DWD's Reviews

I have rarely been carried into another (horrible) world so thoroughly as I was by this audiobook. Published by HighBridge Audio in April of 2012. Read by Kyle Munley. Duration: 12 hours, 13 minutes. Unabridged. Paul Grossman's   The Children of Wrath is a dark detective story set in one of the most tragic situations in all of history: The Weimar Republic in the weeks before the rise of the Nazis. A series of murders of boys combined with the impending failure of Germany's experiment with democracy, the collapse of the American stock market and the open street fighting between the Nazis and the Communists makes this tragic piece drip with a sense of the impending descent of Germany into the madness that enveloped it after the Nazis took command. Willi Kraus is the only Jewish detective in the Berlin police force (and perhaps all of Germany). He is a decorated veteran of World War I but his country treats him with no respect because he is Jewish. His fellow detectives

A Great Start to a New Civil War Trilogy Published by Ballantine Books in May of 2012 Jeff Shaara returns to the familiar topic of the Civil War after writing two books about the Revolutionary War, one book about the Mexican War, one book about World War I and four books about World War II. Fans of Jeff Shaara and his father Michael know that they have a special feel for the Civil War and this book shows that Jeff's talents as a writer have only grown. I don't know if Jeff Shaara could have written about just one battle (like his father did about Gettysburg in the Pulitzer Prize-winning book The Killer Angels ) when he wrote the first and third books that completed the Civil War trilogy about the war in the Eastern Theater. However, he pulls it off magnificently in this novel. Shaara notes in his introduction that his previous books focused on the generals and he has since learned the value of seeing the battle from multiple perspectives. He does it very well here, m

An American Odyssey -Slow start, but once you get past the first 50 pages or so you won't want to put it down. This book is really a set of very, very short stories all tied together into two main narrative lines. It can be very frustrating to some who just want to get the story moving, but that the main plotlines are not really the point. The wonder and randomness and beauty and brutishness of this thing we call life is the point. This is no "Pilgrims Progress" in which the main characters struggle and eventually reach a higher consciousness and understanding. However, it is a Post-modernist American Odyssey. In the original Odyssey, Odysseus goes from one adventure to the next on his way home from war. In it the reader (originally the listener) learns life lessons and Odysseus comes home a better man for all of his troubles. Charles Frazier Inman and Ada's adventures remind me of that but without the over-arching themes (thus, it is post-mode

A disappointment Published by Ballantine Books in 2006. To start, let me establish my bonafides as a fan of Mr. Thom's work. Three of his novels sit on a shelf less than two feet from this computer. I have the featured review on Amazon.com one of his novels ("The Red Heart"). One of his books is on my Favorite Books List on my profile page. I actually designed a long-term project for my world history classes using historical fiction with his books in mind, and I told him so when I met him at a state-wide conference for social studies teachers. So, I approached St. Patrick's Battalion with much hope. Instead of his usual quality, I found this book to be simplistic, with less detail and bent on beating two points home time after time: the Irish were treated brutally and shamefully by the U.S. army during the Mexican War and the Mexican War was an unjust war. James Alexander Thom Thom makes it clear in the opening dedication and acknowledgments th

The fictionalized version of a real-life runaway slave story. The reward notice for Harriet Jacobs Mary E. Lyons' book is a fictionalized account of the true story of Harriet Jacobs, a slave girl from North Carolina who escaped and hid in her grandmother's attic for seven years, beginning in 1835, before making her way north to freedom. Lyons chose to use a fictional diary format to tell the story of Harriet Jacobs. In real life Jacobs could read and write and actually published a book about her life in 1861 called Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl . The diary format has some strengths - it is an efficient way to note the passage of time and to tell about Harriet's feelings. However, it is not nearly as memorable as telling her story as a novel. The letters just do not have the same flow and impact as a story. The book also include a set of pictures of some of the real people and places involved, a family tree and a thorough bibliography. I ra

