SCANDALOUS WITNESS: A LITTLE POLITICAL MANIFESTO for CHRISTIANS (audiobook) by Lee C. Camp

Published in 2020 by Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company.
Read by Trevor Thompson.
Duration: 6 hours, 7 minutes.
Unabridged.

I heard Lipscomb University professor Lee C. Camp on Voxology, a Christian religious podcast with a more progressive bent. One of the hosts made multiple references to this book and how he had read it multiple times and referred to it often. The interview was good, the discussion was lively and I immediately burned my monthly Audible credit on this book.

Scandalous Witness consists of 15 propositions about Christianity, politics, and American history. I had no problem with Camp's propositions or his conclusions, but I did realize one very important fact - the hosts of the Voxology podcast are very, very good at creating interesting conversation.

There is nothing wrong with this book and its conclusions - I heartily endorse almost everything he says. The problem is that I found it to be a tedious read and I only finished it out sheer stubborness precisely because I had used my monthly Audible credit and I didn't want to waste it.

Maybe it's because I have read a lot of serious books along this vein like Jesus and John Wayne by Kristen Kobes du Mez, The Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory by Tim Alberta, and The Ballot and the Bible by Kaitlyn Schiess that cover these topics. Even a more political book like John Fugelsang's Separation of Church and Hate covers a lot of this same material in confrontational manner.

There is nothing wrong with this book - I just found my mind wandering way too often. A good place to start if you haven't thought much about these topics.

His fifteen propositions are:

Proposition 1: History Is Not One Damn Thing after Another

Proposition 2: The End of History Has Already Begun

Proposition 3: American Hope Is A Bastard

Proposition 4: Christianity Is Neither A Prostitute Nor A Chaplain

Proposition 5: The United States Is Not the Hope of the World

Proposition 6: The United States Was Not, Is Not, and Will Not Be a Christian Nation

Proposition 7: How Christian Values, and the Bible, Corrupt Christianity

Proposition 8: Every Empire Falls

Proposition 9: Christian Partisanship is Like a Fist-Fight on the Titanic

Proposition 10: Hostile Forces Have a Role in the Unfolding of History

Proposition 11. Christianity Is Not a Religion; Christianity Is a Politic

Proposition 12: Liberal Political Puissance Is Not the Goal

Proposition 13: Exemplary Political Witness Is the Goal

Proposition 14: Christianity Is Not Counter-Cultural

Propositions 15: Christian Engagement Must Always Be Ad Hoc

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: Scandalous Witness: A Little Political Manifesto for Christians. 

WHERE BUZZARDS FLY (A Chick Bowdrie story) (audiobook) by Louis L'Amour

Originally published in a pulp magazine in 1948.
Originally published in book form in 1983.
Originally published on audio cassette in 1986 by Random House Audio.
Re-published by Random House Audio in digital format in 2008.
Performed by multiple actors / multicast performance.
Duration: 50 minutes.
Unabridged.

Legendary Western writer Louis L'Amour's work has been packaged and repackaged in so many ways over the years. There is so much of his writing to work with - short stories, novels, series of novels, and more. 

At some point, someone decided to break up his short story collection into small audiobooks that would fit onto a single cassette (about an hour.) In the 1980s and 1990s it was pretty common to edit what would have been 10 hour audiobooks down to fit onto a cassette or two or three.

If you look at some of my early reviews, you can find a few of these abridged audiobooks and I am constantly complaining about poor edits and lost content that makes the story confusing. I think the publishing industry thought that people wouldn't listen to long audiobooks - a thought that we now know is completely wrong.

You can see why Random House took advantage of the multitide of Louis L'Amour short stories during those days to create one cassette audiobooks - you could tell the whole story without making confusing edits and you could make some money on the individual short story. They used to sell these cassettes at truck stops.

This story was performed by multiple actors, like an old-fashioned radio play. L'Amour insisted that the stories be done this way so that they would offer more value for the listener and at one point there was a syndicated radio show featuring these stories.

Synopsis:

In Where Buzzards Fly, Texas Ranger Chick Bowdrie is on the case near the border looking for the men who killed and robbed a group of Mexican bandidos who had earlier robbed a church in Mexico. Their bodies were left where they were killed. Bowdrie heads to a nearby ranch where he knows the rancher and has always been welcome to stay the night and eat a meal or two.

The rancher and the ranch hands suggest he go to the nearest town to ask around and what he finds puts his life and the life of a beautiful young woman at risk.

 My Review:

Most people think of the Sacketts when they read a Louis L'Amour series, but my first L'Amour novels were all about Chick Bowdrie and his hammerhead roan horse. 

As far as mysteries go, this one is pretty basic. Bowdrie keeps his eyes open, follows some people around and stumbles upon the truth. That makes sense to me - he's a rough and tough brawler with a heightened sense of justice and decent tracking skills, not Sherlock Holmes. 

The radio drama format was well done.

I rate this audiobook 4 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: Where Buzzards Fly (A Chick Bowdrie story) by Louis L'Amour.

EVERYTHING IS TUBERCULOSIS: THE HISTORY and PERSISTANCE of OUR DEADLIEST INFECTION (audiobook) by John Green

Published in 2025 by Listening Library.
Read by the author, John Green.
Duration: 5 hours, 35 minutes.
Unabridged.

