A WRINKLE in TIME (audiobook) by Madeline L'Engle

Originally published in 1962.
Winner of the 1963 Newberry Medal.

Published by Listening Library in 2012
Read by Hope Davis
Duration: 6 hours, 26 minutes
Unabridged

Way back in the 1970's I read A Wrinkle in Time as an elementary school student in small town Indiana. I was a voracious reader (I won the library's summer reading contest several years in a row - the only thing that ended my reign was moving away) and I remember that I attached great importance to this book. It must have been handed to me by a teacher or a librarian. But, I also remember that I was indifferent to the book itself. My impression of the book was that it was unique but rather vague and cerebral.

With the new movie version coming out, I was inspired to re-read the book. Also, I must admit that I was curious to see if the book affected me any differently more than 40 years later.

Madeline L'Engle (1918-2007)

This time around I listened to it as an audiobook. Hope Davis read the book and she did a fine job, creating multiple accents and voices and switching back and forth between them with ease. The audiobook also included comments by the director of the new movie (it had to have been just starting to be made when she wrote this introduction on 2012), the author's granddaughter and Madeline L'Engle herself. All three of these commentaries were excellent - for me they were the best part of the audiobook.

And, that is certainly a problem. The text of the book itself should have been the best part of the audiobook, not the comments attached to it. I found the book itself like I found it 40 years ago - rather vague, full of a lot of talking and characters that I just didn't attach myself to. I really like the philosophy behind the book - the ideas that they espouse about fate and faith and our role in the world mirror my own quite a lot. Who knows? Maybe this book really did influence me more than I knew. But, I just found myself rolling my eyes at the stilted dialogue and just about everything Charles Wallace said or did - just like before.

So, how do you rate a book in which you agree with the ideas behind it but can't stand the way the ideas are presented throughout? I'm going to split the difference - 5 stars for the underlying ideas, 1 star for the plot, dialogue, etc. That makes an average of 3 stars.

This audiobook can be found on Amazon.com here: A Wrinkle in Time. 

THE KIDS DON'T STAND a CHANCE: GROWING UP in TEACH for AMERICA by Harris Sockel

Published in 2016 by Audible Studios
Read by Jacob York
Duration: 1 hour, 18 minutes
Unabridged

Harris Sockel graduated from college and was convinced that he should join Teach for America (TFA) by a dedicated recruiter. He wasn't particularly interested in being a teacher before TFA, but he liked the idea of making a difference.

So, he enrolled in their crash course designed to teach a recent college graduate how to be a teacher and, in just a few weeks, he is certified by TFA and heads off to New York City to be a middle school teacher in a charter school. I teach in an urban public school in the Midwest, so I completely understood much of his commentary - the struggle to get papers graded, the struggle to copy papers (apparently an epic struggle in his school) and trying to keep everything moving forward. I particularly enjoyed his discussion of the ubiquitous SWBAT - a fairly new thing in my school.

In the end, Sockel's audiobook left this listener a little confused. Is TFA a good thing or a bad thing? Was it all worth it? Is it good for a school to have a constant turnover in its teachers as the price for working with TFA?

No real answers, but he does offer a interesting description of life in a classroom. Because of that description, I rate this book 4 stars out of 5.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: THE KIDS DON'T STAND a CHANCE: GROWING UP in TEACH for AMERICA by Harris Sockel.

NIOURK by Stefan Wul and Oliver Vatine

Adapted from a French novel written in 1957 by Stefan Wul

Published in February of 2018 by Dark Horse Originals.

Synopsis

Set in the future, in Niourk the Earth's ecosystem has been severely damaged by mankind. Very few people have survived the collapse of civilization and those that have live in a Stone Age society.

A shunned member of a tribal band acts out of desperate need to be accepted by the only group of humans he knows. Known as The Dark Child, he accidentally discovers some of the truth as to what happened and leads his people towards the ruined city of Niourk (New York) in search of better hunting. This is a long trip considering that they started in the dried out basin of what used to be the Caribbean Sea.

Along the way, he discovers more and more of the truth and soon becomes something more than he ever could have imagined...

My Review

Niourk is a beautifully illustrated book. The story itself has three main plot lines that show promise. Sadly, none of them are followed through with and the story goes into a disappointingly ridiculous direction. It felt like the author couldn't figure out what to do so he just finished it up with an idea out of left field just to finish it.

I rate this book 3 stars out of 5. The first 75% of the story is quite intriguing and the illustrations by Oliver Vatine are first-rate.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: NIOURK by Stefan Wul and Oliver Vatine.

