DWD's Reviews

Extraordinarily Powerful As An Audiobook Experience Published in December 2011 by AudioGO Read by Ray Childs Duration: approximately 7 hours. Unabridged. In 1959, John Howard Griffin (1920-1980), an author and journalist decided to go check out the serious rumblings of the Civil Rights movement for himself. Griffin was white and he decided to medically darken his skin (and smooth out the rough spots with dye and shave his head) and go as a black man. His plan was to see if things truly were different on the other side of the color line. Black Like Me is a novelization of his experiences (meaning things were edited and re-arranged to make the story work better) and it starts with him pitching his idea to a publisher and his family. Once he gets funding and permission from his family (after a lot of serious talk about how dangerous this could be) Griffin heads off to New Orleans for his medical treatments. He picks New Orleans because of its more liberal racial attitudes, figuri...

Very enjoyable short listen Published by Blackstone Audio in 2009. Read by Robert Whitfield Duration: 90 minutes This unabridged lecture on Socrates covers all of the major aspects of the life of the famed Ancient Greek philosopher including his personal life, his military career (he served with distinction as a hoplite , the Athenian equivalent of a buck private), the sordid story of his execution by the government of Athens, his influences, who he influenced, his impact, both good and bad, on Western society and more. Throw in the entertaining (and surprisingly approachable considering it is about philosophy) text and the great delivery by narrator Robert Whitfield and this short little audiobook is a well worth listen. I rate this audiobook 5 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: Socrates In 90 Minutes. Reviewed on March 11, 2012. <br /> <img src="http://wms.assoc-amazon.com/20070822/US/img/noscript.gif?tag=dwsre-20" alt=...

Ultra-gritty crime novel Published  in 2012 by Forge Books. Hard Knocks is among the grittiest of gritty crime novels. It is set in Boston and in ex-cop turned private investigator Jack Reilly's world, everything is ran by a political machine, the mafia or both. Everyone is on the take, it's just that some people get caught and others are a bit luckier or smoother. Jack Reilly is not like his brother, an unlucky small time mafia wannabe who rotates in and out of prison. But, he's retired (with a "disability") after he was tainted as being the mayor's bag man who picked up bribes. Reilly is quite clear that he was not a bag man (except when no one else could do it) but he did a lot of work for the mayor as the man who could dig up dirt on anyone and make sure it made it into the right hands - a wife, a reporter, a political opponent. Reilly gets dragged into a case by Bucky,  a lock-picking friend of his brother from prison who discovered a lot of info...

Borrows heavily from movies and TV, has decent action. Published in 2006 by Thomas Dunne Books  Event is not a bad book, per se, but I kept on thinking, "I've seen this before." The book introduces a secret government agency called the Event Group which investigates historical legends, paranormal activity, UFO sightings, etc. They are sort of an X-Files , Men in Black and Delta Force rolled into one. The Event Group collects items of historical significance and studies them to plan for future disasters. They also keep these items secret.  Why? I was never quite clear as to why Noah's Ark, the existence of King Arthur, or the arrival of the Vikings in the Americas in the 800s were state secrets. Plus, comments such as the Event Group not wanting to give King Arthur's body to the Brits because it belongs to "the world" seem silly when the Event Group is just storing Arthur in a vast underground base in Nevada. They are not sharing a...

Wonderful, just wonderful. Published by Simon and Schuster Audio Read by Cotter Smith Duration: 4.5 hours  Abridged A family friend gave me the abridged audio version of Undaunted Courage . It has been on my "to read" list for years and I'd never quite gotten around to it but, boy, am I glad I finally did. Meriwether Lewis (1774-1809) In Ambrose's hands the story of the Lewis & Clark expedition is lifted from the stale and stilted pages of the history textbooks and it becomes an exciting narrative - full of adventure, wonder and tons of hard work. Ambrose is a gifted writer. I am reminded of the David McCullough quote: "No harm's done to history by making it something someone would want to read." No danger of that with Ambrose. Not only has he read everything there is to be found on the topic but has traveled the route several times. William Clark (1770-1838) Cotter Smith did a great job of reading the text and keeping...