Goodreads Choice Award Winner for Readers' Favorite Nonfiction (2025)

Audie Award for Narration by the Author and Nominee for Non-Fiction (2026)

Normally, John Green writes YA fiction, but this is his second non-fiction book in the last five years. His first non-fiction book was an excellent series of essays called Anthropocene Reviewed. His second non-fiction book is an in-depth (but still, fairly short) look at the deadliest disease of human history - tuberculosis.

In Everything Is Tuberculosis, Green gives a quick history of the disease that has killed 1 out of every 7 humans that has ever lived (yes, that is truly an amazing statistic) and even in the modern world, tuberculosis kills millions every year. 

Over the years, tuberculosis has a lot of names and suspected causes. Before it got its current name, the most common name for tuberculosis in English was "consumption." No one really knew where it came from and they were equally ignorant of how to cure the disease. Oddly enough, most people (90%) who are infected with tuberculosis (TB) never develop any symptoms and are not able to spread the disease. This is called "latent tuberculosis." Literally, 25% of the world is walking around with latent TB and more are added every day.

Doctors describe latent TB as an infection that takes advantage of its host's weakened immune system to spread and become a full blown case of TB. Immunosuppresent drugs would do this, but more mundane things like famine, poor diet, an HIV infection, diabetes, cancer, or being an elderly person make an infection move from being latent to active.

Green makes the story personal by describing the treatment of a young man he met in Sierra Leone named Henry. Green deftly goes back and forth between the big picture discussion of treatments, the countless challenges of treating TB cases in high poverty countries like Sierra Leone, and Henry's specific case. 

This is not a happy book in any way. But, it is important and it is very well told.

I rate this audiobook 5 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: EVERYTHING IS TUBERCULOSIS: THE HISTORY and PERSISTANCE of OUR DEADLIEST INFECTION (audiobook) by John Green.

HISTORY MATTERS (audiobook) by David McCullough. Edited by Dorie McCullough Lawson and Michael Hill.

Published in 2025 by Simon and Schuster Audio.
Read by John Bedford Lloyd, Dorie McCullough Lawson, and David McCullough.
Duration: 5 hours, 59 minutes.
Unabridged.

David McCullough (1933-2022) was a prolific historian, a two time winner of the Pulitzer Prize and a winner of the National Book Award. He was proud to be known as a writer that wrote smart, well-documented histories that were aimed at general audiences. 

McCullough was also known as well-respected narrator. You may know him as the narrator of Ken Burns' Civil War documentary miniseries. 

McCullough's daughter and his researcher put together this book as a collection of speeches, letters, and essays that were previously unpublished or only published in small publications. For example, he wrote a nice little essay for a local public library about his family's tradition of giving books at Christmas. 

Dorie McCullough Lawson introduces every entry in the collection, often including some context about her father's interest in the topic or why he gave a speech to this or that particular group. Sometimes, they are just annotated lists of books that McCullugh really liked (he was a man that liked to make lists) or speeches about authors that he admired.

Most of the readings were by narrator John Bedford Lloyd, but there are a couple of instances where there was a recording made of McCullough himself giving the speech.

There are a variety of topics, including Harry Truman, George Washington, and the time that a young McCullough really wanted to make a suggestion to then-candidate John Kennedy about a topic to include in his campaign stump speech. I was pleased to note that he mentioned three authors that I really like as authors to emulate - Bruce Catton, Michael Shaara, and Dr. Suess. 

I rate this audiobook 4 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: History Matters by David McCullough.

RACING the LIGHT (Elvis Cole / Joe Pike 19) (audiobook) by Robert Crais

 

Published in 2022 by Brilliance Audio.
Read by Luke Daniels.
Duration: 7 hours, 55 minutes.
Unabridged.

Synopsis

In Racing the Light, private investigator Elvis Cole is hired by a worried mother to find a missing podcaster that often deals in conspiracy theories. His mother is obviously very rich, since she comes to the office with a chaufer, two bodyguards (or "helpers" as she calls them) and a second car to serve as a "chase car" (extra protection hidden among the traffic of Los Angeles.) She suspects he was kidnapped because like her son, she is also extremely paranoid and prone to conspiracy theory thinking.

Everyone else thinks her son has run off to Las Vegas with a porn star he recently interviewed, but they are worried that he could get into a different kind of mischief and just needs to come home as soon as possible.

Elvis Cole starts digging and finds a lot of unexpected danger.

My Review

Over the last year I have gone out of my way to go back and systematically read all of the books from this series that I had missed. I thought I had read almost all of the Elvis Cole / Joe Pike novels, but it turned out that I missed almost half of them.

I went back and got the missing ones in order from earliest to latest and this one was the last one. It was also the weakest one due to all sorts of extra plot details that don't really go anywhere and maybe were intended to allow the opportunity for an extended commentary on the dangers of modern surveillance technology such as drones, hidden listening devices, and cameras.

All of this tech is impressive, but it gets outdone by nosy neighbors, tailing people in cars, random witnesses, and a doofus writing his pass codes on a piece of paper in an obvious place. Maybe we shouldn't be worried. Maybe we should - we can't depend on luck and the skills of someone like Joe Pike all of the time.