Note: I received a free copy of this graphic novel through the Amazon Vine program in exchange for an honest review.

BLOOD LETTERS: THE UNTOLD STORY of LIN ZHAO, a MARTYR in MAO'S CHINA by Lian Xi

Published by Basic Books on March 20, 2018

Lin Zhao was a political prisoner in China during the reign of Mao, from 1960 until her execution in 1968. She was imprisoned for criticizing the Communist Party for, among other things,  causing an immense amount of suffering for the rural poor during the Great Leap Forward campaign. 

Lin Zhao's early life is a series of contradictions. Her family worked with the Nationalist (anti-Communist) government for a time, but switched sides. She attended a Christian school for a while and seemed devout in her faith, but then ran away from home to join the Communists. Throughout her life, she was a headstrong woman who developed a habit of speaking her mind no matter the consequences. She was a talented writer and often wrote highly symbolic poems that were critical of the Chinese Communist Party, in addition to letters, articles and essays.

When she was actively encouraged to offer constructive criticism of the Communist Party as part of the Hundred Flowers Movement, she did so. Sadly, those criticisms served as the basis of her arrest in 1960.

While she was in prison she was often beaten and treated roughly by her captors. She also returned to her Christian faith. Her criticisms of the party became much more pointed - often calling out Mao himself in letters that were never sent out of the prison. While she usually had access to ink, Lin Zhao often chose to write her letters with her own blood. She developed a way to squeeze out a little blood at a time and write with it before it coagulated.

Lin Zhao (1932-1968)

Her letters were collected by her guards and kept in a file as evidence of her crimes. Later, years after her death, her writings were smuggled to her family. Many of them are now kept in Stanford University.

This was a challenging book to read - and not because of the topic. This book was often a dense, tedious read. If I hadn't had a couple of classes in college 30 years ago, I would have had little background as to the delicate situation that Lin Zao's family was trying to negotiate by going back and forth between the Nationalist and Communist governments. The book assumes that the reader has a solid handle on Chinese history from the 1930's through the 1960's.

Other times, the book seems to make random stabs into obscure corners in an attempt to give the book some context but it mostly fails. I left the book feeling like I got a glimpse of what was going on but, on the whole, it was mostly a missed opportunity.

I rate this book 2 stars out of 5.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: BLOOD LETTERS: THE UNTOLD STORY of LIN ZHAO, a MARTYR in MAO'S CHINA.

Note: I received a preview copy of this book through the Amazon Vine Program in order to write an honest review.

NPR DRIVEWAY MOMENTS: LOVE STORIES by NPR

Published in 2014 by HighBridge, a division of Recorded Books
Multicast performance
Duration: 2 hours, 5 minutes

The idea behind NPR's "Driveway Moments" series is that each of these stories is so good that if you were listening to them when they were originally broadcast on NPR you would stay in the car to hear the end of the story rather than turn off the car and head on in to the house.

That is a pretty high standard, when you think about it. The good news is that many of these stories are that good. I enjoyed the story of the couple that fell in love while eyeing one another on a commuter flight and a conversation with author John Green about reactions to his book The Fault in Our Stars. My favorite may have been the story in which a divorced couple fell back in love after the husband became ill with Alzheimer's. He had literally forgotten the woman who came to visit him and re-discovered what he liked about her.

But, there were some real clunkers in the collection as well. One grew so tedious that I skipped the track. Another was the reverse of a love story - it was full of bitter double entendre comments from divorced parents to their children. It seemed very out of place.

On balance, it's a good collection and well worth the time of the listener.

I rate this collection 4 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: NPR Driveway Moments: Love Stories.

RUNNING BLIND (Jack Reacher #4) by Lee Child

Originally published in book form in 2000.

Published by Penguin Audio in 2013
Read by Johnathan McClain
Duration: 13 hours, 45 minutes
Unabridged

In Running Blind Jack Reacher is a suspect in an FBI investigation of several bizarre murders of women that were involved in sexual harassment and/or rape investigations that he conducted while he served as a military policeman. But, as the investigation moves forward, it becomes clear that he is not the suspect. Instead, he is drawn into the case to serve as a liaison between the Army and the FBI so that they can solve the case before the serial killer strikes again.

This is one of the weaker entries into the strong Jack Reacher series. There is one really cool scene at the midway point book that I will not discuss because I hate spoilers but, on the whole, Running Blind just didn't have "it". With three stars, Running Blind just has too many leaps of logic, even for this Jack Reacher fan (this is my 15th Reacher book). Besides that, I figured out who did it about 4 hours into this 13+ hour audiobook.