Originally published in 1995 by Dove Entertainment, Inc. Read by David Ackroyd Duration: 3 hours, 5 minutes. Abridged Strengths: When Elephants Weep is full of moving anecdotes concerning animals and the possibility of them having emotions. It is a pleasant listen and usually not "over the top" in its preachiness. It was well read by narrator David Ackroyd. The authors make a compelling, if not scientifically rigorous argument for animal emotions. Weaknesses: The authors are continually preaching against scientists who do not believe that animals have emotions and may even doubt that animals can even feel pain. However, they rarely point out the scientists or the studies that espouse this view. It felt like a straw man argument after a while. They also fail to cite any work that backs their claims besides convincing rhetoric. In the end, it was a convincing, mostly entertaining book that was a lot more entertaining and pleasant than a PETA brochure, bu...

A wonderful introduction to Kahlo (a review of the English translation) Originally published in 1999. If you saw the Selma Hayek movie on the life of Frida Kahlo and want to know a bit more, this book is a wonderful introduction to her professional life. In fact, the movie and this book complement one another quite nicely, since the movie tended to focus on her personal life. Andrea Kettenmann's book follows the life of Kahlo and does a great job of explaining the symbolism of Kahlo's work as it pertained to her personal life, her health setbacks and her political beliefs. In my opinion, the intensely personal nature of her work is what makes her such a compelling artist. She was especially good at depicting her pain, both psychic and physical. This book goes a long way to explaining many of her works. Frida Kahlo with Diego Rivera in 1932 There are 93 illustrations in this book and most of them are of her paintings. Also includes a couple of photographs of Die...

Strong history, only limited by the fact that the book itself is practically an antique At the time of this review, this book is 41 years old. It was published in 1966 by Time-Life books as part of a series of books entitled "The Great Ages of Man." Of course, several of the photos of contemporary Africa are now hopelessly outdated (but you can choose to look at the book itself as a piece of history and look at those pictures as photographic evidence of historical Africa) and any references to contemporary Africa are not accurate - no mention of any of the tragedies that continent has witnessed over the last 25 years - starvation, genocide, AIDS, etc. Fortunately, those references are few and far between. Mostly this is a well-written, accessible history that taught me more than the half-dozen or so textbooks that I read in college as part of my coursework. Its greatest strength is in detailing the civilizations that were built from roughly 1000-1600 AD in West Africa...

Nice history of Indiana's "moment" in the Civil War Published in 1993 by TaylorMade WRITE From July 8-13, 1863, Indiana became the focus of attention in the Civil War. Despite the massive losses incurred by the Confederacy from the surrender of Vicksburg on July 4, 1863 and the Battle of Gettysburg on July 1-3, the Confederacy still had enough life to mount an invasion into the North (albeit small) and it caused a first-rate scare throughout the Midwest. Confederate Brigadier General  John Hunt Morgan " With Bowie Knives and Pistols": Morgan's Raid in Indiana is a good, detailed history of the Indiana portion of the raid (it continued on into Ohio). Taylor starts with a short general biography of Morgan and his famed cavalry unit. Taylor also describes the situation in the Kentucky theater of war and explains the logic behind Morgan's raid and why he went against his orders to carry the war into Indiana and Ohio. What could be a tedious read i...

Poor detective story, mostly the story of a romance between two high school kids Published by HarperAudio in 2012. Read by Mitchell Greenberg. Duration: 12 hours, 1 minute. Unabridged. Gun Games is the 20th book in Faye Kellerman's long-running Decker/Lazarus series, featuring police detective Peter Decker and his wife Rina Lazarus. Peter and Rina are serving as foster parents for Gabriel Donatti, a boy with parents who are estranged from him and one another. His father is a mobster and his mother is out of the country starting a new life. A great deal of the book follows Gabe, although there is a mystery for Peter Decker to solve. It involves a suicide by a student from a local, very expensive private school. The case seems fishy to Decker as he and his team uncover nebulous links to a group of bullies from the elite school who like to pretend they are gangsters, carry weapons and intimidate teens in and out of their school. Unbelievably, these same kids get involved with...