Parts of this book were excellent - such as top notch Elvis Cole wisecracks followed by Elvis Cole being a top notch human being when people just need someone to be there and say nothing. But, there was just as much stuff that seemed to be nothing but filler. 

I rate this book 3 stars out of 5. One of the weaker books in this overall excellent series.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: Racing the Light by Robert Crais.

CONQUERORS: HOW PORTUGAL FORGED the FIRST GLOBAL EMPIRE (audiobook) by Roger Crowley

Published by Recorded Books in 2015.
Read by Jonathan Davis.
Duration: 13 hours, 7 minutes.
Unabridged.

In the mid-1400s Portugal was poised to be a major world power, despite being a backwater of Europe in so many ways. Portugal sits at the western extreme of Europe, destined to be a minor player in European politics most of the time. All of Portugal's border touches Spain, so if Portugal wanted to interact with anyone but Spain they had to take to the sea.

IThe Portugese developed a new type of little wooden ship called the caravel, armed them with cannons, filled them with food, water, sailors, and stone monuments to mark the areas they explored. They pushed down the coast of Africa, hoping to find a way to the spices of Asia.

They were looking to trade, especially for spices because the Muslim countries had established a stranglehold on the spice trade with the decline and eventual fall on the Byzantine Empire in 1453.  They were also looking to link up with the fabled African Christian king Prester John, join up to defeat the Muslims, spread Christianity, and make a lot of money along the way.

And, with the exception of the Prester John part of the plan, that's basically what happened. Prester John turned out to be the Christian kingdom of Ethiopia. It was real, but not nearly as powerful as the Portugese believed - and it wasn't very interested in attacking the Muslims in a religious war. 

Conquerors: How Portugal Forged the First Global Empire is a pretty thorough look at the Portugese conquistadores and their escapades in the Indian Ocean. From the first, Portugal came with guns a-blazin'. They laid waste to cities, took slaves, took hostages, burnt ships, and were confrontational with almost everyone. 

Then, they headed home and made plans to return with even more ships. They made annual trips and made plans to make permanent posts from Africa to India. 

At this point, this history bogs down. It's not that it isn't accurate - it just becomes a litany of outrageous attacks by the Portugese, a minor setback, and then an even more audacious attack. It all kind of blurred together for me because Crowley didn't take a moment to pull away from the history to do a bit of analysis.

He didn't even step away to look at what the Portugese were doing in other parts of the world, such as Brazil and west Africa and put the Portugese efforts in the Indian Ocean into a larger context until the literal last three or four minutes of the audiobook. The title says it is a book about Portugal's empire and it ignores a lot of their empire.

The audiobook reader was Jonathan Davis. He is a very good reader and has a flair for accentuating the dramatic moments. But, he is also very slow. I rarely do this, but I set the audiobook player to play at 120% and he was still a bit slow at times.

I rate this audiobook 3 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: CONQUERORS: HOW PORTUGAL FORGED the FIRST GLOBAL EMPIRE by Roger Crowley.

FAT VAMPIRE (audiobook) (Fat Vampire #1) by Johnny B. Truant

Published in 2024 by Nyifie Brothers Publishing.
Read by Joe Hempel.
Duration: 3 hours, 58 minutes.
Unabridged.

Synopsis

Fat Vampire is a unique entry into the long and storied history of vampire tales. Our protagonist is Reginald Baskin, a very overweight accountant who works for a company that sells fitness equipment. 

The rest of the office are bullies straight out an eighties frat house movie. Reginald tries to work late afternoon into the evening as much as possible and that is where he encounters the office IT guy, Maurice. 

Maurice only works the night shift. He wears dark robes and carries an umbrella as he walks home in the early morning twilight because he is a vampire - one of the oldest vampires in the world.

Another group of vampires try to harvest Reginald for his food and Maurice intervenes and converts him to a vampire instead to save his life. The problem is (as is often the case in vampire stories) Reginald is stuck with the overweight and way out of shape body he had the moment he became a vampire. That is a problem because the vampire community doesn't tolerate vampires that can't pull their own weight (pun intended.)

My Review

This is a unique story, but it is still a pretty average story. There is nothing wrong with it, but it's not very memorable, either. Case in point, I listened to this audiobook months ago and literally immediately forgot all about it as soon as I was done with it until I accidentally clicked on the "Finished" tab on my audiobook player this evening.

However, if you are a fan of vampire stories, you should give it a go.

Note: there are 10 books in this series at this time.

I rate this audiobook 3 stars out of 5.

This audiobook can be found on Amazon.com here: FAT VAMPIRE by Johnny B Truant.

THE WATCHMAN (Elvis Cole/Joe Pike 11) (audiobook) by Robert Crais

Published in 2008 by Brilliance Audio.
Read by James Daniels.
Duration: 7 hours, 52 minutes.
Unabridged.

Synopsis

Usually, books in the Elvis Cole/Joe Pike series focus on Elvis. Elvis is a private detective with a smart mouth. He catches a case, does some digging and his partner, tough guy Joe Pike, comes in when things get hairy. It's an old formula. You see it in Perry Mason, the Spenser series, and even Magnum, PI because it works. 