Solid and entertaining with good battle sequences Published by Thomas Dunne books in 2007 While not as strong as Stephen Pressfield in Gates of Fire , Michael Curtis Ford makes a strong contribution to the burgeoning collection of historical fiction books set in ancient times. In this case, we follow Odoacer, a real-life German/Hun who variously fights against and fights for the Roman Empire in its last days. The fight sequences are strong and with the exception of a couple of slow spots early on, this book hums right along. If readers are unaware of Odoacer's true place in history they may want to delay researching him until they have finished the book in order to avoid spoilers. A coin bearing the image of Odoacer (433-493 A.D.) Part of Ford's style is to narrate without necessarily telling you the year or how much time has passed. From time to time he gives dates but oftentimes you have to guess how many weeks/months/years have passed. This is anno

Published by Scholastic in January of 1994. The Glory Field is the story of an African-American family and their tie to a piece of land on Curry Island in South Carolina. Walter Dean Myers Reminiscent of the James Michener sagas that follow the same format, The Glory Field is not nearly as detailed or as rich as a Michener selection. However, Michener's primary audience was adults and Myers' intended audience is young adults, most of whom would not have the patience or the courage to pick up a 1,000+ page book. Myers has broken this book up into a series of six stories, snapshots of the Lewis family throughout nearly 250 years of history. The quality of the stories goes up and down. The 2nd, 3rd and 4th stories are so-so. The first is vivid, strong and way too short. The last two are so strong that, in my mind, they saved the book. I was considering not including it in my classroom library because of the middle stories - they drug along and just didn&#

Published by Zondervan in March of 2012 348 pages. T here have been plenty of historical fiction books written about ancient wars as of late. Stephen Pressfield's Gates of Fire about the Battle of Thermopylae  or Conn Iggulden's Emperor Series about Julius Caesar come to mind. Bible-based historical fiction about war is pretty rare, however. Cliff Graham has chosen to write about the Old Testament's most complicated and best-documented warrior, David in the Lion of War Series . In Covenant of War , David has just become King of Israel after the deaths of Saul and Jonathan. The kingdom is still quite torn and David's control of some areas is in name only. While he is still consolidating his power, the Philistines invade, yet again. Graham has written the book based on the warriors described in 2 Samuel 23 and 1 Chronicles 11. The texts are hardly true histories in the sense that they tell a complete story and there is a lot of detail to fill in to make

Published April of 2012 by AudioGo. Narrated by Paul Blake Duration: 15 hours, 23 minutes I did not read or listen to the other three installments of Conn Iggulden's Emperor Series, but I was already familiar with the last few years of Julius Caesar's life so it was not difficult to join in here at the end. This book starts with Caesar's decision to cross the Rubicon River with his army when he was ordered home from Gaul. This actions begins a civil war, with Caesar leading one faction and Pompey leading the other. From there we get the other highlights - Caesar's triumphal entry into Rome, the defeat of Pompey's army in Greece, the pursuit of Pompey into Egypt, the romance of Caesar and Cleopatra, the return to Rome and Caesar's murder by the Senate. Gaius Julius Caesar (100-44 B.C.) It's all standard issue history textbook stuff but Iggulden makes it a story that demands to be listened to. To be sure, he has fiddled with the historical record

A True Classic First published in 1939. Winner of The National Book Award in 1940. Richard Llewellyn (1906-1983) I read How Green Was My Valley way back in high school more than twenty-five years ago and I remembered it fondly, if vaguely. I found it on the bargain shelf at a local bookseller and I picked it up on a whim. Sometimes, when you re-read a book from your childhood it is much worse than you remember because tastes mature. In this case, I found How Green Was My Valley to be even better than I remembered. The book is set in Wales and features a family of Welsh coal miners and is told through the point of view of Huw Morgan, the youngest member of the family. Llewellyn captures small town life and Welsh customs and makes the reader feel the rhythm of their lives. These are turbulent times in Wales - the wages for coal miners are dropping because there are fewer jobs to be had and more men than ever to fill them. Their world is changing and families are breaki