I think this is the second Reacher audiobook that I have listened to that was read by Johnathan McClain. McClain's take on Reacher is interesting - he sounds less physically intimidating and sounds much more quick with the smart comments - sort of like the Tom Cruise movie version of Reacher. Some of the supporting characters were voiced in an over-the-top manner. For example, one character always yelled (in meetings, in small groups, one-on-one, wherever) and one character was always super-snarky. But, others were done very well.

I rate this audiobook 3 stars out of 5. You will want to hear it if you are a fan of the series but I would not recommend starting the series with this book.
This audibook can be found on Amazon.com here: Running Blind by Lee Child.

I'M STILL HERE: BLACK DIGNITY in a WORLD MADE for WHITENESS by Austin Channing Brown

Published in 2018 by Convergent Books.

Let me address the title of I'm Still Here: Black Dignity in a World Made for Whiteness for all of you that will get hung up on the word "whiteness."

Let me use a rough analogy to explain it.

I am an overweight person. I used to be even more overweight (I have lost 85 pounds). I weighed enough that I had to buy almost all of my clothes online or in special stores. Most major chains literally sold nothing that would fit me. Certain brands make it very clear that they refuse to make clothes for heavy people because they don't want them wearing their brand. Once, I had a salesperson yell at me from across her empty mall store when she saw me walk in that they didn't carry my size (I was looking for something for my daughter).

The normal (easy to find, available everywhere) clothing world was not made for me. I was living in a world designed for thinner people.

The author, Austin Channing Brown

This is how the author, Austin Channing Brown, feels about modern America. It is designed for white people. Period. Everyone else makes large accommodations to the majority while white America makes small ones. For example, in media most television shows feature white characters with maybe a token non-white character. Just this month the Marvel movie Black Panther came out. It is the eighteenth Marvel movie. It is also the first one with a main character who is not a white man. 1 of 18 is not a very good ratio.

Brown grew up in White America in suburban parochial schools. She is not a stranger to the mostly white religious organizations that she has been hired to help with their diversity issues. But, too often, she has been hired as a token hire rather than a guide to how to truly embrace a different part of the body of Christ. It is not enough to get the numbers right.

I understand her first sentence of the book: "White people are exhausting." I am a white man who teaches at a majority minority school. The culture of the school is simply not mine (separated by race and at least one generation) and there are times when I leave school exhausted by the constant mental translating I have to do just to keep up. I understood her comment immediately.

There are weird things that Brown experiences that I also have experienced. For example, she has white people at work that want to touch her hair without permission - simply because they are curious about how it feels. I have that happen, too - on a semi-regular basis from my African American students. I had it happen the day after I read her a passage in the book in which she complains about it. But, I expect that kind of things from kids - they're impulsive and curious and that impulsivity and curiosity overwhelms proper social rules. She gets it from adults who should know better - that's truly inappropriate behavior.

At it's core this is a hard book full of hard teachings. I don't embrace all of them. I think that she takes offense at things that are not necessarily meant to offend. Sins of omission versus sins of commission, if you like. I try to teach my students and my own children to try to not to take offense if there was none intended. She addresses this in the book as well and calls it out as simple excuse-making. She may be right.  This I know - she has many more valid points than I would like to admit.

More than most anyone would like to admit.

The biggest and most successful argument she makes is that the church (not one specific denomination, but rather the whole of Christianity) should be the one place that is actively working for justice, not just grudging, half-hearted accommodation (when it is remembered at all).

It took me about 10 days to read this small book because I felt that I often just had to sit it aside for a while and let it digest. It has given me a lot to think about as I approach my own classes every day.

I rate this book 5 stars out of 5.

Note: I was provided an uncorrected proof pre-publication copy of this book through the Amazon Vine program.

This book can be can be found on Amazon.com here: I'M STILL HERE: BLACK DIGNITY in a WORLD MADE for WHITENESS by Austin Channing Brown.

Note: this book was challenged in 2021 because a parent claimed it was “filled with hate speech, racial division, anti-white rhetoric and cancel culture all rooted in critical race theory.” That is a whole lot of buzz words. See the story here (towards the bottom.)

BLOOD SWEEP (Posadas County Mystery Book 8) by Steven F. Havill

A Review of the Audiobook

Published by Books in Motion in 2015
Read by Beth Richmond
Duration: 11 hours, 40 minutes
Unabridged

Blood Sweep is my eleventh Posadas County/Bill Gastner mystery. I have been with Bill Gastner when he was on patrol, when he was being lowered into a mine to find a kidnapper, when he was fighting a man in a little plane and through a whole lot of extra-spicy burritos.

