DWD's Reviews

An Interesting Study of Male Friendship Published in 2001 by Recorded Books. 4 compact discs 4.5 hours read by Nelson Runger Comrades: Brothers, Fathers, Heroes, Sons, Pals is an exploration into male friendship by renowned historian and author Stephen E. Ambrose (1936-2002). He looks into different kinds of friendship including friendship between brothers, friendship among schoolmates (especially college), friends from among his students, friendship among men who have been in combat together, friendship as young men, friendship as old men and the friendship that can develop between a father and son once his son is an adult. Stephen E. Ambrose (1936-2002) Specific friendships studied include: -The three Ambrose brothers; -Dwight and Milton Eisenhower; -The Custer Brothers, who all died at Little Big Horn; -Crazy Horse and He-Dog; -Eisenhower and Patton - two very different men who respected and valued their differences; -Nixon as the friendless man (tal...

I recommend hearing it as an audiobook Originally published in 1969 in book form. Published by Dh Audio in 1985. Read by Jose Ferrer. Duration: 5 cassette tapes Unabridged. I could add to the volumes of literary criticism that fills the reviews of Slaughterhouse Five , but what's the point of that? Rather, I will recommend that you hear the book as an audiobook - the book's a stream of consciousness, disjointed approach works very well on tape. The reader shifts from one scene to another as easily as Billy Pilgrim does. The version I heard was not the one available here. Mine was narrated by Jose Ferrer and he did a wonderful job. Too bad Ferrer has passed on. So it goes. I rate this book 5 stars out of 5 and it can be found on Amazon.com here: Slaughterhouse Five .  Kurt Vonnegut Reviewed on February 3, 2005 Note: This book has been challenged multiple times over the last 50 years for sexual content, foul language and teaching principles contrary to the Bible. A...

Better than the first book. Published by HarperAudio in 2009. Duration: 7 hours, 28 minutes. Read by: Stephen J. Dubner, one of the authors Unabridged. SuperFreakonomics: Global Cooling, Patriotic Prostitutes, and Why Suicide Bombers Should Buy Life Insurance is the sequel to the wildly popular book by the same authors, Freakonomics the movie and a newspaper column . One author is the economics talent - the man with all of the questions who knows where to find the answers. The other is the writing talent (who is learning a good bits of economics along the way, no doubt) who takes these interesting topics and puts them on paper in an interesting way. The goal of these books and the newspaper column is to get people to look at the world in a different way - an economic way of thinking. I find these works to be fascinating, eye-opening and always entertaining, even if I don't always agree with their conclusions (sometimes I think they are asking the wrong questions or have...

Enjoyable - offbeat, funny, informative, thought-provoking Published by Brilliance Audio in 2010. Read by Sandra Burr. Duration: 10 hours, 27 minutes. Unabridged.  The point of Mary Roach's Packing for Mars: The Curious Science of Life in the Void is not the technical challenges of sending an object to Mars. We have demonstrated that we can send a probe to Mars, operate it and do a bit of exploring. No, this is about sending a human to Mars, a much more difficult proposition. Mary Roach deals with the following (and more) in her Packing for Mars : -We eat, drink, and create bodily waste. How do we store enough food to make the trip to Mars? -How do we deal with expelling bodily waste in a zero gravity environment (no toilets - everything would just float out!) -What do we do with the waste? Can you recycle it back into food? Who would want to eat that? -Can people actually live together in cramped quarters for months at a time with no break and not kill one...

Starts out strong, ends up tiresome Published by Random House Audio Dimension in 2004. Read by one of the authors, Allan Pease. 3 discs 3 hours Abridged. Why Men Don't Have a Clue and Women Always Need More Shoes starts out with a bang, delving into a lot of the differences that drive men and women crazy. These are mostly humorous and mostly full of good advice. But, we never do find out about women and shoes, nor do we find the answers to some of the questions posed in the opening section, such as, "Why don't women initiate sex more often?" Barbara and Allan Pease There is interesting commentary on the reactions of men and women to retirement, why men switch the channels so often and the comments on men's behaviors in public restrooms is dead on accurate. However, I felt cheated that so much of the book (about 1/3 by my estimate as a listener) is about the physical characteristics that of the opposite sex that interest men and women. I felt that this...

Fairly boring story, lots of good info on Italian culture, history and cuisine Published by Random House Audio in 2005. Read by Michael Beck. 11 hours, 4 minutes. Unabridged. T he last two thrillers that I have read by John Grisham have been anything but. A couple of years ago I listened to The King of Torts and came away with a great education in class action lawsuits but at the cost of a disappointing story. With The Broker , I came away with a great education in Italian culture, cuisine and great insights into the oft-overlooked city of Bologna, Italy - but it was a thriller with precious few thrills. The Broker is centers around Joe Blackman, a Washington, D.C. lobbyist that plays fast and loose with all of the rules and revels in throwing his weight all over town. Blackman is approached by Pakistani computer hackers who have discovered and hijacked a set of super high tech spy satellites with a special computer program. They want Blackman to sell it to the highest bi...