Many hated it but I think it may be Crichton's best book Published in 2006 by HarperCollins I have not read all of Michael Crichton's books but I have come close. His best books are generally warnings about the dangers of science without the guidance of ethics: Just because you can do something - does that mean you should do it?  Next delivers that theme in spades. It is all about genetic manipulation - not just genetically modified corn or houseflies. No, Crichton is talking about genetically modifying people to eliminate certain behaviors and even splicing human DNA into animals. The book comes at the reader in a kinetic mish-mash of bits of plot from several plotlines, news headlines and news articles. This mess finally coalesces into a real story about halfway through the book and I assumed that Crichton's writing had deteriorated when he wrote this thing and he was just not able to juggle it all. Michael Crichton (1942-2008) Then, I got it. This out-...

Published by Regnery Publishing, Inc. in 2012. Winston Groom, forever to be known as the author of Forrest Gump , has busied himself with a series of non-fiction books as of late. His latest is this short biography, Ronald Reagan: Our 40th President . The publisher lists this book as "juvenile nonfiction" but this adult also enjoyed this 148 page biography. This is not a controversial "let's set the record straight" book. I detected no political bias except for the fact that is a generally friendly book towards Reagan. That being said, Groom covers the lows of Reagan's personal (strained relationships with his children, for example) and political life (Iran Contra - it gets more attention than almost any aspect of his presidency) and covers them as thoroughly as a book of this size should. Ronald Reagan (1911-2004) This is a great book for high school students because it is easy to read, does not dwell on topics for too long and covers all parts of...

A unique biographical collection - a new angle on the Civil War Published by PublicAffairs in 2003 I am a big fan of Civil War histories. I have more than 75 fiction and non-fiction Civil War books on my bookshelf (mostly non-fiction) so I am hardly a newbie to this area. When I comment that this is a new angle, I an really saying something. It's not that James M. Perry has uncovered new documents or new information in Touched with Fire , but he has re-shuffled the "same old" information into a new pattern. In this case, he has focused on the five Presidents that fought in the Civil War (Grant, Hayes, Garfield, Harrison and McKinley). Perry includes a modest pre-war biography of each of the men and then goes into greater detail on their war experiences. The level of detail is neither skimpy nor excessive - he strikes a nice balance. As a group, they all had many things in common. To a man, they all became competent officers of brevet Major or higher, t...

Parker and Spenser go over old ground, but it's still a lot of fun Published in 2007. Spenser is on the case again in Now and Then . This time, a simple "check and see if my wife is cheating on me" case becomes a double murder and takes Spenser back onto a college campus investigating yet another campus radical. It is not terribly surprising that Parker is going over old ground - this is his 35th Spenser book. Hawk and others are brought in to help, as happens in most all of the newer Spenser books. However, the interplay between Spenser and the others is one of the best features of a Spenser book so that is not disappointing. All in all, this is one of the better Spenser offerings in years. I enjoyed this book and was well on the way to giving it a 5 star rating until I got to the end. It was just too pat. Still, it's a solid addition to the series and a must-read for fans. I rate this book 4 out of 5 stars and it can be found on Amazon.com here: N...

A review from a Mellencamp fan from way back Released by Island in 2007 I was kind of torn about giving this collection a 5 star rating - not because it is not a quality sampling of his work, because they are all good choices. But, there's so much that has been left out. But, reality has to set in and the CD publisher just has to leave stuff out - there is only room for ten songs in this collection series. I always check out the "20th Century Masters" series when I am browsing in the CD section because they usually get a strong cross-section of an artist's work. This is fairly easy if the artist is a flash-in-the-pan type, but Mellencamp has been cranking out hits for more than 25 years. Sure, his best days as a top seller are long gone, but he continues to put out quality work and scores an occasional top 40 song. The wealth of hits to choose from must have made the choices a bit tricky. This album is arranged in reverse chronological order, cov...