Sadly, Bill is a minor character in this book. I understand why - when the series started out he was already old for a sheriff. Now, he's retired and really can't go out and fight bad guys so much.

Estelle Reyes-Guzman and Bob Torres carry the load in this book. I enjoyed the Torres story line, but found the Reyes-Guzman story line to be poorly paced and exceptionally wordy (never a problem with Torres since he famously says as little as possible). The Reyes-Guzman story line features a former resident of a Mexican border town that has spent most of his adult life in prison. This character speaks English like a Shakespearean actor, using tons of fancy words like "beseech" in everyday conversation. No one uses "beseech" in everyday conversation, especially not people who speak English as their second language and must have learned it in a Mexican prison. The whole plot revolves around this character and he is simply not believable as he is presented. Plus, he talks waaay tooo much.

So, this ties my lowest score for a Posadas County mystery. Thank goodness, most of them are much better than this one. I will be visiting Posadas County again.

Beth Richmond read Blood Sweep and did a solid job with most of the characters. Two of her Spanish-speaking characters sounded so much alike that it was difficult to follow who was speaking when they spoke to one another.

I rate this audiobook 3 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: Blood Sweep by Steven F. Havill.

THE HATE U GIVE (audiobook) by Angie Thomas

A Review of the Audiobook.

Published by HarperAudio in 2017.
Read by Bahni Turpin
Duration: 11 hours, 40 minutes
Unabridged

Starr Carter lives two lives in The Hate U Give.

She is an African American high school junior that lives in a rough African American neighborhood. Her best friend was killed in front of her, accidentally caught up in a drive-by shooting, so Starr's parents drive her 45 minutes (one way) out to a "white" school out in the suburbs for her own safety. 

She works in her neighborhood, at her father's store, on the weekends but she feels like she doesn't really live there. Most people don't even know her real name - they know here as "King's daughter that works in the store." She feels like no one at her school knows her either - she speaks differently, acts differently and cares about different pop culture things. She has a white boyfriend - a fact she hides from her father.

On a Friday night Starr goes to a massive party in her neighborhood and meets a boy she grew up with (his grandmother babysat both of them for years). After a scuffle turns into gun play they leave in his car. They get pulled over, the traffic stop goes bad and the officer shoots and kills her friend. The officer claims that he thought her friend had a gun (he didn't - he had a hairbrush).

Both of Starr's worlds come crashing down. In the neighborhood she feels unsafe, the police pressure her family to be quiet and others pressure her to speak up and tell the world about what happened. At school, she hides the fact that she was at the shooting and is mortified when some of her friends make callous racist comments.

Starr doesn't trust the police, but her uncle that she trusts more than anyone else in the world is a policeman. She is proud of her neighborhood, but she never speaks about it at school. She loves her friends at school, but they never come to her home. She loves her boyfriend, but she hides her home and her family from him and she hides him from her family. She is afraid to tell the world about what she saw, but she knows she must. Does she trust the system, like her uncle wants her to do? Does she fight back with her words and her testimony or does she do something more?

I am a middle-aged white man who teaches in an urban high school that is majority minority. I make the lighter-weight version of the trip that Starr makes every day - but in reverse. The cultural notes that author includes struck true to me and made it all the more enjoyable.

The title comes from a quote from Tupac Shakur. Here is how the book explains it: “Pac said Thug Life stood for “The Hate U Give Little Infants F***s Everybody. T-H-U-G-L-I-F-E. Meaning what society gives us as youth, it bites them in the a** when we wild out. Get it?” This theme is explored throughout.

I enjoyed the audiobook presentation of this book. The reader, Bahni Turpin, just nailed it. She sounded like my students. Great job.

Note: This book has a lot of vulgar language in it. Guess what? Kids like to use vulgar language. People in stressful situations use vulgar language. If that offends you, you will not enjoy this book.

I rate this audiobook 5 stars out of 5.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: The Hate U Give. 

Update February of 2022: This book has now been tagged on my blog with the tag "MAGA Censorship List". Here is why: Click here for article. Also here. Also here (note: read the attached Google Doc that serves as a "review" of the book. One of the concerns of this chapter of Moms for Liberty is a possible George Floyd reference. This book was first published in February of 2017. Floyd died in May of 2020. I verified this with 20 seconds of Google searching. But, at least the unknown reviewer seems to have actually read the book.)

