DWD's Reviews

Rodriguez writes a rambling, insightful and interesting work Published by Blackstone Audio in 2008. Read by Michael Anthony. Duration: 8 hours, 14 minutes. Unabridged. I first learned of Richard Rodriguez on C-Span's Booknotes program. He was an invited guest of First Lady Laura Bush to speak at an author's fair that she started hosting in Texas while she was the First Lady of Texas. Rodriguez was promoting his book Brown at the the time and I thought his observations were wonderful. Days of Obligations is in a similar vein, but not nearly as focused. He does (primarily) focus on the differences between Mexico and the United States Two interesting observations from Mexicans about America include: 1) "America is 'Organized'. Passive voice. Rodriguez notes that there seems to be no connection that actual Americans do the organizing. Rather it's almost like it is fate that America is organized. 2) Americans have too much freedom. Rodriguez di...

A pleasant enough read but Paolini seriously needs to send an apology to George Lucas... Originally published in 2003. I enjoyed the book but I kept on thinking that I've read this book before. No, I'm not talking about the obvious debt Paolini owes the Tolkein and also to the "Dragonriders of Pern" series. I'm talking Star Wars: Episode IV: A New Hope or plain old Star Wars to all of us old-timers. Both feature an orphaned teenage farm boy, left with his uncle under mysterious circumstances that no one wants to discuss. The uncle dies when dangerous outsiders come looking for the boy. Luke Skywalker has the Force. Eragon has magic. Both Luke and Eragon are watched over by strange older men who eventually provide them with their first weapon - the very weapon that wiped out a set of good knights in the name of an evil emperor.  In both stories, the strange older man character teaches them a type of magic and how to fight. The older man dies. ...

Published by Kregel Publications in 1998. 384 pages Paul Maier is a truly gifted lecturer. I've had the pleasure of watching two of his videos and if I lived anywhere near Western Michigan University, I'd sneak into the back of his classroom (he is a member of the history faculty there) on a regular basis - he has a gift for making the First Century A.D. accessible. In the Fullness of Time continues this tradition. Maier has basically consolidated 3 other books into one larger volume (with a few changes) and he discusses the first Christmas, the first Easter and the ministries of the early Apostles, especially Paul and Peter. Dr. Paul Maier Maier does a great job of bringing actual documentation that supports the stories of Christmas, Easter and the Book of Acts. He includes the works of Roman and Jewish historians, explains Roman and Jewish religious and political practices and deals with alternate theories that have been proposed. While this could be ...

Published in 2005 by Simon and Schuster 944 pages   "No harm's done to history by making it something someone would want to read." -David McCullough When I read a history book I realize that there multiple types of history books out there. Setting aside the ones that are designed to distort history (such as holocaust denier literature) there are still several styles of history book. They range from the small topical books that offer a brief overview to the more popular histories such as those that David McCollough specializes to definitive works - the type of work that others will refer back to for decades to come. Doris Kearns Goodwin's Team of Rivals is just such a definitive work. It checks in at 754 pages of text with more than a hundred pages of 8 font footnotes. It took her 10 years to produce this book and it is a work of which she can be proud. It is exhaustively researched and documented. However, that is also the problem with the book. It...

A Real Treat As An Audiobook Published by Whole Story Audio Books Read by the author, Robert Lacey Duration: 5 hours, 50 minutes Unabridged Robert Lacey has done something that many writers have failed to do (unfortunately) - he has written history in a fun, accessible, easy to grasp manner. After all, as Lacey points out in his introduction to Volume 1, the "history" and "story" come from the same Latin root word. Essentially, history should be the simple story of how things happened, to the best of the teller's knowledge. Geoffrey Chaucer (1343-1400) Lacey's power as a storyteller is highlighted here in spades. He narrates his audiobook as well so there is the added bonus of hearing the author add nuance to the reading - essentially reading it the way he meant it to be heard. The stories are short and entertaining. Only a couple of times in nearly six hours of listening did I find my attention wandering. This is a terrifically f...

A chance to get to know a bit of Michener's personality Published in 2007 by University Press of Colorado 208 pages. I am a huge fan of Michener's sweeping epics. Some look at those gigantic books as drudgery, but that is only because they have not opened one up and read it. I've read all but two - I own them but I'm saving them back like a wine connoisseur would save back a couple of his favorites. I know these books will be great and I know that once I read them there will be no more new Micheners for me. James Michener (1907-1997) Vavra's book focuses on their mutual interest in Spain and Spanish culture, especially bullfighting, Spanish dance and the Spanish countryside. Vavra met several famous authors, actors and personalities while in Spain in the 1960s. He mentions them, but it rarely acquires the character of a name-dropping book. Mostly, he uses those others as a point of comparison to Michener, and Michener comes off very well in th...

