DWD's Reviews

Originally published in 2009. I am a big fan of Berkeley Breathed and have been for 35+ years. I have multiple volumes of his Bloom County books, I enjoyed his movie Mars Needs Moms so much that I went out and bought it after I had rented it. I love his children's book Pete and Pickles . This book, however, is a rare misfire. To begin with, the book assumes that you read an earlier childrens book called Flawed Dogs: The Year End Leftovers at the Piddleton "Last Chance" Dog Pound . This book is like a catalog of dogs that no one will adopt because of their flaws. The dogs from the first book are thrown into the Flawed Dogs: The Novel with little or no introduction - just a pack of dogs with names and skills and oddities that the reader had better remember. No character development, no real chance to get to know any of them. There was a whole dog that I had no idea was even in the book until he was shown in an illustration. The main character of the book is a dachshund ...

Originally published in 1970. I did not know this was a novel until just a few months ago when I found my copy of this book in a thrift shop. I was familiar with the 1979 movie starring Peter Sellers in an Academy Award-nominated performance, but had no idea it was originally a book. A little research has told me that this book has a troubled history. The author, Jerzy Kosinski, plagiarized the book. The original book was a Polish author from the 1920's and 1930's named Tadeusz Dolega-Mostowicz.  He died at the beginning of World War II while fighting the Soviet Union during the Nazi-Soviet partition of Poland in 1939. His book was called The Career of Nicodemus Dyzma .  Being There follows the adventures of Chance, an uneducated gardener who works for an elderly rich man. Chance is probably on the autistic spectrum and has grown up in the rich man's household. He knows nothing about the outside world except for what he has seen on television. However, he has an intu...

Published in 1959 by J.B. Lippincott Company. Back in the 1950's and 1960's several publishing houses put out series of biographies aimed at upper elementary students. The most famous of these was Random House's Landmark Series . They were small hardback books with thick pages and lots of line drawings. They were long on action and short on analysis. This book is similar in every way to that series except that it was printed by the J.B. Lippincott Company. There is literally nothing about John Mosby's childhood in this biography, which is a little odd since there was a similar series at the same time, with the same physical format called Childhood of Famous Americans published by Bobbs-Merrill. John Mosby was a Confederate cavalry officer in the Civil War who became a Partisan Ranger. Partisan Rangers were irregular forces, not really part of the armies they supported and able to take shares of any spoils of war that they captured. This book does not discuss any of th...

Published in 2015 by Macmillan Audio. Read by Jeremy Bobb. Duration: 9 hours, 4 minutes. Unabridged. In the early years of the Great Depression, kidnapping became a fairly common crime, especially in the Midwest. It was viewed by some as a safer alternative to bank robberies, especially since unsuspecting victims were often not armed. The most famous kidnapping of the era was the Lindbergh baby case. It ended tragically, but did result in a Federal anti-kidnapping law. That law got its first test when George "Machine Gun Kelly" Barnes and his wife Kathryn planned the kidnapping of oil tycoon Charles F. Urschel (no relation to the author of The Year of Fear , but he admits to initially researching the topic due to the victim having the same last name as his). Urschel was taken from his home in Oklahoma to a farm in Texas. The moment they crossed the border, the kidnapping became a federal crime. Machine Gun Kelly started out his career as a bootlegger, but his new wife Kath...

Published by Tantor Audio in 2018. Read by Barnaby Edwards. Duration: 8 hours, 34 minutes. Unabridged. Levison Wood is a British explorer/journalist. He has gone on two other hiking expeditions (one to walk the length of the Nile, the other to walk the length of the Himalayas) before this trip. In Walking the Americas he was joined by a Mexican photographer friend from Merida, in the Yucatan Peninsula. Together, they started walking south to Belize, then on to Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama and finally Colombia. The author, Levison Wood Along the way, they encounter hidden Mayan ruins, a city overwhelmed by drug gangs, poverty, the aftermath of a hurricane, welcoming people, a few unfriendly people, Native Indians, a horrible rainstorm, mansions, a couple of difficult horses and the remains of a lost colony founded by Scotland in the 1700's. This was a surprisingly short book considering it spans eight countries. It was an entertaining book with some ...

Published by Blackstone Audio in 2017. Read by Nick Thurston Duration: 14 hours, 34 minutes. Unabridged. Paul Johns is an explorer specializing in fungus. He works his way out of the Amazon rain forest back to civilization and comes home to the United States with a horrible fungal infection. A person traveling with him has the same infection but she passes away. Neil Johns is Paul's brother and a brand-new employee of the National Security Agency (NSA), specializing in code-breaking and seeing patterns where no one else can. He begins to notice some strange things about Paul and some strange activity deep in the rain forest that Paul just came from... This book is a great science-based action thriller, much like the late Michael Crichton used to specialize in. It makes you think, it shows you a different way at looking at intelligence and is a heck of a romp. Throw in the likable and believable characters and some moments of real humor and the whole combination is really quite g...

