DWD's Reviews

A prototype of the current crop of approachable books on economics Originally published in 1980. Duration:12 hours, 15 minutes Read by James Adams Unabridged. Free To Choose: A Personal Statement is the manifesto on the power of capitalism and freedom (and how they go hand in hand) that was designed to be read, digested and discussed by the common man, not the economist. In fact, this is the book that was designed as a follow-up companion to a 10 part PBS mini-series that fleshed out the ideas in the series and addressed issues and further questions that came up in the making of the television program. Milton Friedman won the Nobel Prize for economics in 1976 (he always credited his wife for helping develop his theories so I would imagine he considered it a shared prize). The audiobook follows the lead of the mini-series and has 10 broad areas that it covers, including: -The Power of the Market; -The Anatomy of a Crisis (an in-depth study of the Great Depress...

Published in 1997 Read by LeVar Burton Approximately 3 hours Abridged. Have you ever read a book in which the author takes a premise that would, at most, fill about 150 pages and yet he or she stretches it out to 400 pages? This is not one of those books. Aftermath has the opposite problem - an awful future is described and peopled. The cure for cancer and brain disorders is discovered, stolen and recovered with lots of gunfights, chases, psionic warfare, attempted child rapes, attempted suicides, kidnappings galore, slavery and people being skinned alive. However, none of it is fleshed out - we are left with the skeleton of an epic story - a framework of what could have been. Think Stephen King's The Stand told in less than 300 pages. I just wish he'd added more. LeVar Burton I am reviewing this as an abridged audiobook (no doubt the abridgment is part of the problem as well. Too often, too much is taken out). LeVar Burton, well-known television actor, read it,...

Lackluster characters hurt a very interesting premise Read by David Colacci Published by Tantor Media, November 2010. Duration: 9 hours, 56 minutes, Unabridged. Ultra-prolific author Alan Dean Foster introduces yet another series with The Human Blend , the first installment of a trilogy set in a relatively near-future Savannah, Georgia. In this interesting new world the direst predictions about global warming have come true. America’s southern states have become near-tropical. Flooding ocean waters have buried coastal cities, forced them to move onto stilts or have caused cities to move inland. Much of Florida is underwater, the Everglades have swallowed the rest. Political changes have swept the world as well. The United States is now part of a larger country called Namerica. Several countries in Asia are equal to, if not more important than Namerica. The moon, Mars and Jupiter’s moon Titan have been colonized as well. Alan Dean Foster But, the most important changes ar...

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

Be prepared - this is only half the story Published in 2010. 18 hours, 44 minutes Read by Katherine Kellgren Connie Willis continues her on again/off again time travel series with Blackout , a book about time travelling historians from mid 21st century Oxford who are visiting World War II England. Katherine Kellgren does a fantastic job of nailing the great variety of English accents and the one American accent as well as the male voices. Time travel has become routine for these historians - they have teams to help prepare them for their jumps into the past, including clothing, paperwork and implants to help them with accents. They are also able to learn vast amounts of information by way of sleep learning, which can be helpful for memorizing such things as every location of a V-1 attack or what time all of the air raids happened during the Blitz. But, the routine of time travel belies a deeper problem - that of "slippage".  The trips back and forth are becoming less ...

What's the point? There's better stuff out there. Published by DH Audio in 1997 Read by Bruce Weitz Codes of Betrayal is about betrayal (thus, the title) and family and it ultimately left this listener (I heard it as an audiobook, narrated by Bruce Weitz of 'Hill Street Blues' fame) wondering what the point of the novel was. Nick O'Hara, our protagonist and NYPD detective, is upset when he discovers that his grandfather on his mother's side ordered the killing of his father when he was a boy and was obliquely responsible for the death of his son in a gangland dispute. So, Nick goes after his grandfather by becoming a spy in the family organization. Along the way, he betrays his own wife and breaks his relationship with his father's brother - his only blood relative he trusts. So, while avenging part of his family he ends up screwing up the rest of his family. So, when I finished this dark novel I had to wonder, "What was the poin...

