DWD's Reviews

Published in 2011 by Regnery History Regnery Publishing's newest imprint, Regnery History has found something new to tell about one of the most written-about parts of World War II: D-Day. You may ask yourself, what else can be said about D-Day that hasn't been said? We have had powerful, visceral movies like Saving Private Ryan , The Longest Day and Patton and the famed HBO series Band of Brothers . Article after article and book after book have been written about D-Day, the Battle of the Bulge and the final days of Nazi Germany but somehow we have failed to have had a serious biography of one of the invasion's central planners and one of the men who engineered the entire campaign from the beaches of Normandy until the defeat of Germany: American 5 star general Omar Bradley. The problem with Omar Bradley and historians is that he is not Patton. Patton is brash, daring and iconic. Bradley did not chase headlines and did not wear fancy pistols. He was daring, but not a...

Overreach hurts the overall argument Published in 2011 by Regnery Publishing. I feel I must establish my bona fides here. I am an Iain Murray fan. I really enjoyed his book The Really Inconvenient Truths (to see my review click here ). On my favorite quotes page on this blog, there is an Iain Murray quote (really!). But, while I am a fan, in this book, I think that Murray has made many, many valid points but overreached on others. The over-argument weakens the overall book, in my opinion. Also, in the interest of making everything clear, I have chosen to be a member of public employee union - the Indiana State Teacher Association (we choose to be a member or not in Indiana). I have actually gone to state level meetings as a representative of my local union. I have been invited multiple times to attend trainings so that I can become more involved but I have not done so due to family commitments. That being said, I can clearly see that there are tensions between being a political c...

                                      Not good. Published by MacMillan Audio in 2011 Read by Scott Sowers Duration: 15 hours, 1 minutes Unabridged Multiple Edgar Award-winning author John Hart delivers a dud with Iron House , a book with too many disparate themes, too many stereotypical storylines and characters that might have been stolen from central casting at any Hollywood B movie and with too much detail about the scenery. Combine it with an overly dramatic reading by Scott Sowers and it makes for an altogether unsatisfying audiobook experience. In Iron House we have a mafia crime boss on his death bed. His adopted son, Michael, has asked to be released from his obligations to the family business so that he might pursue a normal life with his pregnant girlfriend. But, as everyone knows, you cannot just walk away from the mafia, especially if you are known as the most effective h...

The book that launched the series Originally published in 1992. Back in 1992 the first book in the Paul Madriani series was released. Over time, it has morphed into less of a legal thriller series into more of an action series with a legal thriller bent to it. But, the first one is a good old-fashioned murder mystery and courtroom drama - and a surprisingly good one for a debut effort. In Compelling Evidence we are introduced to Paul Madriani, a struggling solo practice attorney who has recently left a big league law firm because he was having an affair with a senior partner's wife. In the office next door is a new friend, Harry Hinds (his law partner in later books). When that same senior partner is found dead, Martini is hired to defend the widow in a wild and wooly murder trial in which everyone seems to have a motive, including Madriani. This is truly a great legal thriller. It may very well be the best in a very solid series. It has aged very well and is a must-read for...

A Big Change of Pace for Horowitz Published in 2011 by Regnery David Horowitz is best known as a fearless in-your-face political brawler. He will literally go anywhere to debate anyone about any political topic - the more strident the opponent, the better he seems to like it. My local news and talk station interviews Horowitz once a week and I have heard a great deal of those interviews over the years. Horowitz is a formidable debater - a partisan of the first rank. To be honest, it never occurred to me that Horowitz had another gear (which, of course, is silly - we all have other interests) so when I read the description of this short book I knew I had to check it out. In A Point in Time: The Search for Redemption in This Life and the Next , Horowitz waxes philosophical on time, how things change in this world (or more properly, how nothing ever seems to change), the way dogs live their lives compared to the way people live their lives, the paradox of the fragility and strength o...