Good, but predictable Audio version originally published in 1986 by Random House Audio Multicast performance with sound effects Duration: 55 minutes. I like Louis L'Amour. His descriptions and conversations are top notch. However, his plots are predictable so I really am grading this on a curve. Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson, Kris Kristofferson and Waylon Jennings I am also rating the audio version of  Riding for the Brand  which is interesting because it is told by Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings, Kris Kristofferson and Johnny Cash. It was quite enjoyable to hear the four of these men work together - they were all quite good, especially Kristofferson and Nelson. This audio edition has features that most don't, including special effects and a music soundtrack that was sometimes reminiscent of Clint Eastwood's Spaghetti Westerns and sometimes reminiscent of Silverado . The inclusion of the special effects did speed the plot along (you don't have to describe th...

A pivotal moment in the history of the series and an artifact of the 1970s Published by Random House Audio. Read by Michael Prichard. Duration: 5 hours, 27 minutes. Unabridged. Over the years I've read all of the Spenser novels, but since I do not have a photographic memory I'm going back and listening to them as audiobooks during my commute. Promised Land is a pivotal moment in the series because this is the moment in which we meet Hawk - Spenser's erstwhile partner in anti-crime in so many books in the series. Hawk is in his full glory here - a bad man who kills, roughs people up, and intimidates, but still lives by his own code that Spenser somehow senses and respects. It is also a pivotal moment because there is an incredible amount of conversational psychoanalysis throughout the book, a trait that most Spenser books feature (often to their detriment, in my opinion). Spenser's personality is discussed, male/female relationships, what it means to be a man or...

Very, very, very good. Published by Brilliance Audio in 2003. Duration: 5 hours, 55 minutes. Read by Dick Hill Unabridged. Boogers Are My Beat: More Lies, But Some Actual Journalism  is a collection of Dave Barry's columns from the summer of 2000 through September of 2002. They are read expertly by veteran narrator Dick Hill . I usually hear Hill reading crime novels and the like but I was pleased to hear that he has expert comic timing and turns out to be a perfect narrator for Barry's offbeat sense of humor. Veteran reader Dick Hill Topics include: *The 2000 Democrat and Republican political conventions; *The 2002 Salt Lake Winter Games; *The Census; *Camping in a Wal-Mart parking lot; *and the silly tips in Cosmo magazine on how women can drive men wild. Dave ends with two long essays about 9/11. One was published on 9/12 and does a great job of summing up the raw feelings and shock of the time. The second essay is much longer - by far the longest o...

Audiobook 7 CDs 8.5 hours Read by John Bedford Lloyd The Poacher's Son is the first in a series of books about Mike Bowditch, a rookie Maine Game Warden. Bowditch is settling into his job, losing his long-time girlfriend, dealing with the locals that have bad interactions with the local wildlife and rude out-of-state tourists that flaunt Maine's laws. Bowditch's life is turned upside down when a local deputy is killed while escorting a timber company executive (who was also killed) away from an unsuccessful attempt to cool local passions about the timber company's long term plans for the area. It seems that the number one suspect is Bowditch's estranged father, a local poacher, hunting guide and bar brawler well-known for his bad attitude and violent nature. Bowditch is sure his father is innocent. He has no illusions about his father's nature, but he cannot figure out a motive for his father. He gets involved despite repeated warnings from his super...

Abridged Audiobook 5 CDs Approximately 6 hours. Read by Kevin T. Collins I first heard the incredible story of Marcus Luttrell  on Glenn Beck's radio show. I'm not a frequent listener of Glenn's show but this interview was so compelling I had to hear the whole thing. Lone Survivor is a much longer version of that story. It includes a long, detailed description of how Navy SEALs train and their "Hell Week" that washes out those who are not truly dedicated to being a SEAL. Luttrell also tells us about his childhood and how he aspired to be a member of a special forces unit as a young man in high school. The bulk of the book is about "Operation Redwing" - an attempt to kill or capture a Taliban leader that remains unnamed in the book (he uses a false name for this man throughout the book). The operation consists of inserting 4 SEALs in open mountain territory in Afghanistan to observe a remote village where this leader may or may not be staying. ...