THE POWER of DIFFERENT: THE LINK BETWEEN DISORDER and GENIUS (audiobook) by Gail Saltz

Published by Macmillan Audio in 2017
Read by the author, Gail Saltz
Duration: 8 hours, 18 minutes
Unabridged

Psychiatrist Gail Saltz looks at the larger categories of "brain differences", such as dyslexia, depression and ADD in this interesting audiobook. This is a surface-level look at these brain differences (it comes out to a little more than an hour per difference she discusses - you can't expect any more than surface-level discussion), but informative nonetheless. Considering that the average person probably has no knowledge of any of these differences or, at best, a great deal of knowledge of one or two of the seven she discusses, this book serves as an excellent introduction.

Dr. Gail Saltz. Photo by Sigrid Estrada

Each chapter starts with a description of each of the brain differences including physical differences, if any. Saltz also introduces the reader to two or three high-achieving people with these differences. Some are celebrities, some are not. Then, she lets them describe how they used turned their perceived weakness into a strength. 

Saltz does not sugarcoat these differences and she is sure emphasize the amount of work that these individuals put in to get to where they are now.

Saltz read her audiobook herself. Sometimes authors who read their own books do a less-than-stellar job, but Saltz did a very good job with it.

As a teacher, I would recommend this to any general education teacher.

I rate this audiobook 5 stars out of 5.

This audiobook can be found on Amazon.com here: THE POWER of DIFFERENT: THE LINK BETWEEN DISORDER and GENIUS by Gail Saltz.

FREEDOM NATIONAL: THE DESTRUCTION of SLAVERY in the UNITED STATES, 1861-1865 (audiobook) by James Oakes

Published by Gildan Media, LLC in 2012
Read by Sean Pratt
Duration: 18 hours, 54 minutes
Unabridged

James Oakes takes a unique look at the Civil War in Freedom National - through the lens of the anti-slavery movement. I have read more than 200 Civil War histories and almost all of them cover this part of the story - but, just in bits and pieces.

Oakes looks at the anti-slavery movement from its roots in the Revolutionary War era and moves forward with the different Abolitionist arguments until they finally stumbled upon the concept of "freedom national". The argument is over the standard, default setting of the slavery issue. Was slavery legal everywhere, except where it was specifically abolished, or was it illegal everywhere, except for where it was specifically made legal? Or, in shorthand - was it "freedom national" or "slavery national"?

This book puts the lie to the idea that the Civil War was over taxes, tariffs or anything else but slavery. This book demonstrates that so much time, energy and effort was expended over how to deal with the slavery issue by both sides that, if it weren't the biggest question of the war, why was there so much constant uproar over it? Slavery was both the carrot and the stick in the Emancipation Proclamation. Slavery would be preserved if the areas in rebellion returned to the fold (the carrot), or it would be the slaves in those areas would be forever free and those slaves could be turned into Union soldiers to use against the Confederacy.

Almost as soon as the war started, it became obvious that the Confederacy's slaves were both an asset and a liability. They were an asset because they were a built-in workforce that would keep the fields in production (and some factories) while the armies were in the field. But, they were a liability because their owners feared an uprising, they were mobile and if they fled to Union lines they could be an invaluable source of military intelligence.

But, Lincoln faced a unique challenge that the Confederacy never faced - how do you free slaves in the Confederacy but maintain slavery in the four loyal slave states? 

I rate this audiobook 5 stars out of 5. 

This audiobook can be found on Amazon.com here: Freedom National: The Destruction of Slavery in the United States, 1861-1865.

A DOG'S PURPOSE by W. Bruce Cameron

Originally published in 2010.

This is the book that inspired the controversial movie (not due to content but rather due to how a scene was filmed). The book itself is not controversial, but a sentimental reincarnation story involving a dog who is looking for his purpose in this world.

The dog lives a variety of lives (a stray, a working dog, a pet) as a variety of breeds and eventually discovers his purpose. Along the way the author shows some very solid insight into dog psychology and has a lot of fun trying to guess the motivations of the simple (or maybe not so simple dog). 

There are times when the story is pretty sappy, but there are times when the story is gripping and very touching. It is an easy read, but worth the time of any dog lover.

I rate this book 4 stars out of 5.

The book can be found on Amazon.com here: A Dog's Purpose by W. Bruce Cameron.

THE WAR on KIDS: HOW AMERICAN JUVENILE JUSTICE LOST ITS WAY by Cara H. Drinan

Published by Oxford University Press in November of 2017.

Cara H. Drinan is a law professor at The Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C. Her book The War on Kids: How American Juvenile Justice Lost Its Way deals primarily with the changes to the justice system over the last 30 years and the mostly unforeseen consequences of those changes.