Another great history from McCullough David McCullough's 1776 is yet another well-written history from David McCullough, the two-time winner of the Pulitzer Prize and two-time winner of the National Book Award. David McCullough Many academic historians discount McCullough's work as being too "popular" - a complaint that I think is pure bunk. McCullough's works are popular because he is a good writer, not because he is chasing popular topics. He is not skimping on these topics or slanting them a particular way. 1776 is a perfect example of this. McCullough does not paint a picture of George Washington, the perfect general. Rather, Washington is portrayed as the man who is quite a bit over his head, but still the best man for the job because he understands the larger goals of the colonies and is finally beginning to understand the tactics and strategies required for a ragtag army supplemented with local militia to take on a British army with superior tra...

One of Hillerman's best Originally published as a traditional book in 1980. Read by George Guidall Duration: 7 hours, 2 minutes Unabridged. People of Darkness is one of Hillerman's best and happens to be the first of the Jim Chee novels. It is set, like most of Hillerman's mysteries, in the Navajo reservation in the Four Corners Area. In this case, Jim Chee is working in the southeast corner of the reservation, in an area commonly called the "Checkerboard" because it consists of a series of parcels of reservation and privately-held land parcels that are interspersed with one another. Even though he is an officer with the Navajo Tribal Police, Chee is contacted to do some work as a private citizen who lives off of the reservation using his vacation time. It seems a multi-millionaire's wife wants Chee to investigate the theft of some of her husband's private "momentos." Chee starts to look into it and his curiosity draws him to ...

Good - recommended reading, but not without its faults First things first: this history teacher strongly recommends reading Over the Edge of the World: Magellan's Terrifying Circumnavigation of the Globe . Magellan and the early European explorers have long been overlooked - I can only assume due to Politically Correct attitudes among "professional" historians at the university level. Too bad. One does not have to admire everything that Magellan, Columbus and the other explorers did to admire bravery, audacity and the urge to explore that these men displayed. Positives: -Bergreen's text is very approachable. He tells the story in a well-paced manner and sets up the political background quite well. His portrayal of Charles I and all of the crises he faced intrigues me so much that I am going to look for a book about him. -Bergeen uses research resources that have not been used before in a popular work - more information and perspectives is always b...

"If something cannot go on forever, it will stop" Published in 2011 by Regnery. The above quote is from the economist Herbert Stein. Besides being a clever little bit of the obvious, a Yogi Berra-type quote, it is also part of a scary thought about America itself that Mark Steyn points out in After America - America cannot keep doing what it is doing forever and hope to lead the world - it will stop. It cannot keep  borrow 40% of its budget forever and hope to keep its economy afloat or offer its children a decent future. America cannot hope that a post-America world will be pleasant - as Steyn notes on page 14 "...it's not hard to figure out how it's going to end." After America: Get Ready for Armageddon is really the sequel to America Alone: The End of the World As We Know It a book that details how low birth rates, a general cultural malaise and a nanny state stupor threatens to overwhelm the same countries that once led the world in political, mil...

Not good, not bad Published in 2008 by Beaufort Books. Some have reviewed The Secret Scroll very harshly. I am unwilling to do this, despite my opinion that this is not really a good book. I give it 3 Stars. As I told someone else, it is neither drek nor a Pulitzer Prize winner. It's kinda like watching an episode of Matlock - it beats watching nothing but it sure isn't To Kill A Mockingbird , despite being set in the south and having courtroom drama. Positives: -The plot moves along at a quick pace. -Lots of action. -The bad guys are truly bad. -a love story. -I was interested in seeing where Cutler was going with his depictions of Jesus and Paul. -The short (2-5 pages) chapter style makes it an easy book to put down and pick up again. Negatives: -It is set around a scroll that is discovered by an American archaeologist that is supposedly written by Jesus of Nazareth. Cutler makes the text of such a scroll accessible to readers who are unfamiliar with ancie...

Hasn't this book already been written? Published in 2003 Keith Blanchard's premise in The Deed is that the fabled sale of Manhattan Island by the Manhata Indians to the Dutch is actually incorrect. Instead, the island was sold a second time by the starving Dutch colony to a Dutch man who sympathized with the Manhata, married a Manhata woman and insisted on a deed for the island so that he and his heirs could hold it for the native peoples who did not understand these legal machinations. It's an interesting premise, but one that was explored 4 years earlier by Larry Jay Martin in his book Sounding Drum . Interestingly, it was also a quirky comedy, it also involved a romance, the mafia and Indian casinos. Regardless of those similarities, this book should be judged on its own merits. I liked the historical section and the actual mystery of the deed. I truly disliked Blanchard's description of Hansvoort and his friends. Page after page in this book invo...