Good but with problems If you do not already know something about the War of 1812, I cannot recommend this book for your reading pleasure. Why not? The author, David Nevin, goes into the story without much of an explanation of who the characters are and just assumes you know who they are. I would have recommended a small two to three page introduction that laid out the issues of the day and something about the personalities of the day as well. Dolley Madison (1768-1849) Instead, we spend page after page getting these introductions as a part of the story. Along the way, Nevin introduces us to the innermost thoughts of such people as James Madison, Andrew Jackson, Winfield Scott and Dolley Madison. Nevin seems fascinated in exploring each of these characters as sexual beings. We get to read about James Madison's lusting for Dolley (he refers to her breasts so often that I blush when I see Madison in my history book). However, the book is saved by his descrip

Published in 2005 by the Indiana Historical Society. 153 pages Based on a true story, and full of relevant historical photographs, this book fails to deliver on action in many ways which will make it less attractive to the 10-14 year old (estimated) target audience.. Camp Morton in Indianapolis It concerns a 14 year old boy named Johnny Ables who was captured by Confederate soldiers and pressed into service as a wood hauler. Ironically, those Confederate soldiers are themselves taken prisoner and Johnny is mistaken as a young Confederate soldier and is sent to prison camp ( Camp Morton ) in Indianapolis. Although it will find a place on my classroom's bookshelf, I can only give this short volume 3 stars out of 5. This book can be found on Amazon.com here: Captured! A Boy Trapped in the Civil War. Reviewed on April 17, 2007 <br /> <img src="http://wms.assoc-amazon.com/20070822/US/img/noscript.gif?

Slow start, sizzling end Published by HarperCollins in 2006 384 pages First and foremost - Boo to the publishers of this book for not clearly labeling that this paperback book is part of a trilogy. Sure, it's clear if you carefully look at the extremely long list of Cornwell's books inside the front cover, but I was holding my 15 month old while using my Christmas gift card and I really did not have the luxury of perusing through every page in the book store! On to the book - Bernard Cornwell Despite not having read the first book, Cornwell does an admirable job of catching the reader up to where the action is in book two. However, he then goes meandering a bit. The story sort of sidles along until the Danes invade again and then it's a real action story. Cornwell's battle descriptions are top-notch. Perhaps only topped by Pressfield's Gates of Fire - but not by much. The Pale Horseman is saddled with one of the most worthless maps I

How can I effectively heap praise on a book that has already won the Pulitzer Prize? Originally Published in 2003. What else can I do but chime in with my own little two cents worth of opinion and join the crowd? The Known World is a complex, rich, frustrating, fascinating, compelling, comforting, detailed work that is filled with 3-dimensional characters that draw the reader into the complex, confusing, often brutal world of slavery on the Virginia frontier in the 1800s. Set in a fictional county in Virginia, The Known World revolves around the Townsends, a family of ex-slaves. Henry Townsend is a former slave who owns a plantation replete with slaves. The irony of that situation strikes one his slaves who notes to himself that it is odd for a black man to own slaves, but really no odder than the very idea that one person may own another in the first place. The author, Edward P. Jones, does not tell the story in a linear fashion. Instead, he bounces his readers al

Reviewed by a history teacher seeking reading material for his classes I picked up No Promises in the Wind without much in the way of expectations since I am not that big of fan of Irene Hunt's most famous novel for the younger set, Across Five Aprils . However, I am pleased to say that this is a much better book. No Promises In The Wind is about two brothers who leave home during the Great Depression simply because there is not enough money at home to buy enough food to feed everyone. They head off from Chicago with no plan except to try to survive as best as they can. A soup line during the Great Depression As a teacher, what I like best about this book is its portrayal of the complete and utter economic collapse that the Great Depression entailed. Most students have no conception as to the breadth and depth of the Great Depression. By looking at this small family, readers gain an inkling as to what went on. Modern readers might question why this fami