A review of the abridged audiobook Published by Random House Audio in 1998 Duration: 2 hours, 54 minutes Read by Anthony Heald Abridged I was not a fan of this book. I'm not sure if it was the abridgment or the writing style, but I'll give the author the benefit of the doubt and blame the abridgment. Like most abridged books, I, Jedi was too abridged (where are the Reader's Digest abridgers when you need them?). Characters, ships and situations show up without preamble but we're expected to be familiar with them. The whole book seemed hurried. The typical special effects that Lucasfilms provides their audiobooks are a bonus, but they were somewhat haphazardly applied in this case - sometimes the music overpowered the text and jungle background noises were on a continuous loop that was too loud and too repetitive. The lightsaber sound effects are wonderful, but they were not timed with the text very well - sabers were being turned on before the ...

Inspired by an event in the author's life, a bit of "film noir" on paper First published in 2003. If you are familiar with the movie style called "film noir" than you get a good idea what Chasing the Dime is like. In a "film noir" movie the protagonist is a regular guy with a secret. He gets sucked into the criminal underworld (or into the world of spies) by events he cannot control and does not understand. Betrayals make him question everything and his old life is shattered. Well, all of that happens here. Henry Pierce gets a new phone number and a series of calls intended for the old owner of the number. He gets curious as he tries to tell the old owner, a prostitute who advertises herself on a porn site as an escort, to change her number. From that point on he gets sucked in to an out of control situation. I wasn't in to this one for the first 75 pages or so. But, once it gets going this one really had me. Connelly noted in the...

  Not a great movie, but a must for Richard Petty and early NASCAR fans (from a Petty fan from way back) Just so you know, I've given this movie 4 stars - not because it is a great movie. It is not, unless you are a die hard Petty fan. But, it is a valuable piece of NASCAR history - a little gem that I picked up in the super-cheap DVD section of a local store. It is a snapshot of the beginnings of the modern heyday of stock car racing. Released in 1972 and full of footage from the early days of NASCAR, the production values in this one are not great, which is a mixed blessing. The old footage does not stick out from the rest of the film because the film itself is pretty grainy and has questionable sound at times. Richard Petty plays himself and he comes off as a fairly wooden actor, which would be a pretty unfair assessment to make if you are not familiar with Richard's personality. He is slow-talking (careful with his words), casual, straight-backed and w...

Thoughtful Ruminations of a born and bred Hoosier Published in 1997 by D and C Publishing Chuck Avery writes a column for the Richmond Palladium-Item , the local paper in Richmond, Indiana. His typical essay could be classified as one of those slice-of-life pieces - a little reminiscing, a little wry observation, a bit of good-natured humor. Avery is also a teacher. I never heard of Chuck Avery before I picked up this book at a local book sale (ironically, he describes picking up books in a similar sale in one of his essays  - the essay that gives the book its title). A Committee of One is one of those rare books that gets better as it goes along. I particularly enjoyed the essays "Clevenger's Pond" (a humorous look at human nature and why his farm pond is no longer open to the public), "The Allure of Instant Esteem" (a look at the self-esteem movement in the classroom and why it makes no sense unless you have actually done something), "Solitude an...

An Entertaining Take on English History Published in 2007 by W.F. Howes Ltd. Read by the author, Robert Lacey Duration: 6 hours, 15 minutes Abridged. Robert Lacey's quirky 3 volume collection Great Tales from English History was truly a joy to listen to. Volume III ran from the late 17th century to the 1990s and covered such topics as John Locke, The Boston Tea Party (a remarkably even-handed presentation of the American Revolution in general), King George III, the beginnings of the Methodist movement, the Industrial Revolution, Bonnie Prince Charlie, the Charge of the Light Brigade, Darwin, Queen Victoria and World Wars I and II. If you are listening to this audiobook to get a complete history of England, you will be sorely disappointed. This series cherry picks the interesting and fun stories (the type I love to tell  in the classroom) and strings them together for a most entertaining listen. Lacey reads the book himself and does a very good job. Sometimes it can be a...