For fans of Kuralt, this will be a treat! Originally published by Audioworks in 1997 Read by the author, Charles Kuralt Duration: 1 hour, 9 minutes Abridged I hadn't thought about Charles Kuralt for years - until I ran into Charles Kuralt's Summer . Kuralt pulls summer-based items from his reports from CBS News and reminds us (this listener anyway) that we've missed his folksy approach on the reporting on everyday life in America since his passing a few years ago. Kuralt lays it on a bit thick from time to time but he avoids being too schmaltzy as he reports to us about Maypole dances in Minnesota and tubin' down the Apple River in Wisconsin. The best reports are on side two, where he focuses on the Fourth of July. He travels to Gettysburg and Independence Hall, New York City and Brazil and takes us along for an emotional ride. Although he takes a lot of his audio from his actual television reports, only once or twice did this listener feel that he was missi...

Check out the audiobook - it is worth it Published by Phoenix Books Read by Burt Reynolds Duration: 6 hours, 52 minutes Unabridged I avoided this audiobook performance of Chance because its read by Burt Reynolds and I figured that if anybody has a chance to ruin a Spenser novel it would be Burt Reynolds. Not that Burt is a bad actor, but he tends to do what he wants to do rather than what he's told to do. Boy, was I wrong. Despite his talent for finding bad movies, Reynolds is, underneath it all, a real actor. He finds the voice for the wise-cracking Spenser and hits it dead on. Spenser's observations and one-liners are read perfectly. Not only that, but he covers the voices of all of the mob leaders and his characterization of Shirley Meeker/Ventura gives the reader a great deal of sympathy for how truly pathetic and harmless she was as she got herself caught up in events beyond her control. Burt Reynolds Reynold's portrayal of Hawke was different (more...

My first Elvis Cole novel - not my last Originally published in 1995. I heard Voodoo River   as an audiobook way back in 2005 - it was not my first choice but I gave it a shot and I was very pleased. The story was convoluted but had a real feel to it. Elvis is tough, but not Superman. The situation was complicated but not impossible. I seem destined to be perpetually out of sync with Elvis and the real order of his series. Voodoo River is #5 in the Elvis Cole series. In Voodoo River , Elvis leaves Los Angeles for the Louisiana bayou country in search of the birth parents of a Hollywood starlet who is in need of some medical information. Soon enough, Cole finds himself in trouble with the local crime boss who has a special use for alligators.  If you are familiar with the series (as I now am) this book is pivotal as it is where Cole meets Lucy . For Crais (the author) this is a homecoming of sorts since he was raised in Louisiana.The audiobook was well-read and the reade...

Sometimes exciting, sometimes tedious Published in 2009 by MacMillan Audio Read by Roger Allam Duration: 11 hours, 6 minutes Unabridged Paths of Glory is my first Jeffrey Archer book. I used to work in a bookstore and we would sell quite a few of his books so I was looking forwards to experiencing both a rousing adventure and an Archer book. But, based on this work, I doubt I will be looking for more by Archer. The book is about the man who may have been the first person to to get to the top of Mount Everest, George Mallory and who is, perhaps, most famous for saying, "because it is there" when he was asked why he wanted to climb Everest. Paths of Glory is a historical fiction of his life and shows evidence of a lot of research and care. This audiobook runs 11 hours on 9 CDs. It could use some serious editing. The climbing and personal life details of the book are, for the most part, interesting. Some of the particulars of his academic career slow the book. The in...

Perry Mason plays fast and loose with the law in a deadly case Published in 2010 by The Colonial Radio Theatre on Brilliance Audio. Voiced by the actors of The Colonial Radio Theatre on the Air. Duration: 1 hour 31 minutes Dramatized for audio by M.J. Elliot. Based on the book by Erle Stanley Gardner. The Case of the Velvet Claws was the very first Perry Mason book, published in 1933. This radio dramatization is based on that book but, of course, it had to be adapted for the "radio play" format. Perry Mason, Paul Drake and Della Street all figure large in this murder mystery that all began with an adulterous wife who wants to avoid political scandal. Eva Griffin, married to a powerful millionaire,  was discovered in a hotel with a married Congressman due to an unrelated crime at the hotel. Spicy Bits, a magazine that specializes in reporting scandal, is on the trail of this potential scandal and Griffin wants Perry Mason to act in her stead and offer the magazine a ...