An excellent book of vignettes about World War II's Pacific Theater Consolidated B-24D Liberator The Pilots consists of a series of short stories, mostly about American pilots of B-24s in the Pacific Theater in World War II. The stories are all related to one another but any one of them is also a stand-alone story on its own (in fact, the author notes in the back note that 5 of the stories were previously published independent of one another in magazines). The dust jacket liner notes call it a novel-in-stories. Spencer's book consists of 15 vignettes about the lives of two pilots. The first one is about their childhood. It is by far the weakest of the stories. It has the least to do with the war, but it is a decent little story about the Great Depression. The rest of them give us a little taste of the action in the air over the Pacific but also a sense of life back on base and on the atmosphere of the pilots on leave in Australia. The book is a breeze to

Michener's take on South Africa James Michener (1907-1997) Michener's true epics are always worth the time to read. The Covenant is no exception. Michener's take on South Africa and its history is an honest attempt to give some perspective on one of the more complex histories that this history teacher has encountered. The book starts out strong (my edition was the two-volume hardback). The first volume was vintage Michener, but the second one dragged. Perhaps it was because the subject matter became more and more depressing. With the final 200 pages or so being about Apartheid, it's hard to find something to cheer about. In a way, Michener's book seems incomplete - he hints that Apartheid could no longer stand - he gives a prediction that it would end by about the year 2000. Turns out, he was just about right, but the book feels like it does not have a proper ending. If you are pondering a Michener book and have not read them all (person

A Must for any Civil War buff Read by George Hearn Lasts about 6 hours Abridged Way back in 1989 I had to read The Killer Angels as part of a American Military History class while I was attending Indiana University. Since then I've read it 3 or 4 more times and I've recommended it to countless friends and students. Surprisingly, hearing it as an audiobook was an entirely new experience for me - it was much more powerful than I remembered. Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain (1828-1914) The Killer Angels is the story of the Battle of Gettysburg told from a variety of points of view, but mostly from the points of view of Robert E. Lee and James Longstreet on the Confederate side. The Union side is largely represented by John Buford and Colonel Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain of Maine who won the Medal of Honor for his actions on the second day of the battle. The Killer Angels won the Pulitizer Prize in 1975 and is one of the finest pieces of fiction, let alone hist

A solid bit of historical fiction For this Hoosier reviewer, The Massacre at Fall Creek is most interesting since the places involved are no more than a 45 minute drive from my house. Jessamyn West  (1902-84) Jessamyn West does a great job of getting the "feel" of an 1824 frontier community - how small it was, how truly far away it was from "civilization" and how that isolation created a unique culture. The storyline is based on a real incident in which several white men from a community to the north of Pendleton, Indiana killed two families of Indians, including their children and stole their furs. Records from those days are "iffy" at best so West has to fill in a lot of blanks as she goes along. In fact, she even uses fake names for the white men involved, although it may be that in the 33 years since her book was written additional research has revealed the names of the men. Of course, the Indians were outraged at this treaty

A great piece of historical fiction - strongly recommended Howard Fast (1914-2003) When I teach world history I always give my students a project in which they are to read a piece of historical fiction and do a bit of research. This book is exactly the type of book I recommend for them to read and why I created the project in the first place. My Glorious Brothers is well-written and re-creates a little bit of the historical world for the reader. Set in 2nd Century B.C. Israel, this is a story of national liberation and freedom of religious expression. Many Protestants will be unfamiliar with the Maccabees since Maccabees 1-4 is not included in the Protestant Bible. This book is an ideal place to start to explore that time between the exile in Babylon and the Roman occupation that is featured in the New Testament. The main characters are 5 brothers and their father, descendents of the Tribe of Levi. They refuse to be "civilized" by Hellenized (Greek-i