The Watchman is different. It starts with Joe Pike. He is on the run with a girl and a hit squad is after them.

Joe Pike is asked to babysit a witness because a Mexican drug lord wants her dead. Multiple hit teams have come after her. What makes it more complicated is that she is very rich and she has makes the newspapers regularly for being a party girl. If you were alive pre-social media, think Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie. 

Joe is using every trick he has and barely escaping. He reaches out to Elvis Cole for some detective and logistical help and what they find doesn't make things any easier...

My Review

The action comes on fast and is mostly maintained throughout. The reader is also treated to some a great deal of Joe Pike's backstory. It does explain a lot and helps the series as a whole, if not this particular story.

The reader is okay. He is good with voices, but I am not a big fan. In the end, he did not add or detract from the story. 

I rate this audiobook 5 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: The Watchman by Robert Crais.

WHEN BOOKS WENT to WAR: THE STORIES THAT HELPED US WIN WORLD WAR II (Audiobook) by Molly Guptill Manning

Published by Blackstone Audio in 2014.
Read by Bernadette Dunne
Duration: 6 hours, 49 minutes.
Unabridged.

When Books Went to War looks at the deliberate effort by the government of the United States to put books in the hands of its soldiers as they went off to fight in World War II. 

There were multiple reasons behind this idea. The first was simple: Reading books is a practical way to help soldiers pass the time. "Hurry up and wait" is a common refrain from soldiers of all eras and books helped fill the time.

Another reason was to remind the soldiers of what they were fighting for. Being on the front has a way of making life seem cheap and disposable, but reading a good story might help keep soldiers attached to the good things from back home. This may seem corny, but so many letters from the soldiers and sailors were written to the authors of these books that emphasized this very point.

Betty Smith, the author of A Tree Grows in Brooklyn wrote and spoke about all of the letters she got from soldiers that told them how her book reminded them of their home in any big city in America - Cleveland, Chicago, Boston, or wherever. She said she received 10 times more mail from soldiers than from civilians. 

One of the most important reasons to put books in the hands of soldiers was that being anti-book was a trait of the Nazis. They were infamous for holding massive book burnings and emptying libraries of books they disagreed with. The American program to put books in the hands of soldiers was the opposite - and it was intentionally designed to be that way. The bad guys take books away from you - the good guys want you to read and think for yourself and give you books to do just that.

Note: This philosophy contrasts strongly with the Trump Adminsitration's choice to ban nearly 400 books from the libraries of the various military academies. For example, here is an article from April of 2025 about 385 books banned from the Naval Academy. 

These books were designed to be as small and lightweight as possible. They were intended to go along with a soldier no matter where he went. The print was tiny, the margins were almost non-existent and they were usually stapled together. They could slide into a pack, a pocket, or in the nooks and crannies of any vehicle. They could bend to the counters of a pack.

Men read and re-read them. When books were handed out, men would be strategic about their choices in order to guarantee a wide variety of reading choices. Men from different units traded and some units created portable libraries in crates that went right along with the unit no matter where they went. Men were assigned to be the caretakers of the books.

Their was a lot of debate about the books they picked. They weren't policed too much when it came to content. Southerners were irritated at books that were critical of their Jim Crow laws. Steinbeck's Grapes of Wrath made the cut and it is hardly politically conservative. Some were strictly educational - books that explained science or math or philosophy. A great many were Westerns and there were a number of murder mysteries. By the time it was over, the U.S. government had printed 1,225 different titles and had given away 122 million books to its armed forces for free!

Here is a list of every book they printed.

This audiobook was interesting from beginning to end. As a book lover, it was inspiring to hear about men reading to their buddies in foxholes and men discovering that they actually liked reading. As a person that always has a book on hand, I understood completely.

I rate this audiobook 5 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: When Books Went to War: The Stories That Helped Us Win World War II. 

HELL BENT: HOW the FEAR of HELL HOLDS CHRISTIANS BACK from a SPIRITUALITY of LOVE by Brian Recker

Published by Penguin Audio in 2025.
Read by the author, Brian Recker.
Duration: 6 hours, 40 minutes.
Unabridged.
 
My cousin reviewed Hell Bent on Goodreads and his review made me very excited to read it as well. 

I just re-read that review and I am still excited to read the book he described. The actual book is solid, but took a long time to get going and seemed like it was put together in an odd way - almost backwards and I think that diluted its strength.

Recker starts with a lengthy discussion of what happens if you fall out of your tribe's accepted truths. In this case, his tribe is American Evangelical Christianity, but you may have had a similar falling out with another group. For example, I have had a falling out with a lot of friends and family because I left my political tribe (I am a never-Trump Republican.)

This part was simply too long for me. I was far more interested in the actual discussion about the relative strengths and weaknesses of those that argue in favor of a Biblical case for an actual hell as a place of eternal torment for unbelievers. 

Recker looks into the Bible verses and looks at their context, not just the isolated verses. He follows up with a look at church history and sees where the actual teachings of the church changed over time. Recker delivers those arguments quite well and then shows how bad that the pro-hell argument really is for the ongoing growth of Christianity. 

I liked this book and think it has a well-earned place in any discussion of the topic. I rate this book 4 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: Hell Bent: How the Fear of Hell Holds Christians Back from a Spirituality of Love by Brian Recker. 

