DWD's Reviews

Published in 2012 by Post Hypnotic Press Originally published in 1991 Read by Lisa Bunting Duration: 6 hours, 33 minutes Unabridged Gail Bowen's Joanne Kilbourn character carries on into her second book, Murder at the Mendel . Life has changed for her - she has moved her family to Saskatoon in Saskatchewan to be close to her daughter in college and to teach at the same university.  The local art center was called the Mendel (I say was because it has since been slated to close and move to a new location with a new name) and a childhood friend of Joanne Kilbourne who has since become a controversial artist has an exhibit at the Mendel. The artist, named Sally Love, and Kilbourn used to be very close but after the suicide of Love's father when they were 13 years old, Sally Love moved away. Kilbourn and Love renew their friendship. Sally Love's exhibition has brought a number of protesters out because of her art. She has a lot of art with overt sexual themes, includ...

Published in May of 2015 by Blackstone Audio Read by Joe Barrett Duration: 8 hours, 29 minutes Unabridged During the Atlanta campaign in the Summer of 1864 Confederate President Jefferson Davis changed the nature of the campaign with the simple stroke of a pen. Up to that point, Union General William Tecumseh Sherman was slowly forcing his way southward towards Atlanta by way of a series of flanking maneuvers. His opponent, Confederate General Joseph E. Johnston, was slowly retreating, hoping to find an opening for a fatal strike against his opponent. Unfortunately for him, Sherman's mistakes were too small to be exploited and eventually Johnston found himself backed up against Atlanta itself. Oliver O. Howard (1830-1909). Photo by Matthew Brady. At this point, President Davis intervened and removed Johnston on July 17, replacing him with John Bell Hood. While Johnston was cautious, Hood was by nature an aggressive general. Also, given the circumstances of Johnston'...

Published in 2013 by Ernie Lindsey Read by DJ Holte Duration: 10 hours, 34 minutes Unabridged First things first - Harmless: An Unconventional Love Story is a weird book. It was written to be that way. The author, Ernie Lindsey, set out to write a book in which the main character is totally unlikable but by the end of the book the reader will be rooting for this unlikable fellow. Did he succeed? Well, Steve Pendragon is certainly unlikable. It's not like he is an evil man. Rather, he is a clueless, thoughtless man. He keeps on flirting with his neighbor long after he should have gotten the clue that she did not want him to flirt with her any longer (in an office environment it would have careened into sexual harassment territory long before). It's not like he backs her up in the corner and puts his hands on her. He just does creepy things like have her mail delivered to his house so he has to walk it to her door every day. He stares at her from his window as she sunba...

A Brilliant Essay Published by Mission Audio in April of 2013. Originally published in 1963 in various newspapers and magazines Read by Dion Graham Duration: 51 minutes This letter was written in response to a group of African American preachers who were calling for an end to the nonviolent resistance to the racist order in Birmingham, Alabama. This included sit-ins, marches and violating a court order to end all such demonstrations. King was arrested for violating this order (yes, he was arrested for speaking his mind and being involved in a peaceful assembly - a double violation of his First Amendment rights) and kept is squalid conditions in the overcrowded Birmingham jail. Recreation of the Birmingham Jail cell where this letter was written at the National Civil Rights Museum in Memphis, Tennessee. Photo by Adam Jones, Ph.D.   Letter from Birmingham Jail was written, at first, on scrap bits of paper and smuggled out by way of his lawyers and re-assembled by h...

Published in December of 2013 by Hachette Audio. Unabridged Read by Peter Giles Duration: 11 hours, 49 minutes. For me, Michael Connelly's "Lincoln Lawyer" has always been second best to his mainstay Harry Bosch series. Now, that is no insult because I am a huge fan of Michael Connelly and his second best is better than most author's best effort. This book was quite entertaining throughout and an enjoyable listen. The Gods of Guilt  begins with Los Angeles criminal attorney Mickey Haller wondering how he is going to make payroll for his struggling little law firm. He can't get any leaner than he is - he has no permanent office (he works out of his Lincoln Town Car, thus the term "Lincoln Lawyer"), he trades legal work for office space if he actually has to use a physical office and his driver is working off a legal bill by driving.   When he gets a call to defend a murder suspect who has the cash to mount a proper defense,  Mickey jumps at it. Th...

