DWD's Reviews

  Originally published in 1953. I listened to the Tantor Media audio version published in 2010. Read by Stephen Hoye Duration: Approximately 5.5 hours Unabridged Synopsis:  Guy Montag is a fireman in a future United States. Firemen in the future do not fight fires. Instead, they burn books, newspapers, magazines that people have hidden away. If you hide forbidden media in your home your home will be burned to make sure all of the books are gone and to serve as a warning to rest of the neighborhood.  Montag is great at his job, but he has his doubts. Every once in a while he takes a book home. He hides them in the ventilation system of the house. No one knows, not even his wife. Those doubts are accelerated when his team witness a woman die in the fire with her books rather than live without them... My review:  This book has an interesting history. Bradbury started building the world that this book is set in with some short stories of a dystopian future where everyone...

Fascinating, entertaining and important For those of you who are not aware, Mark Steyn was brought before three courts of Canada's Human Rights Commission for violating the human rights of some Muslim students and the Canadian Islamic Congress. You see, in Canada, your right not to be offended is more important than your right to speak your mind (except in the hypocritical cases Steyn has fun with throughout the book). What was Steyn's crime? Maclean's magazine printed excerpts from his book America Alone: The End of the World As We Know It . This was a bestseller in America and Canada but if he was found guilty the books would be pulled from all Canadian bookstores and Maclean's would have to be minded by politically correct nanny censors. Steyn is continually amazed that "large numbers of Canadians apparently think there's nothing wrong in subjecting the contents of political magazines to the approval of agents of the state." (p. 4) Mark Ste...

Written like a textbook with double columns, American History Revised is intended to be a supplement to the history your high school textbook ignored or glossed over. This is a fine goal because almost every history textbook is a dry, tedious tome that bores its readers to sleep before they can learn any history. "American History Revised" approaches this challenge with a scatter-gun style of random facts that are very loosely grouped into categories like "Forgotten by History", "In Pursuit of Riches" and "Simple Mathematics, My Dear Watson." I can only imagine that those who are not already well-acquainted with history would find this jumping back and forth style quite confusing. But, that is not the reason for my concern. I am concerned because there are blatant untruths throughout the text. "Facts" that are not facts. Please note that I an reviewing an uncorrected proof and maybe, just maybe these items have been addressed i...