Published in 2018. Educated: A Memoir was one of the most celebrated books of 2018 and for good reason. This is not a fun story to read, but it is absolutely engrossing. The writer has an extraordinary ability to write description - both of the physical environment and of emotional pain and confusion. Tara Westover grew up in rural Idaho on a mountain near a small town. Her father refused to send his children to school, at least not consistently, because school was a plot by the government (and later, the Illuminati). Tara did not have a birth certificate until she was 9 years old and is still not entirely certain of her exact birth date. He also refused any sort of modern medical care or medication or vaccinations for the same reasons. And, he refused to get driver's licenses and have car insurance and to even wear seat belts because those were also a plot. Their home was stocked with weapons, food and fuel for a future Armageddon. Her mother was a midwife and created home reme...

Published by GraphicAudio in 2013. Multicast Performance. Duration: Approximately 6 hours. Unabridged GraphicAudio has been adapting novels into audiobooks that are performed by 20+ people like an old-fashioned radio play for years. In this case, they have adapted a novel by veteran fantasy/sci-fi writer Tracy Hickman. Hickman doesn't usually write about DC Comics characters, his reputation was made writing books related to the Dungeons and Dragons universe. That being said, the if you are going to make that move, going from knights in shining armor in big castles to the Dark Knight in Wayne Manor is a logical move. The idea behind Wayne of Gotham is a good one - Batman is getting threats and clues relating to his parents and family secrets that would be best kept secret.  The fact that Batman, not his alter ego Bruce Wayne, is getting these threats is significant because it shows that the unknown person knows his secret identity. While Batman is trying to work this out, it ...

Originally published in 1980 by HarperCollins.  Multiple updated editions have been printed. Howard Zinn's (1922-2010)  A People's History of the United States   is perhaps the most famous and most controversial history book in publication today.  I read this book because the former governor of my home state of Indiana and current President of Purdue University, Mitch Daniels, repeatedly criticized it and actually advocated blocking its use in public schools in Indiana, including Indiana University. Governor Daniels used to be a frequent guest on a local newstalk radio station in Indianapolis and this book came up enough times in the conversations that I became aware of it. Before that I had never heard of it - but he certainly put it on my radar. That's not really what he had intended, I am sure. I found my copy of A People's History of the United States in a local thrift shop on a half price day, which made this book a true bargain at $1. I decided that, a...

Published by Beacon Press in May of 2018. Read by Ron Butler. Duration: 11 hours, 17 minutes. Unabridged. Howard Bryant's The Heritage: Black Athletes, a Divided America and the Politics of Patriotism takes a hard look at athletes, particularly African-American athletes, using their position to make commentary of social issues. Bryant brings a wealth of experience as a sports writer for ESPN.com, ESPN the Magazine and NPR.  Tommie Smith and John Carlos in the 1968 Olympics  Bryant does not come at this topic as a person critical of athletes taking political stances. Rather, he is very much in favor of it since athletes have a very large soapbox that they can climb upon and shout from, if they chose to do so. Some have. Bryant speaks in great detail about Jackie Robinson, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Tommie Smith, John Carlos and especially Muhammad Ali. Bryant starts, oddly in my mind, with someone who was an athlete (played 15 games in the NFL in the 1920's for teams that n...

Published in 2011 by Gildan Media, LLC. Read by Grover Gardner. Duration: 14 hours, 9 minutes. Unabridged. Carthage has forever been relegated to the second fiddle of the Ancient Mediterranean world - the last power to offer the Roman Republic any sort of serious threat. The also-ran that could have been what Rome became...if only. But, unlike Rome, no one seems to know much about Carthage except for that they were a sea power, they had battle elephants and Hannibal crossed the Alps leading them in a war against Rome. Dr. Miles' effort in Carthage Must Be Destroyed is a bit hamstrung from the lack of original sources from Carthage itself - it was looted and destroyed at the end of the Third Punic War. But, he is able to reconstruct a history based on the writings of other countries, including such sources as the Bible, Greek and Roman histories, temples, changes in religious thought architecture and coinage.  I do appreciate how difficult this must have been, but this book of...

Published in 2015 by Random House Audio. Read by Dick Hill. Duration: 14 hours, 3 minutes. Unabridged. Make Me is the 20th novel-length entry in the Jack Reacher series. But, readers of the series know that the books are not written in any particular order and there are a lot of short stories and novellas in the series as well. If you are trying to read everything in chronological order (from Reacher's point of view), this is entry number 37. In the middle of the night, Jack Reacher gets off of a train bound for Chicago in an small town in Oklahoma named Mother's Rest. Yes, Mother's Rest. And, no, no one seems to know why it is named that. He is immediately met by a former FBI agent turned private detective named Michelle Chang. She had initially confused him for an associate of hers that has gone missing in Mother's Rest. Reacher is intrigued by the situation (and the fact that no one in town seems to have any idea where the name came from) and starts to poke aroun...