REVENGE of the TIPPING POINT: OVERSTORIES, SUPERSPREADERS, and the RISE of SOCIAL ENGINEERING (audiobook) by Malcom Gladwell

Published in 2024 by Little, Brown, and Company.
Read by the author, Malcolm Gladwell.
Duration: 8 hours, 25 minutes.
Unabridged.

Malcolm Gladwell delivers another immensely entertaining and informative rambling discussion of, well, so many things in Revenge of the Tipping Point.

Ostensibly, this is a look at the opioid epidemic, but Malcolm Gladwell's style always reminds the reader that the world is inter-related and complicated and so very interesting.

I plowed through this 8 hour audiobook in just a couple of days. I listened whenever I could and, honestly, I forgot that this was supposed to be a book about the opioid crisis during the 2nd hour and I did not remember he directly came back to the topic during hte 7th hour. In the meantime we had discussed medicare fraud in Florida, Cheetahs in zoos, the dangers of monocultures, Los Angeles as the country's epicenter of bank robberies, COVID superspreaders, vehicle emmissions, and more.

It was all so interesting and he does tie it all together. Also, we learn about unintended consequences in the last half hour.

This is my 8th review of a Gladwell book and I rated them all as 4 or 5 star books. I always think hard about listening to a new one because I know I am about to be immersed into a complicated, riveting set of stories and that's a commitment.

I rate this audiobook 5 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: REVENGE of the TIPPING POINT: OVERSTORIES, SUPERSPREADERS, and the RISE of SOCIAL ENGINEERING by Malcolm Gladwell.

THE DIRECTOR SHOULD'VE SHOT YOU: MEMOIRS of the FILM TRADE (audiobook) by Alan Dean Foster

Published in 2024 by Tantor Media.
Read by Stephen R. Thorne.
Duration: 7 hours, 1 minute.
Unabridged.

Alan Dean Foster is a prolific sci-fi author. He has written over 50 sc-fi novels, but he is probably most famous for his numerous novelizations of sci-fi movies and TV shows, such as the original Star Wars movie (ghost written for George Lucas), Alien, Star Trek: The Animated Series, Krull, and The Last Starfighter.

The Director Should've Shot You is the story of Foster's experiences as the man who Hollywood turns to to write novelizations of sci-fi movies. He talks about how that system (usually) works, the odd experiences, his interactions with directors, producers, and faceless stuidio executives, and his various thoughts of the strengths and weaknesses of the various projects. 

My experiences with Foster as a young reader start with his two Star Wars books that he wrote when George Lucas  and his team were finishing the original movie.

As I noted, he ghost wrote the novelization of the first movie for George Lucas. He  also wrote the original sequel to the original Star Wars movie - a book called Splinter of the Mind's Eye. George Lucas asked Foster to make Splinter of the Mind's Eye a smaller story when compared to sweeping epic of the original story just in case the first movie turned out to be a bust. Lucas hoped to make a cheaper movie and recycle some of the original props and costumes in order to eke out a little profit. The runaway success of Star Wars made that plan unnecessary. 

We were so starved of Star Wars material back then. I must have read the novelization of the original Star Wars movie more than 10 times. This was back in the days when you could only see Star Wars in the movie theaters. It hadn't been played on TV yet and there were no VHS, DVD, or streaming releases. But, we had the books, the collectable cards, the toys to remind us of the story and it was an endless source of conversation.

I remember reading and discussing Splinter of the Mind's Eye until Lucas released the eventual sequel, The Empire Strikes Back. We were searching for any indication of how the stories might continue and we were trying to figure out how the Star Wars universe worked and all we really had were two little paperback books writen by Alan Dean Foster. That cover was excellent.

I must have read all of his novelizations of the Star Trek animated stories because I read everything Star Trek that I could find when I was in high school.

If you are looking for a complete autobiography of Foster, this isn't it. He offers a decent autobiography up to the point where he starts writing the movie novelizations and then it's pretty much all about those novels. That was fine by me - Foster is a critic and a fan at the same time and it was a fun listen.

The book is almost worth reading just to see what 1970s TV show paid him to write a novelization of a very special two episode story arc. It was certainly out of his normal area of expertise.

Now, I am seriously thinking about re-reading Splinter of the Mind's Eye.

I rate this audiobook 5 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: THE DIRECTOR SHOULDVE SHOT YOU MEMOIRS of the FILM TRADE by Alan Dean Foster.

STAR TREK PICARD: NO MAN'S LAND: AN ORIGINAL AUDIO DRAMA (audiobook) by Kirsten Beyer and Mike Johnson

Published by Simon and Schuster Audio Originals in 2022.

Performed by a full cast, including Jeri Ryan and Michelle Hurd.

Duration: 1 hour, 39 minutes.

Unabridged.

Synopsis

Set immediately after the Star Trek streaming show Picard: Season One, the audiobook No Man's Land is an adventure featuring the characters Seven of Nine and Raffi. 

With the collapse of the Romulan Empire comes the rise of local Romulan warlords who are trying to assert their control over the Romulan territory and, just as important, lay claim to the Romulan brand. 