Drinan discusses how in the late 1980's and early 1990's the United States was experiencing a crime wave, including "the nation's peak murder rate" (p. 156) and a number of these criminals were minors. Lawmakers responded by making it easier to move cases involving juvenile offenders into adult court. Juvenile court, although imperfect, at least made some attempt to accommodate itself to the specific needs of youth offenders and offered opportunities to rehabilitate themselves. It also recognized the fact that young people's brains just work differently than adult brains - a point Drinan brings up often throughout the book,

book). 

Early in the book, Drinan offers a powerful set of facts about the effects of poverty on youth and the truly dreadful conditions that some young people grow up in. Chapter 2's detailed description of Terrence Graham's childhood is tough reading. He was failed by nearly every adult relative in his life and was clearly failed by the social workers that knew the conditions he lived in and did nothing to remove him from a home filled with drugs, hunger, violence, chaos and deprivation. I wouldn't have let a dog stay in that house, let alone a human child.

Drinan also describes how defendants in the justice system often have to depend on understaffed public defender offices that clearly don't have the time to do much more than process their clients and hope for the best. The book Rights at Risk: The Limits of Liberty in America by David K. Shipler also covers this topic very well. Minors moved up into adult court become a part of an already over-burdened system. 

Not that the juvenile courts are doing much better. On pages 58 and 59 Drinan details a litany of failings, including statistics that show more than half of the minors held in juvenile detention don't even have an attorney. Public defenders that deal in juvenile law are overwhelmed. The industry standard is no more than 200 cases per defense attorney. Some have caseloads with more than 1,500 clients. There is no way they can do any sort of quality work with that sort of caseload. To make matters worse, many are not even trained in juvenile law. 

Drinan argues that there need to be a whole series of safety nets in place to help young people like Terrence Graham from getting into the justice system in the first place, but she offers precious few specifics. She also argues for rehabilitative programming in juvenile detention but only offers one detailed description - a program in Missouri that does sound promising. It is so promising that it makes me wonder why the other states haven't adopted it as well.

The second half of this slim book is a tough read. Not due to the content, but due to a lot of legalese. She makes a series of recommendations that sound all right, but I really can't say for sure because I am not an attorney. It's almost like she forgot who her intended audience was at the halfway point of the book and lapsed into jargon and started talking to the attorneys reading the book.

There are times when Drinan comes off as more than a little naive. She often reminds the reader that youth are often impulsive and their brains don't work like an adult human's brain. True enough. At times, though, she sounds like she would excuse nearly any crime simply because the perpetrator was a youth and youth can be more easily rehabilitated than adults. One case study involved a young man that lured another to a car wash so he could "talk" about an issue they were having. Instead, he ambushed him and shot him three times with a rifle. This is different than a young person who is serving time because he was the driver waiting outside in the car during a robbery in a store that resulted in someone being shot.

The closing is an unsatisfying mish-mash that takes way too many shots at Donald Trump. I am not a fan of the President. Despite all of his faults though, he is a political newbie and had nothing to do with the current state of the juvenile justice system.

Read the first half of this book to find out the depth of the problems with our juvenile justice system. It is powerful reading.

I rate this book 3 stars out of 5.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: THE WAR on KIDS: HOW AMERICAN JUVENILE JUSTICE LOST ITS WAY by Cara H. Drinan.

Note: I received an advance uncorrected proof of this book for free so that I could write an honest review as a part of the Amazon Vine Program.

TWO KINDS of TRUTH (Harry Bosch #20) (audiobook) by Michael Connelly

Published by Hachette Audio in 2017
Read by Titus Welliver
Duration: 9 hours, 54 minutes
Unabridged

Harry Bosch returns in his twentieth outing, more or less (there are a lot of overlapping characters from other series in Michael Connelly's newer books). Although Bosch is primarily known as an LAPD detective, he is now retired and is working as a volunteer detective for the comparatively tiny San Fernando Police Department. He clears cold cases because San Fernando hasn't had an actual murder in years.

But, the opioid crisis has hit San Fernando and the owners of a family-owned pharmacy in one of San Fernando's main shopping districts are killed in an obvious hit by two gunmen. Bosch and the three full-time detectives swing into action.

Bosch is also distracted by a case from the 1980's that has come back to haunt him. A death row inmate has new evidence that exonerates him and he is blaming Harry Bosch for framing him in the first place and Bosch may be held financially responsible. Bosch, with the help of his half-brother Mickey Haller (The Lincoln Lawyer) has to act to save his good name, his life savings and to keep a murderer on death row.