The Elvis Cole novels have been coming out for 30 years and this book would be a fine place for the series to end - not that I want it to end Originally published in 2017 by G.P. Putnam's Sons   The Elvis Cole novels have been coming out for 30 years and The Wanted would be a fine place for the series to end, especially considering the last 20 pages or so. Not that I want it to end - I will read them as long as Robert Crais wants to write them, but this book goes out of its way to include all of the hallmarks of an Elvis Cole novel, almost like it is going down a checklist one last time. Those items include: 1) Joe Pike is there and Joe Pike is scary, full of tech knowledge and lurks in dark places; 2) Elvis' car gets a special mention; 3) Elvis' cat is in several scenes and full of his special "charm"; 4) Elvis shows off his culinary skills; 5) Elvis does his martial arts workout; 6) Elvis goes to his office (the early books always featured the office an...

Published in 2015 by GraphicAudio Performed by more than 25 voice actors. Duration: Approximately 5 hours. Scott Lang, better known to superhero fans as Ant-Man, has moved to New York City with his teenage daughter to take advantage of some job opportunities in the tech field. If you only know Ant-Man from the Marvel Cinematic Universe, there are a few differences in this book, but nothing that is insurmountable. Scott Lang's criminal past comes back to haunt him when a former partner in crime breaks out of prison. People connected with his conviction are dying all across the country - and the FBI thinks that Scott Lang is next. Why? Because Lang testified against him in the plea deal that turned him away from a life of crime. Lang knows that he doesn't really need police protection - after all, he is a superhero. But, he can't tell the FBI that. Meanwhile, his daughter is having typical "mean girl" problems with a classmate when it occurs to her that she kno...

Published by Little, Brown and Company in 2018. Read by Christine Lakin and Titus Welliver Duration: 10 hours, 39 minutes. Unabridged. Harry Bosch is now long-retired from LAPD, but in Dark Sacred Night he continues his work as an unpaid reserve officer with the tiny San Fernando police department  (see this linked video to see the author explain the situation). He is investigating a cold case murder of the leader of a gang based in San Fernando. Bosch is determined to solve it, even if most people would just let it go because of who was killed. His motto is "Everyone Counts or Nobody Counts" - even gang leaders. But, he is also working on another, more personal case. In a previous book, Bosch broke up a prescription drug ring and met an addict who fell into addiction because she was self-medicating to kill the pain of her daughter's murder. Meanwhile, LAPD Detective Renee Ballard continues her work as an overnight detective - part of the "Late Show". She f...

First published in 1973. Shusaku Endo was a rare thing - a Christian from Japan. He also grew up mostly away from Japan (in China) and spent a considerable amount of his young adult life in France. When he was in Japan, he was different because of his religion. When he was in France, he was different because of his ethnicity. Endo's re-telling of the Jesus' life emphasizes this idea of being an outsider. Jesus is never what people want him to be. John the Baptist's followers want him to continue to teach like John the Baptist. His early followers want him to perform miracles all of the time. His later followers want him to overthrow the king and drive out the Romans. Meanwhile, Jesus is teaching lessons about love and forgiveness that no one seems to want to hear. Endo's Jesus is a melancholy man - who wouldn't be when your main message is ignored and everyone wants to you be something you can't be? Endo chooses to pass over most of the miracle stories of Jesus ...

Published in 1997 by Publications International, LTD. At first glance, The Blue and the Gray: The Conflict Between North and South is a typical coffee table book about the Civil War. There are tons of them - I ought to know, I own several myself. They are all over-sized, hardback and full of great pictures. Most have lots of details about the battles and the strategies of the war and a little about topics such as the daily life of the soldier, medicine of the time, the use of spies or daily life in camp. This book is set up exactly in the reverse. It is all about those other topics, discusses the overall strategy and offers very little about the specifics of any actual battles. There are literally no battle maps. But, that doesn't stop this from being a great book. It is a great book precisely because it doesn't treat those other topics as interesting filler - it treats them as topics that can stand alone and are worthy of exploration.  Every page is colored either blue or g...

Published in 2017 by HighBridge, a Division of Recorded Books. Read by Danny Campbell. Duration: 8 hours, 8 minutes. Unabridged. Finn Murphy is a long haul trucker, meaning he drives the trucks that you see on the interstate. Murphy doesn't just haul anything - he drives a moving truck. He packs, loads, hauls and unloads households - more than 3,000 of them by his estimation. Finn Murphy's transportation for a promotional book tour . Murphy tells about the generalities of driving a big truck, particularly a moving truck. He includes several entertaining stories about his life on the road.  The listener (I heard this as an audiobook) gets a feel for the comings and goings of the truckers in the moving industry.  His story of his first day as a mover is a classic "how can this get any worse" story. I first heard about this book in an interview on NPR with Terry Gross . This is ironic because the author discusses how so many truckers listen to NPR because i...