A Romulan who has taken the title Emperor is conquering/leveling various planets in an attempt to establish himself as the successor to the Romulan Empire. It looks he is heading towards a planet that is secretly holding a massive collection of written materials, museum pieces, and other cultural relics of the collapsed Romulan Empire. 

There is a mad scramble to remove the relics, led by an ancient, kindly professor of unknown origin and Seven and Raffi are heading in to the chaos...

My Review

The audio in this book is excellent. It is a multicast performance with 12 different actors and the typical Star Trek special effects, very much like an old-fashioned radio drama. With all of the narration describing space battles and simple things like pouring a drink being replaced by sound effects, this makes for a very quick story. It's not an epic story, it feels much more like a solid Star Trek: TNG show storyline. That was fine by me - I like that show a lot.

I rate this audiobook 4 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: Star Trek Picard: No Man's Land: An Original Audio Drama.

THE TWO MINUTE RULE (audiobook) by Robert Crais

Originally Published in 2006.
Audiobook edition published in 2008 by Brilliance Audio.
Read by Christopher Graybill
Duration: 9 hours, 23 minutes.
Unabridged.

Named Best Crime Novel of the Year by the London Evening Standard.

Named one of the Top Ten Crime Novels of the Year by The New York Sun and the Fort Lauderdale Sun Sentinel.

Audiobook version named a finalist for the Audie Award.

Veteran writer Robert Crais is mostly famous for his Elvis Cole/Joe Pike novels. The Two Minute Rule is on of his few stand alone novels. It features a former bank robber named Max Holman. 

Synopsis

Holman has a son that he barely knows because of Holman's life of crime and his subsequent prison term. All he really knows about his son is that he has become a policeman in LAPD - and Holman couldn't be more proud.

That pride turns into sorrow on the day of Holman's release from prison. As he is packing up, he gets a message that tells him his son has died as a result of a shooting along with several other officers.

Holman comes to believe that the police are intentionally botching the investigation and starts his own while trying to restart his life outside of prison...

My Review

There was nothing wrong with this book. It is a good mystery and the steps that were taken to solve it made total sense. But, the story has to be more than the mystery. To me, the whole thing felt forced.

Despite the accolades (see above), I am puzzled as to why this book just did not gel for me. There were great aspects to this story - a strong lead character, a great buddy from the old days, a new partner. All of the parts were there, but just didn't gel together even though there was great potential in this book to become something special and even start a series.

The audiobook was read by Christopher Graybill. He was excellent with any of the dialogue parts - lots of different accents and all delivered well. But, the rest of the text was just read like a bored tour guide who has delivered the same boring speech too many times.

I rate this audiobook 3 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: The Two Minute Rule by Robert Crais.

BRIONNE (audiobook) by Louis L'Amour

Originally published in 1968.
Audiobook published in 2016 by Random House Audio.
Read by Erik Singer.
Duration: 4 hours, 3 minutes.
Unabridged.

Synopsis

Major James Brionne is a Virginian and a confidante of President Ulysses S. Grant. He helped pacify the region immediately after the war, including hanging a criminal named Allard.

The rest of the Allard family gang, bushwackers from the brutal Missouri theater of the Civil War, comes to Virginia to kill Brionne. They don't find Brionne, but they do find his wife and son at Brionne's plantation house. She takes out one of the Allard gang and then kills herself rather than be brutalized by them.

The Allard gang never finds Brionne's son, who had hidden himself in a little cave nearby.

Brionne decides he needs a massive change of scenery. He takes his son out West on a train, to a region he had explored as part of a military mission years earlier. He wants to find a place to start over with his son - Utah.

But, Briolle gets the feeling that something is not right about other passengers on the train...

My review

Parts of this book are truly exciting, such the attack on the Briolle mansion and the prairie fire. However, the idea that a family gang would travel halfway across the country for revenge and then travel most of the way back across the country in an attempt to get even seemed more than a little farfetched to me.

This story was not a bad story, but it just felt underdeveloped. If I had been L'Amour's editor way back in 1968, I would have told him to add another 2 hours worth of story to this 4 hour audiobook and flesh out more of the characters and their story arcs.

I rate this audiobook 3 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: Brionne by Louis L'Amour. 

SEPARATION of CHURCH and HATE: A SANE PERSON'S GUIDE to TAKING BACK the BIBLE from FUNDAMENTALISTS, FASCISTS, and FLOCK-FLEECING FRAUDS (audiobook) by John Fugelsang

Published in August of 2025 by Simon and Schuster Audio.

Read by the author, John Fugelsang.

Duration: 9 hours, 24 minutes.

Unabridged.

John Fugelsang is seemingly omnipresent on the cable TV news/political talk show circuit. He is a talented debater because he knows how to bring the goods to an argument, especially when Christian Nationalism is involved.

Fugelsang had a unique upbringing in a super-Catholic household. Why was it unusual? His mother was a former nun and his father was a former Franciscan friar. They fell in love, had a bunch of kids, and made sure that they all went to church whenever it was having a service. 

In a a lot of ways, this felt a lot like my childhood. No - my parents weren't nuns or priests. But, I grew up in rural setting where my Lutheran church was one of the centers of my life. Church every weekend, most of the holiday services, Sunday school, Christmas programs, church youth group, vacation bible school, and I worked at a church summer camp for five years. 