Two Kinds of Truth is read by Titus Welliver, the actor that plays Harry Bosch in the Amazon streaming TV show Bosch. The Harry Bosch series has had a series of strong audiobook readers and Welliver continues that streak.

Longtime readers of the Harry Bosch series will be pleased to know that Jerry Edgar, an old partner of Harry's comes back to the series and plays a serious role.

This is the fourth Harry Bosch novel in a row that I thought would provide a good exit for the character. However, I am glad that Michael Connelly keeps on finding new things for Harry to do. In this book there were several new situations and new combinations of characters that kept it interesting.

I rate this audiobook 5 stars out of 5.

This audiobook can be found on Amazon.com here: Two Kinds of Truth by Michael Connelly. 

CALAMITIES and CATASTROPHES: THE TEN ABSOLUTELY WORST YEARS in HISTORY by Derek Wilson

Published in 2015 by Marble Arch Press

Going into this book, I knew that I would have a bone to pick with almost every one of the author's choices. After all, there are 5,000 years of recorded history and every last one of them is filled with tragedy. How can you pick and choose the actual worst 10 years?

Wilson, a British historian, focuses in this book on a Western point of view and the earliest date is 541 A.D. So, if you are making a pitch for the 10 worst years in the West in the last 1500 years, his choices are pretty solid.

The years he picks are:

541-542: The first outbreak of the Bubonic Plague weakens the nascent Byzantine Empire and the Persian Empire, killing millions.

1241-1242: The Mongols invade Eastern Europe.

1572: The Spanish Inquisition and everything that came with it.

1631-1632: The worst year of the Thirty Years War.

1709: The Great Freeze

1848: The "Year of Revolutions" in Europe

1865-1866: The assassination of Abraham Lincoln and the failure of the United States to follow through properly with Reconstruction after the Civil War. Also, the rise of terror groups like the KKK.

1942-1943: He almost exclusively focuses on the Russian front - the bloodbaths around Leningrad, Moscow and Stalingrad.

Robert F. Kennedy, Sr. (1925-1968)

1968: The Vietnam War, the assassinations of Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy, protests around the world.

1994: The Rwandan genocide. There is a lot of focus on how and why the Western powers just watched it happen.

Sometimes, Wilson has a nice turn of phrase in his writing. I especially liked this line from page 151: "Over the centuries, whatever game Europe's nations played, the weakest hand always seemed to be dealt to Poland."

But, there were lots of typos, a weird use of texting-style writing on page 122 and several errors with commas that made me have to re-read passages just to figure out if what Wilson had written was what he really meant to say. Other times, there are factual errors (that may have been editing errors - as I just noted, editing was a real issue in this book). The most egregious error was actually a double error in the same paragraph on page 227. Wilson notes:

 "By the end of 1967 the war had cost the lives of almost 16,000 combat troops and was gobbling up more than $2-3 million per month. What made matters worse was that America's youth had no way of avoiding military service because conscription (the 'draft') still existed."

First: a quick internet search says the Department of Defense spend $168 billion between 1965 and 1972 on military operations in Vietnam. I am sure he meant to say $2-3 billion, not million.

Secondly, there were ways to avoid the draft. Let's look at three recent American presidents. Bill Clinton chose the most popular way to avoid the draft - he went to college. It was no guarantee, but it was a good bet. Many universities grew during the Vietnam War due to increased demand. George W. Bush joined the Air National Guard. Also, it was no guarantee not be sent to Vietnam, but it was not likely. Donald Trump claimed disability (bone spurs in his feet).

I rate this book 3 stars out of 5. The limited focus on the West while claiming to be about all of history was a disappointment. The atrocious editing was also a concern.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: CALAMITIES and CATASTROPHES: THE TEN ABSOLUTELY WORST YEARS in HISTORY by Derek Wilson.

FAMOUS LATIN-AMERICAN LIBERATORS by Bernadine Bailey

Published in 1960 by Dodd, Mead and Company 
Part of the "Famous Biographies for Young People" series

In the 1950s and 1960s, it was common for the children's section of the library to have scads of biographies like this one. Most of them were about 100 pages of a simple biography of a single person, featuring a lot about that person's childhood. They must have been effective because I remember enthusiastically plowing through them and learning about Daniel Boone, Abraham Lincoln and other historical figures. Now, I am a history teacher.

This series is a variation on that theme. Rather than a single biography, it features approximately 12 page biographies (they vary in length) starting with a line drawing. All of the biographies are very readable, if not particularly compelling. But, in the days before the internet, books like this were gold if you were a young scholar assigned a write a report about a historical figure.