Published by Carlos G. Cooper in January of 2015. Read by DJ Holte Duration: 4 hours, 57 minutes Unabridged. If you like military-type thrillers, C.G. Cooper's "Corps Justice" series may be of interest to you. This is a self-published series - and everyone who has read much by self-published authors is rolling his or her eyes right now. But, if you have read a lot by self-published authors you also know that while some self-published authors are really deluding themselves, some can really deliver the goods. In this case, C.G. Cooper is one of those that can really do the job. Now, don't get me wrong, Lethal Misconduct a thriller and that means it is fairly formulaic- like westerns and romance novels, military thrillers seem to have just a few standard plot lines. In this case, this book features an all-star team of experts who are working for a gifted leader with a great moral vision who is also independently wealthy.  Photo by Niels Noodhoek This book is...

Published by Blackstone Audio in December of 2014 Read by Stephen E. Thorne Duration: 10 hours, 5 minutes. Unabridged. Kenneth E. Bailey spent more than forty years teaching theology in Egypt, Lebanon, Jerusalem and Cyprus and along the way he developed a natural curiosity about shepherds. This is natural, considering how often shepherds are mentioned and that many of the main figures of the Old Testament were shepherds at one point or another (Abraham, Moses and David to name a few) and that Jesus refers to himself as both a shepherd and a lamb.  Combine that natural curiosity with a willingness to research and the ability to see the stories from a different cultural perspective and you have something new, at least new for those of us in the West.  In The Good Shepherd: A Thousand Year Journey from Psalm 23 to the New Testament Bailey has delivered a very readable (or in my case, listenable) overview of the major passages about shepherds in the Old and New Testaments an...

Published by Harper Audio in 2008 Originally published in 1960 Winner of the Pulitzer Prize Voted "Best Novel of the Century" in a Library Journal poll Read by Sissy Spacek Duration: 12 hours, 17 minutes I almost feel silly writing a review for a book that is nearly universally regarded as one of the best, if not THE best, novels written in the last century. This book is read in schools across the country, was adapted into an amazingly successful movie that is as highly regarded as the book. This book is not just respected - it is loved. I also hate to admit that it had been nearly 25 years since I had read To Kill a Mockingbird .  Although I remembered that I loved the book, I had really forgotten why. So, when I was offered the chance to review this audio version by the publisher for free I jumped it at. It had been such a long time that I needed to remind myself why it was so great.  I am not going to waste everyone's time by re-telling the story in detai...

Published by Scholastic Audio in 2013. Read by Charlie McWade Duration: 8 hours, 41 minutes The Lost Kingdom is an alternate history set in a world in which mastodons still roam North America in great herds and are hunted by giant predators called bearwolves. The story is set just before the French and Indian War and the situation is easily recognizable for anyone familiar with that time period. The English colonies arranged along the Eastern Seaboard but the interior is largely controlled by the French and their numerous Indian allies through a vast trading network. As the English move farther inland they encounter more and more resistance and everyone knows that it will lead to open warfare, probably sooner rather than later. In a bold move to secure a new set of allies in the interior, the American Philosophical Society, a group of intellectuals led by Benjamin Franklin, have decided to send an expedition in search of a fabled Welsh kingdom built around the legendary tale of...

I have rarely been so glad to have been done with an audiobook as I was with this one. Published in 2013 by Post Hypnotic Press Narrated by Michael Puttonen Duration: 21 hours, 56 minutes. Unabridged. William Egan Colby was present at the beginnings of the CIA and served as an inserted commando with the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) in both France and Norway during World War II, pioneering the kind of action he advocated for during his years in the CIA. The beginning of Shadow Warrior is excellent as it details Colby's life and his World War II exploits. But, as it transitions from World War II to the early years of the Cold War to the Vietnam War the book becomes bogged down, especially in the endless detail about the politics of South Vietnam. Clearly, the Vietnam War was a pivot point for America and for Colby so it should be stressed. However, hours and hours of details about the governing elite of the doomed country were simply tedious. Colby moves back to Amer...

Published in March of 2010 by HighBridge Audio Multicast Performance Duration: 2 hours NPR Classic Driveway Moments is a collection comprised of 13 stories (and one intro track) culled from 31 years of NPR radio stories (1979-2010). Most of these stories have depth but not all are equal.  I was profoundly moved by a story called "My So-Called Lungs" featuring a young woman starting college while struggling with cystic fibrosis. It was engrossing on multiple levels and my high school-aged daughter and I were captivated by the woman's honesty, grace and humor in the face of inevitable death.  On the other hand, the story "Death of a Child: Losing Adam", featuring a child who was dying from a terminal illness just felt intrusive and maudlin.  The interview with George Foreman was interesting and quite enjoyable, although NPR being NPR, they found a way to bring a downer note to it by tying the George Foreman grill into it and interviewing homeless people ...