Published in 2005 by the Indiana Historical Society. 153 pages Based on a true story, and full of relevant historical photographs, Captured! A Boy Trapped in the Civil War 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/2...

A Classic Sci-Fi Novel Originally published 1912 in a magazine serial. (1917 in book form) S ince the movie John Carter is coming out in a couple of months I decided to go back and re-read the original of the 11 books that Burroughs wrote about Mars (or, as he calls it, Barsoom). The Whelen cover. I originally read the entire series, or at least most of it, nearly 30 years ago, when I was in high school. I must admit, I was struck by the art of Michael Whelen's cover more than anything else when I first picked it up and my circle of friends read at least some of them. I remembered them fondly but found myself very vague on the specifics. I remembered the Princess was very beautiful and there were multiple races on Mars and that some had four arms and that Carter, a former Confederate soldier, traveled from Earth to Mars in some kind of psychic manner and that there was a lot of fighting. Turns out, what I took as a poor memory was actually pretty accurate. The ...

Powerful and dead on. Published 2011 by Thomas Nelson 237 pages, including end notes. David Murrow has put a lot of thought into why men do not go to church. I am in my mid-40s and have gone to church all of my life, with the exception of 2 or 3 years right after college where my wife and I went every once in a while at best.  We have been at the same church for 18 years. We have a great church but we do have wives that come to church without their husbands week in and week out - not many, but after reading this book and being made more aware of the issue I am sure I will notice more. Murrow has studied and interviewed and talked and listened about this topic for years and he has come up with 12 reasons that men do not come to church. Among them are: -I'll hate church, like when I was a kid; -I'll lose control; -If I become a Christian, I'll become soft; -Church is full of hypocrites; -All they want is my money; -I'm jealous (women who idolize the p...

A breezy look at a worthy topic Published in 2011 by Regnery Publishing, Inc. 394 pages including extensive notes and an index. Generally intended as an antidote to the slanted education that many of us have received, the Politically Incorrect Guide (P.I.G.) series is an entertaining series loosely based on the "Idiots Guide..." and the "Dummies..." books. The Politically Incorrect Guide to the British Empire is an immensely readable look at the British Empire - it's origins, its ideals, its controversies and its rather abrupt ending after World War II. The format of the book is pretty simple. Crocker picks an area of the British Empire and than gives a brief (15-25 pages) history of the Empire in that part of the world, from beginning to end. Then, he focuses on several of the personalities mentioned in the brief history with biographies that go into greater detail. Sir Francis Drake (1540-1596) Those personalities are way more interesting than bla...

A bit of nostalgia Published 1959 by Random House 180 pages Many, many years ago Random House published a series of more than 100 books called "Landmark Books". These were short histories of a little more than 150 pages that were long on action and short on historical analysis. Nevertheless, these were this history teacher's first introduction to written history. The library in Hope, Indiana had a whole shelf of these books and I happily read about Daniel Boone and the Alamo and John Paul Jones. I happened across this one at a middle school library clearance. The book delivers as I remember - lots of action and not much into the motivations of Francis Marion and the others who hid in the swamps of South Carolina with him and fought the British Army. That's okay, though. It's aimed at middle schoolers/upper elementary students and they don't care much for analysis anyway. Better to get them an appealing taste of history and let the whys and the where...

A fun introduction to American history for young children Published June 2011 by Big Tent Books Illustrations by John W. Ewing 32 pages My Best Friend, Abe Lincoln is a children's book (ages 5-8) that creates a fictional account of the adventures of Abraham Lincoln and his best friend as a child in southern Indiana. The best friend, Sam Harding, is entirely made up (as the book makes clear) but the story is based on known details of Lincoln's childhood (for example, Lincoln called the school of his sparse formal education a "blab" school and this book does too) and includes details that would have been common to almost all children of the frontier. The illustrations should be very approachable to all children since the illustrator, John Ewing, is a former Disney illustrator and he uses a familiar Disney-esque style with his characters. I thought his interpretation of young Lincoln's face was interesting - I had never considered how Lincoln's distinctiv...