The author, John Fugelsang

I had a "lite" version of what he experienced, but a heavy dose of Christian teaching compared to most people. The result is the same - we grew up steeped in church teachings and we know that the stuff we see on TV and from Christian Nationalists does not match what we were taught.

The first and last chapters are a general summary of the problem of Christian Nationalism and his reactions to it. I found these to be very powerful chapters. The story of his grandfather at the end was very touching.

The heart of the book is Fugelsang picking a hot culture war topic (immigration, trans people, abortion, etc.), presenting the Christian Nationalist perspective, and then demonstrating why it is not really a Christian perspective at all.

Fugelsang's choice to read the book himself was perfect.

I rate this audiobook 4 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: SEPARATION of CHURCH and HATE: A SANE PERSON'S GUIDE to TAKING BACK the BIBLE from FUNDAMENTALISTS, FASCISTS, and FLOCK-FLEECING FRAUDS by John Fugelsang.

DRAGONS of SPRING DAWNING (Dragonlance Chronicles, Book 3) (audiobook) by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman

Originally published in 1985.

Audiobook published in 2012 by Audible Studios.

Duration: 16 hours, 26 minutes.

Read by Paul Boehmer'

Unabridged.

I distinctly remember loving this series 40 years ago and excitedly visiting my local bookstore to pick up a new one when they were published. I was an avid player of Dungeons and Dragons and a book series released by the publishers of Dungeons and Dragons was a guaranteed win. As the series continued to print new books, I kept on buying them. I probably owned dozen or so of them.

Somewhere along the way I sold off my Dragonlance collection. I worked part time at a used bookstore at one point and they probably ended up there.

When I found the books in audiobook format, I decided that it was time to revisit these books and see if they held up to my memories of uncritical acclaim.

Synopsis:

In The Dragons of Spring Dawning, the forces of the Dragon Queen are rolling up victory after victory. But, rather than confidently rolling up the scattered forces arrayed against them, they are pausing to search for a man knows as "The Green Gemstone Man."

The companions are still split up. Tanis flees the bedroom (and self-imposed prison) of the self-absorbed Kitiara. He and his friends had previously bought passage on a smuggler ship and Tanis had noted that the pilot was The Green Gemstone Man, unaware at the time that he was the subject of a manhunt.

Tanis and his companions convince the captain to leave port, even though a massive winter storm is expected. Dragons pursue, the storm rages and they steer into a whirlpool.

And that's when things start to get thorny...

My Review:

Was the series as good as I remember? 

No. It's good, but not amazing, especially this last volume. When the stakes were smaller in the first book, the book was better. Don't get me wrong, the situation in the first book was serious, but not as serious as saving the entire world and I think the ending was a bit forced. 

*********Spoilers**********

The idea that the Dragon Queen would stop offensive actions and bring all of her generals and their armies together in one location to impress them with her arrival from the spirit realm is more than a bit ridiculous. I understand that it feeds into the idea that evil is more than a bit self-absorbed so the Dragon Queen wants the admiration and awe of her more than anything else, but...C'mon! She's a narcissistic evil being, not an idiot! Having all of your forces in one place is bound to be trouble.

Also, I have never seen a character more charmed by a good time in bed than Tanis. His adoration of Kitiara after she has demonstrated her true ways goes against everything we've learned about him from the first pages of the first book. The moment when he finds his senses is supposed to be epic - I just wondered why it was even a struggle.

*********End spoilers*********

To be fair, this book has great scenes. The loss of certain characters is touching and well done, The chase scene through the mountains is riveting. In a lot of ways, this trilogy is the story of the growth of Tasslehoff Burrfoot. He grows up in ways that his people rarely do. 

The reading by Paul Boehmer was once again good, but not great. 

I rate this audiobook 4 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: Dragons of Spring Dawning (Dragonlance Chronicles, Book 3) by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman.

I rate the series 4 stars out of 5. There are two more books that were added on to the original trilogy, but I am going to stop right here.

DRAGONS of WINTER NIGHT: DRAGONLANCE CHRONICLES, BOOK TWO (audiobook) by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman

Originally published in book form in 1985.
Audiobook published by Audible Studios in 2013.
Read by Paul Boehmer.

Duration: 17 hours, 52 minutes.

Unabridged.

Synopsis:

The war against the Dragon Queen continues.

The forces of good pulled off a major victory at the end of the last novel, but now the forces of evil are looking for revenge. 

Tanis, Flint, Goldmoon, Laurana, and the rest of the intrepid companions head off in search of new ways to fight the Dragon Queen's advancing armies. Or, if that fails - lead a refugee exodus. They use an ancient map from before the Cataclysm to find a legendary seaport only to find that it is no longer anywhere near the sea due to the immense destruction of the Cataclysm.

As the companions try to figure out their next steps, an armada of dragons attacks the city, breathing flames from above. Dragon Army ground troops swarm into the city and the companions are split into two groups while Tanis faces the decision of a lifetime.

My Review:

This is a solid story with compelling action scenes that gets bogged down in protracted political discussions and Tanis's unwillingness to just make a decision.

Paul Boehmer's reading is solid, but not amazing. 