Interesting premise but it often ends up being a glorified romance novel Published by MacMillan Audio in 2009 Read by Mary Stuart Masterson Duration: 9 hours, 27 minutes Unabridged In a planned departure from her normal books featuring female attorneys, Lisa Scottoline brings us the story of a single mother reporter (Ellen) and her adopted son. At the beginning of Look Again Ellen glances at one of those "Have you seen this child?" cards that come in the mail and she notes that the child looks just like her adopted son, Will. A little digging by Ellen uncovers several clues that her son may indeed be a missing child, which leads us to the key point of tension in the book: If it turned out your adopted child was actually someone else's abducted child, would you tell and lose the child or would you stay quiet and leave another parent in pain? Narrator  Mary Stuart Masterson I have been a big fan of Scottoline's work since I discovered Everywhere That Ma...

I thoroughly enjoyed this audiobook The Supreme Court building The Tenth Justice is an interesting little morality play set at the Supreme Court. What do you do if you accidentally leak information about a supreme court case and someone uses that inside information to make a fortune? What do you do if they come back and threaten to expose your slip-up unless you provide more information? In my opinion, Meltzer's character does the wrong thing but that is what makes the story so interesting. Meltzer's dialogue works so well with Thomas Gibson's performance that it sounds as if they were in the room copying down the natural flow of the characters' conversations as they were spoken. Truly, they were very fun to listen to. I rate this audiobook 5 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: The Tenth Justice by Brad Meltzer.   Reviewed on October 15, 2004.

Good, simple story about a law case (in which the defendant says he didn't do it because he was being abducted and probed by aliens at the time). Read by Alexa Bauer Approximately 3 hours I'm reviewing Star Witness as an audiobook - more on that below. Lia Matera Part of my positive reaction to this book, I am sure is a negative reaction I've recently had to several books on tape that I've listened to lately. Some have tried too hard to be overly-complicated. Some have injected way too much romance, so much that you forget it was supposed to be a legal thriller with a bit of romance, not a romance with a bit of legal thriller. However, this story is a no-frills, just-the-facts-ma'am legal story - thank goodness! Now, this is not to say that it is not entertaining and the facts are not truly bizarre. Lia Matera 's book is set in California and involves a man who is arrested for vehicular manslaughter, but he claims he can't have done it sinc...

12 discs 14 hours read by Dick Hill* Edgar Award winner - 1993. First, let me say that Michael Connelly's Harry Bosch stories are the best series currently being published. I've read and heard books throughout the series and let me heartily recommend hearing the Harry Bosch books rather than reading them. Why? First of all, narrator Dick Hill has an amazing voice and he captures Harry Bosch perfectly. There is no one better. Secondly, Connelly's books really are well-written. I listen to a lot of audiobooks while I commute. Most are fine, but you can always tell the so-so authors. Their prose does not do well when read aloud while Connelly's shines. Combine it with Hill's voice and you have an experience, not just a book. (I'm not kidding, try it - I get two weeks of enjoyment by listening on the way to and from work rather than just two days in the traditional book format). So, is The Black Echo a good book? Not just good, it's great. Mic...

Published in 2008 by Brilliance. Unabridged audiobook. Duration: 7 hours, 19 minutes. Read by James Daniels. In my mind, Robert Crais has the second best series in fiction going right now, just after Michael Connelly's Harry Bosch series. Solid, quirky, oftentimes funny, good detective stories throughout. Elvis Cole and his enigmatic partner Joe Pike are on a dark, depressing case in Chasing Darkness . Three years earlier Cole had proven that a man could not have committed a horrific murder. Now, that man is found dead with evidence that he committed not only that murder but 6 others. Cole is sure that his work in the original case is correct and this man is being set up after his death and the real murderer is still wandering the streets. Cole and Pike start to pull on some loose threads and soon they have more trouble than they bargained for. Chasing Darkness is not as good as other Cole novels such as The Last Detective . This one starts out rather slowly but it buil...

Good story but not terribly original, but fun nonetheless. Read by Boyd Gaines Approximately 3 hours I heard Vespers as an abridged audiobook and I will talk about that aspect at the end. If you saw any of Hollywood's animal disaster B movies (Giant ants, snakes, bugs, etc. that attack humanity) than you get the idea behind this book. Normally placid bats are attacking people and gathering in a murderous swarm above New York City. Meanwhile, something else - something very large - is killing people in the subway tunnels. Will the animal expert and the rough cop be able to save the day? Even though the plot is formulaic, I still found myself wanting to know what happened next. I couldn't wait to pop the tape in the player as soon as I got in the car! The audiobook is read by Boyd Gaines who does a phenomenal job. Every character has a unique and distinct voice in accent. 5 stars for him, if I could. I rate this audiobook 4 stars out of 5. Reviewed on September ...