A competent, but not great audiobook Published in 1999 by HarperAudio Abridged audiobook Format: Cassette Duration: Approximately 3 hours Read by Bruce Harwood I heard  Skin as an abridged audiobook. It was narrated by Bruce Harwood, who portrays the most 'normal' of the conspiracy-addicted threesome known as 'the Lone Gunmen' on the X-Files TV show. Harwood does a competent, but ultimately uninspiring job of narrating the story. Bruce Harwood In fact, this is also a decent description of the book as a whole. It is okay, but not great. The characters act like they are supposed to, but those wry comments from Fox are mostly non-existent and Scully is just not quite right throughout most of the book. I am sure that the abridgment is at least partially to blame. The unabridged version is 8 and 1/2 hours. This one clocks in at three hours. Something had to give and it sounds like this one gave away its personality. The plot itself was okay. The ending...

Published by Tantor Audio in 2010. Read by Paul Boehmer. Duration: 11 hours, 57 minutes. Unabridged. Gary Leger lives Massachusetts and is forced to make do with a miserable job in a plastics factory with no real prospects of doing anything but making ends meet at a job that offers little for his very active imagination. A natural athlete with no interest in sports, Gary finds solace in long walks in the woods behind his house and in his dog-eared copy of The Hobbit . While on one of these hikes, Gary sits for a bit of reading and finds himself staring at a real life pixie who shoots him with a tiny drugged arrow that causes him to faint. When he awakens he is no longer in Massachusetts – he is in the magic-filled world of Faerie. Gary finds that he has been kidnapped from his own world by a leprechaun named Mickey McMickey in order to wear the armor and carry the broken spear of a long dead human king named Cedric Donigarten in an epic quest led by a grumpy elf named Kelsenellenelv...

A good, tight story Published in 2009 by Brilliance Audio Read by Robert Crais , the author Duration: 8 hours, 15 minutes. Unabridged. I am a gigantic fan of Crais' Elvis Cole novels, a series that introduced Joe Pike to the world as Cole's enigmatic, tough and very quiet partner with a soft spot for mean old cats. But, I have been reluctant to get into the Joe Pike novels due to a fear that Joe's facade would be burst wide open and mysterious Joe Pike would be laid wide open and no longer be a mystery. Not to worry. We learn more about Joe, but what makes Joe Pike tick is still a mystery. Plus, as a bonus we get a healthy serving of wise-cracking Elvis Cole throun in as a bonus to make the story even more fun.  Robert Crais The First Rule 's title comes from an Eastern European thieves code that demands that no gangster have a family so that their loyalties will never be divided (much like the story of Keyser Soze from the movie The Usual Suspects ). A fr...

I have not cared much for Green Lantern,  but I picked this one up on impulse... Published in 2009 by GraphicAudio 6 CDs 7 hours Voiced by 20 actors Unabridged. When I was a kid I never cared much for Green Lantern. In the D.C. Comics universe I liked Superman and Batman and in Marvel I liked Spider-Man and the Hulk but the Green Lantern never did it for me. Maybe it was the giant green baseball mitts, pincers and boxing gloves coming out of the ring. Just seemed hoaky, I guess. Which is all the stranger that I liked the audiobook for Green Lantern Hero's Quest: Justice League of America  as much as I did . The book features Kyle Rayner, a new Green Lantern whose real life job is that of an artist and his specialty as a Green Lantern seems to be creating artistic even cutesy things with his ring, such as baseball mitts and giant boxing gloves. GraphicAudio creates yet another adaptation that delivers "A Movie In Your Mind" as their slogan promises. I ...