I rate this audiobook 4 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: DRAGONS of WINTER NIGHT: DRAGONLANCE CHRONICLES, BOOK TWO.

THIS BOOK WON'T BURN (audiobook) by Samira Ahmed

Published by Little, Brown Young Readers in 2024.
Read by Kauser Mohammed.
Duration: 10 hours, 34 minutes.
Unabridged.

Book summary

Noor Khan is a senior in high school and she is devastated. Her father walked out on her family and moved back to his native England. He gave no warning and the family is reeling.

Noor's mother decides that a change of location would be best. Noor, her little sister (a freshman), and her mom move from their diverse upper middle class Chicago neighborhood to a downstate Illinois small town so that her mom can work at a small college. 

Noor hates it. She misses her friends and the vibrancy of Chicago. She also feels like an oddity because she is Indian and Muslim in a school that is very white and very Christian. 

She determines to gut out this one last semester of high school and then head back to Chicago to go to college. She decides she doesn't need friends or even to enjoy this small town - she just needs to get in, get the diploma and then get out.

But, she finds friends - the only Muslim/Indian boy in the area and his best friend - an proudly out-of-the-closet feisty lesbian. Together, these three comprise the diversity of their high school. They hang out in the school library whenever possible.

The library seems like a refuge until Noor notices that the stacks are missing lots and lots of books. The local chapter of a Moms for Liberty-type group has demanded that dozens and dozens of books be removed due to content. Like most of the large scale book bans across the country, this book ban has focused on books with LGBTQ+ characters, books with black and brown authors, and books that focus on America's troubled racial history. The local school board President is using his support of the high school library's book ban as the springboard to a run for the state legislature.

Can Noor stick to her original plan and just be quiet and graduate? Or, does she speak up in defense of her ideals of free speech and the freedom to read? 

Also, she is very much intrigued by the Indian/Muslim boy. But, she is also strangely attracted to a very nice white boy - he's an athlete, he's polite, and he thinks Noor is great - and his stepdad is the school board member that initiated the book ban...

My Review

The author, Samira Ahmed

The author, Samira Ahmed, has written several books that have been added to the seemingly never-ending book ban lists. She was inspired to write this book when a small town teacher spoke with her about her experience. The teacher was using one of Ahmed's books in her class when the book was banned. The teacher was caught in a bind - small town politics meant that her school administration would not support her and she feared for her job if she pushed to her hard. Her colleagues didn't fight for the books because they were about people who were different than those who lived in their town. They refused to fight for books written by and about people who were unlike themselves (NOTE: I am a public school teacher and I am so unbelievably disappointed that literature teachers would respond to a book challenge like that.)

The author changed that story a bit - instead of a teacher, she created a fiercely independent high school student with a strong sense of right and wrong when it comes to the First Amendment. 

I liked this story a lot. It drew me in - Noor and her friends are great characters. The love triangle aspect of the story works to make the consequences of Noor's actions even more powerful.

The reader was Kausar Mohammed and she did a fantastic job with a wide variety of voices and accents. Excellent work.

I rate this audiobook 5 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: This Book Won't Burn by Samira Ahmed.

THE PROVING GROUND (Lincoln Lawyer #8) (audiobook) by Michael Connelly

Published in 2025 by Little, Brown and Company.
Read by Peter Giles.
Duration: 10 hours, 50 minutes.
Unabridged.

Synopsis

The Lincoln Lawyer returns for another case in The Proving Ground. Mickey Haller has moved away from defense work to civil litigation.

In this case, an AI program designed to be a friend substitute to young adults and teens told a teenage boy to get rid of his girlfriend in a way that could easily be interpreted as killing her. So, he took his father's unsecured pistol and shot her in the high school parking lot.

Haller is suing the company for marketing a faulty product towards teens. He is pretty sure he has the goods - bad programming and an unethical marketing team that is more concerned about demonstrating the potential of the AI so the company can be absorbed by a bigger company with deep pockets. They wanted the payoff rather than making it safe.

But, as Haller and his team start to dig, they find they are out of their depth. Tech writer Jack McEvoy comes in to offer his services. Fans of Connelly will recognize McEvoy from his own short series of novels, including the tech thriller Fair Warning.

Soon enough, they all learn what it means to take on a tech company and its multibillionaire backer who have no sense of ethics and a true knowledge of how to manipulate the technology that surrounds us all...

My Review

This is a solid legal thriller. The complicated tech and legal maneuvers are broken down and made easy to understand for the reader. The legal implications of AI really haven't been thought through and the reader can see a few of the big questions that still have to be answered.

Michael Connelly has decided to let his characters age as they stories go forward. Mickey is no longer the brash young lawyer scrounging for defense work and always willing to put himself at physical risk with the law and his clients' criminal friends in order to win the case. He is still fighting, but it is a different sort of fight.

I like the fact that Haller's world is basically our world, so big events like the January 2025 Southern California Wildfires (Pacific Palisades) take place in his universe as well. In this book, that fire has real world implications for characters that lived in those areas according to the previous books.

This is a good book, but not the best of the Lincoln Lawyer collection. It is totally worth reading, but it is simply good, not great.

I rate this audiobook 4 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: The Proving Ground by Michael Connelly.