Published by Simon and Schuster Audio in 2009. Duration: 13 hours, 30 minutes Read by Gerard Doyle Jack, the apprentice Bard from late 8th century Saxon England and his difficult friend Thorgil, the Viking girl, continue their adventures in The Islands of the Blessed, the conclusion to their trilogy (although there is an opening for the series to continue...).  As with the other books in this series, Jack and Thorgil come into contact with a host of fairy tale creatures such as Mermen and Mermaids, Hogboons, Half-trolls and even a Viking god as Nancy Farmer demonstrates the depth of her research into European mythology. Jack and Thorgil join the bard on a quest to correct a horrible wrong done by Father Severus on a Mermaid  years ago (the Merpeople are called Fin Folk in this book) that has caused her to become a fearsome ghostly creature that kills and spreads disease and destruction.  A Viking Longship in the Bayeux Tapestry. Photo by Urban. In this book, ...

Published by HighBridge Audio in 2011. Multicast Performance Duration: 2 hours, 7 minutes NPR's Driveway Moments collection are called "Driveway Moments" because the idea is supposed that the stories are so good that the listener sits in the driveway and listens to the end of the story when he/she gets home rather than just turning off the car and going on into the house. In this collection, the emphasis is on dogs and this collection covers all sort of dogs. From homeless chihuahuas in Los Angeles  to massive sheep dogs in Turkey. There are celebrity dogs, blind dogs, war hero dogs and dogs that go to church. We also hear from two different dog trainers, learn about DNA testing for dogs and learn about a mother dog that adopted a nursing tiger Cub.  The collection is up-and-down but the strong stories are good enough for me to rate this collection 4 stars out of 5. This audiobook can be found on Amazon.com here: NPR Driveway Moments: Dog Tales: Radio Stories that ...

Should be called "Funny People in Rather Boring Interviews"   Published by HighBridge Audio in 2010 Multicast Performance Duration: 2 hours, 12 minutes This collection of performances from NPR's vast radio library is the second volume of "Funniest Driveway Moments." They are called Driveway Moments because the idea is supposed that the stories are so good that the listener sits in the driveway and listens to the end of the story when he/she gets home rather than just turning off the car and going on into the house. But, most of this 2 CD set should be called "Funny People in Rather Boring Interviews."  The collection starts out with a run-of-the-mill interview with Joan Rivers (Sorry NPR but discussing her husband's suicide is just not funny) and the most boring interview with Harry Shearer that I have ever heard. There was an interview with Harold Ramis about how to write comedy that was vaguely humorous and I was really beginning to w...

Published in 2009 by HighBridge Audio Multicast Performance Duration: about 1 hour. National Public Radio has combed through its broadcast archives and found 13 different stories about the great American institution - the road trip. But, these aren't just any stories. These are stories that feature another great American institution - the roadside attraction.  The stories cover a variety of quirky attractions including the Elvis Is Alive Museum, The Velveteria (featuring black velvet paintings of Elvis and lots more!), the world's 2nd biggest ball of twine, a series of backyard folk art exhibits in Michigan and even a couple of more famous attractions like Florida's Cypress Gardens and Seattle's Space Needle. A slightly off topic, but very interesting, story about the famed Burma Shave signs is also included. The stories wind up with the story of an epic musical piece written in the classical style about the trials and tribulations of the family car-based vac...

Did Not Have the Same Spirit as the First Book in This Trilogy. Published by Simon and Schuster Audio in 2007. Performed by Gerald Doyle Duration: 13 hours, 31 minutes. Unabridged It is the year 794 and Jack, the 13-year-old Bard-in-training from what is now the United Kingdom is on a new mission. Having recently returned from his adventures with the Vikings and the Frost Giants (detailed in Book #1 of this trilogy,  The Sea of Trolls ) Jack's new adventure begins in The Land of the Silver Apples with a mid-winter ceremony led by his teacher, known simply as The Bard.  The ceremony is supposed to symbolize renewal by ridding the village of all fire. Then, the village gathers in one place and creates a new fire and re-ignites everyone's hearth fires from this new fire. The ceremony has few hard and fast rules, but Jack's self-absorbed sister, Lucy, breaks one of them by bringing metal to the ceremony in the form of a beautiful silver necklace that she was given duri...