A little book about a big man (Would you like a little sci-fi with your politics?) Published by Quirk Books in January of 2012. 248 pages. Okay, let's get the ridiculous part of  the book out of the way. Yes, Taft 2012 is based entirely on a silly premise: What if William Howard Taft disappeared from history the day Wilson was inaugurated and arrived in the year 2011 and fired up everyone's imagination to run for president again in 2012? But, setting that aside, what if Taft were alive and well today? What would he think of the United States 100 years after it rejected him for his re-election bid? If you love The Twilight Zone or those Harry Turtledove time-traveling books and you are interested in politics, this one will satisfy. William Howard Taft (1857-1930) I liked the book because I liked Heller's characterization of William Howard Taft. It's not hard for this overweight reviewer to sympathize with our fattest president (he got stuck in the preside...

Very good Published by Audioworks in 1999. Read by the author, Stephen Ambrose. Duration: approximately 3 hours on audio cassette. Abridged. Ambrose's stories of male friendship in Comrades: Brothers, Fathers, Sons, Pals would be good in any format, but why read what Ambrose wrote when you can hear him read it to you? There is the added benefit of hearing Ambrose's emphasis on a phrase, his light-hearted tone in some areas and, even more important to the emotional punch of some of the stories, hearing his voice break at particularly touching moments (perhaps the most touching was a comment that is highlighted in HBO's Band of Brothers . A veteran of Easy Company is asked by his grandson, "Grandpa, were you a hero in the war?" "No. I served in a company of heroes.") Stephen Ambrose (1936-2002) Ambrose focused on the friendship he and his brothers share, his friends from college, from work, the friendships of Lewis and Clark, Dwight E...

Strong, entertaining read Published in 2000 by St. Martin's Press 352 pages  Rough Draft is my first foray into a book by James W. Hall . I found it to be an entertaining read with a couple of really good plot twists. The original premise of the FBI sting seems so silly that I cannot imagine anybody would permit it, but once I got past that part it was a great spring break thriller. While the villains were fairly interesting, I found myself really rooting for the underachieving FBI agent, Frank Sheffield. I wonder about the source of Mr. Hall's fascination with Indiana. I'm a lifelong resident of the Hoosier state so I was interested in the fact that the main bad guy comes from Evansville (his bare description of Evansville, even though it is vague, tells me that he's never seen it or has not seen it in a loooong time). Also, his knowledge of Indiana geography seems a bit sketchy since he has the boy in the foster care system in Evansville yet committing crimes ...

Very, very, very good Published by D.C. Comics in 2004 160 pages First things first. I am not a gigantic comics fan. I've never been to a comic book shop. I know the big names. Basically, if they had a live action TV show, I know them. So, my opinion is not as well-informed as that of some. But, I know what I like and I thought this was some grade-A, high test sci-fi with a good deal of political science thrown in. Superman has always been of limited interest to some because he is an all-powerful good guy. He can't be hurt (technically, I know he can but who has Kryptonite sitting around?). He has the tools to deal with any situation. He has a healthy psyche. He is a good guy to have on your side but not particularly interesting. But, let's take away his All-American freedom-loving politics and partner him with a truly soul-crushing totalitarian regime - the Soviet Union. Stalin backed by Superman's talents is a truly scary thought. Soviet theory b...

Thoroughly enjoyable Published by Whole Story Audio Books Narrated by the author, Robert Lacey Duration: 5 hours, 45 minutes. Robert Lacey has done something that many writers have failed to do (unfortunately) - he has written history in a fun, accessible, easy to grasp manner. After all, as Lacey points out in his introduction, the "history" and "story" come from the same Latin root word. Essentially, history should be the simple story of how things happened, to the best of the teller's knowledge. Lacey's power as a storyteller is highlighted here in spades. He narrates his audiobook as well so there is the added bonus of hearing the author add nuance to the reading - essentially reading it the way he meant it to be heard. The stories are short and entertaining. Only a couple of times in 5 hours and 45 minutes of listening did I find my attention wandering. This is a terrifically fun experience for any history lover. Full of interesti...

The Jesse Stone novels continue a rally for the legion of Parker fans - score this one a double. Published in 2007 by Putnam 304 pages To use a baseball analogy (Robert B. Parker fans would surely approve...), this one keeps the current rally of good Parker books going. If you are unsure what I am referring to then you must not get much of the baseball comments that Stone and Spenser use. Anyway, a rally is a run of good offensive plays when your team is down a few runs. Ideally, those offensive plays would be smashed out of the park home runs. However, in a pinch, a base hit beats a strike out. Robert B. Parker (1932-2010) Now, notice that I did not label this one a great book. This is not a home run. It's more of a double. It is a good book but not Parker's best. It's not even the best Jesse Stone novel. The mystery is not terribly complicated (I think I could have solved this one) but I enjoyed this quick read. In a lot of ways the mystery is secon...