Wonderful Published in 2000. I absolutely love the Bill Gastner series. I have read a few unsatisfying novels lately and Dead Weight was a real joy. Gastner is the nearly 70-year-old insomniac sheriff of a small town in New Mexico. He consumes great quantities of coffee and very spicy Mexican food (even for breakfast!) while he juggles a homicide investigation, a mysterious accusation against one of his officers and a landlord/renter dispute. Small town politics and good police work don't necessarily go hand-in-hand, but Gastner makes it work anyway. Havill's characters remind me very much of those of fellow New Mexican author Tony Hillerman. For me, this is very high praise since I absolutely love the Leaphorn/Chee novels. If Havill and Hillerman are par for the course in the world of New Mexican authors than I am going to looking for more of them. Truly a delightful read. I rate this book 5 stars out of 5. This book can be found on Amazon.com here: Dead We...

Audio Version a real treat Published by Dove Entertainment, Inc. in 1996. Read by John Ritter Duration: 2 hours, 33 minutes Abridged. Dave Barry Dave Barry's Greatest Hits was read by John Ritter who was one of the few people who could actually read Dave Barry correctly - he put the emphasis in the right places and pauses to make the jokes work perfectly. On to the material - Pulled from Barry's earlier material in the early 1990s, it was a bit up and down, but mostly up (even the downs weren't down very far). His time-share condo essay is a gem that should be printed off and handed out to people before they go into any time-share condo presentation. His "Diplodocus" essay was funny and touching all at the same time. One of his best ever. The "Can New York Save Itself?" essay was a prime example of Dave taking a joke and running it into the ground. It was mildly amusing but it kept going and going and going and going and ... yo...

Lovely speech - a joy for any history lover Narrated by the author, David McCullough Duration: About 40 minutes I am a high school history teacher - not the type of history teacher who got into it so he could also coach. I am a REAL history teacher. I love history. I read histories for entertainment. I go on trips to see historical places. History is exciting and important to me. The Course of Human Events , McCullough's wonderful 40 minute speech on the Founding Fathers, history and great literature made my soul sing. I learned a lot but mostly I found the joy of listening to a kindred spirit discuss history and its importance and the joys of learning.  McCullough is a two time winner of the Pulitzer Prize and a winner of the National Book Award for his histories. David McCullough I also found myself being a bit envious of McCullough's wonderful speaking voice and the fact that he writes so well. However, I quickly recovered since McCullough is not stingy ...

Really, really bad Originally published in 1993. John Trenhaile lives in England - and this is an important fact for the rest of this review. He lives in England and he has written a mystery set in California. Now, it seems to me that a mystery set in 1990s California should feature characters that sound like Californians, behave like Californians and follow Californian police procedures. Instead, in A Means to Evil Trenhaile has characters that speak like they live in England, they behave like the English and they follow insanely ridiculous police procedures. By page 150 of this 388 page book I was sick of the meandering story and the unprofessional behavior of the psychologist. But then I started to fold over the pages that had silly comments, unlikely technical achievements and flat out use of non-American English. I ended up with well over 30 folded pages. Examples of non-American English: Police chief yelling at reporters before a press conference: "Give ...

Keefe's "voice" captured perfectly on this version of the audiobook   Read by Barry Kraft Duration: 3 hours. Publisher: Book of the Road (August 1990) You Know Me Al: A Busher's Letters consists of a series of rather detailed letters written by a bush-league ballplayer named Jack Keefe. Keefe has been called up from the Terre Haute team to join the Chicago White Sox. He is writing to one of his former bush-league teammates in Bedford, Indiana. Ring Lardner (1885-1933) Keefe is truly a country bumpkin, a rube, a bumbling fool who does not understand the more sophisticated world of the major leagues, but who still succeeds based on the strength of his pitching arm. The reader gets a kick out of seeing the world through his eyes but really understanding the situations he is in, similar to Forrest Gump , except that Jack does not have a disability - he is just ignorant. The audio version I heard (Book of the Road's version) is wonderfully perf...