleyed older man who engineers a chance to escape to Texas. But, when they escape they end up killing one of the two downright evil French brothers that run the camp. This is 1834 and Texas is a foreign country – technically still a part of Mexico but certainly preparing to rebel and create the Republic of Texas. Sam Houston (1793-1863) Hugh and Holland live among Indians, dodge the Mexican Army and flee the posse sent after them from the p...

Published by Blackstone Audio in 2012. Read by Joe Barrett Duration: 8 hours, 55 minutes . James McPherson is undoubtedly the most popular living Civil War historian. He writes in a common, easy-to-understand style that flows nicely and does not dumb down the facts. His latest book, War on the Waters: The Union and Confederate Navies, 1861-1865 continues that tradition. Union Admiral David D. Porter - Leader of the Naval forces in the Vicksburg campaign. If you read a typical Civil War history you get a just a little bit of the information, usually in passing, about the war on the open sea, in the bays, harbors, up and down the rivers and even in the swamps. McPherson reverses that arrangement in this book and focuses on the strategies, personalities and challenges that faced both navies and mentions the land campaigns in passing. If you are a frequent reader of Civil War books, little of this material will be new. But, the special focus does make the sto...

A Nifty Little Biography Published by Thomas Nelson in 2012. Jackson: The Iron-Willed Commander   is a welcome addition to a larger series called The Generals that offers relatively short biographies (about 200 pages) of America's better-known generals. This book is by no means the definitive biography of Andrew Jackson, but it is great introduction to this controversial man. Andrew Jackson (1767-1845) Andrew Jackson lived most of his life on the American frontier. His most famous battle was, of course, the Battle of New Orleans in the last moments of the War of 1812 (technically, it took place after the treaty was signed) but by that time Jackson was a veteran of many battles. He had already fought the British in two wars, skirmished with the Spanish several times and was involved in multiple frontier wars with Native Americans. Throw in Jackson's willingness to duel and one quickly realizes that Jackson thrived on action and danger. A great deal of his life seems ...

A solid bit of historical fiction Andrew Jackson (1767-1845) J ason Manning has written a series of novels about the Barlow family, starting with Lt. Timothy Barlow. The Long Hunters is set during the War of 1812 and the Seminole War and features Barlow, young Ensign Sam Houston, General Andrew Jackson and a Creek warrior/family man named Rook. The book covers the Battle of Horseshoe Bend and some of Jackson's Seminole Campaign in some detail, while we get a history book type overview of the Battle of New Orleans. Manning's books are always well-researched and I am always a bit surprised that his stuff is always marketed with the pulp fiction westerns. Not that I dislike a good Western, mind you, but Manning's stuff is a cut above. The next book in the series is The Fire-Eaters . I rate this novel 4 stars out of 5 and it can be found on Amazon.com here: The Long Hunters .  Reviewed on August 30, 2008.

Atmosphere fails to carry the day... Originally Published in 19996. Cadillac Jukebox  is part of a series of books written about an ex-New Orleans cop named Dave Robicheaux and his trials and tribulations. This book continues some of the same themes that characterize the series as a whole, such as racism, race relations, the difficulties of being a cop while also being father and husband. James Lee Burke I love the setting and the details Burke puts in his books about New Orleans and the whole Bayou scene. He shows us the seemy side of New Orleans (which is not too hard to do - if you've ever been there you know what I mean. Not that every other city is problem-free, its just that New Orleans seamy side is very public - hey, its one of the attractions). Burke has a great ear for accents, and this makes parts of his books fun to read. However, his books can be depressing. No one rides off happily in the sunset. This particular book concerns a white man jailed in the 1990s ...

Tries too hard to set a mood, loses focus on the history. As a history teacher, I love well-written historical fiction. It places the reader right in the story. A judicious author can blend the history and the fiction together in a harmless fashion and tell the story in an accurate and entertaining way. A Separate Country  does not live up to those standards. It it presumptuous of an author of historical fiction to take the first person with a very famous historical figure. Commonly, if a first person perspective is used it is with a fictional character - an aide to a general that witnesses events but does not effect them, for example. In this case, Hicks has taken one of the "name" generals from the Civil War and turned him on his head. He has sacrificed the "historical" in the name of the "fiction." Hicks places John Bell Hood into a series of historic events, some of which are quite true (such as the lottery drawings - many Confederate ex-gene...