Other books in this extensive series include: Famous American Poets, Famous Pioneers for Young People, Famous Engineers and Famous Modern American Women Writers.

I rate this book 3 stars out of 5.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: FAMOUS LATIN-AMERICAN LIBERATORS by Bernadine Bailey.

BRAVE COMPANIONS: PORTRAITS in HISTORY (audiobook) by David MCCullough

Originally published in hardback book form in 1991.
Published by Simon and Schuster Audio.
Read by the author, David McCullough
Duration: 11 hours, 19 minutes
Unabridged

Brave Companions: Portraits in History is a collection of previously published articles and speeches. It's a smattering of this and that - sometimes it's about art, sometimes about scientists, sometimes about politicians and sometimes it's just some musings from McCullough about history. It doesn't matter, almost all of it is interesting and well-told. McCullough understands the value of telling history as a story - as always he is very approachable.

My favorite entry was the story of the railroad that preceded the Panama Canal. It was an amazing story of the power of human will against nature.

McCullough reads this audiobook, which is great because McCullough has a fantastic speaking voice and is well known for his voice work. I envy both his writing ability and his talents as a speaker.

My favorite quote from the book is from President Harry S. Truman: "The only new thing in the world is the history you don't know."

I rate this collection 5 stars out of 5.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: Brave Companions: Portraits in History by David McCullough. 

A CHRISTMAS STORY: THE BOOK that INSPIRED the HILARIOUS CLASSIC FILM (audiobook) by Jean Shepherd

Published by Listening Library in 2004.
Read by Dick Cavett
Duration: 3 hours, 36 minutes.
Unabridged

A lot of people aren't aware that the plot for the classic Christmas movie A Christmas Story was not written as a coherent novel but was actually a collection of short stories that the author had written about his childhood in northwestern Indiana during the Great Depression over the years that were then skillfully edited into a movie.

These stories don't follow the plot of the movie exactly, but all of the high points are here, including the infamous lamp, the bully, the BB gun, the visit to Santa and the Bumpus hounds. 

Jean Shepherd (1921-1999)

Interestingly, this audiobook was not read by Jean Shepherd, who was a professional radio personality and told most of these stories over the air (he is also the narrator in the movie). Instead, it is read by television host Dick Cavett. At first, I was disappointed - but Cavett did a great job. This audiobook was a lot of fun.

5 stars out of 5.

This audiobook can be found on Amazon.com here: A CHRISTMAS STORY: THE BOOK that INSPIRED the HILARIOUS CLASSIC FILM (audiobook) by Jean Shepherd.

FROM a BUICK 8 (audiobook) by Stephen King

Published by Simon and Schuster Audio in 2002
Read by James Rebhorn, Bruce Davison, Becky Ann Baker, Peter Gerety, Fred Sanders, Stephen Tobolowsky
Duration: 13 hours, 21 minutes
Unabridged

Troop D is the name for the troopers in a Pennsylvania State Police post in western Pennsylvania. They are a close-knit bunch, as you would expect. But, it's not just because of their shared struggles as police officers - they share a secret and it's hidden in a shed behind their post station.

In that shed is a 1953 Buick Roadmaster - but it's not any kind of Buick that was ever built in Detroit. It was left behind at a gas station when its driver stepped out of the car, told the attendant that the oil level was fine, headed towards the bathroom and then literally disappeared.

The car is weird. In fact, it really isn't a car. It can't actually drive. It's almost like someone who didn't understand the mechanics behind a car tried to build one. But, that's not the problem - the problem is that it pulses - it pulses deep sounds that people hear on a subconscious level and it calls them...

From a Buick 8 is, mostly, a series of stories told to the son of a deceased state trooper about his dad's investigations into the car. In that sense, it is a lot of sitting around on the "smoker's bench" behind the station looking at the shed across the parking lot and talking. The stories are strange and rather repetitive, but King's strength in developing believable characters shines throughout.

The audio version was read by 6 different voice actors, each taking a turn (or several turns) at telling stories about the car. They do a great job, as they should since each of them are actors that you recognize from television and movies, even if you don't actually know their names. I really liked that fact that the voice of the original driver of the car sounded exactly like that of Flagg from the audio version of The Eyes of the Dragon.

However, the book suffered from way too much mood-setting and philosophizing and not enough actual action. It isn't until the listener is more than 10 hours into the book that the story actually gets some real "current day" action. I rate this audiobook 3 stars out of 5.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: From a Buick 8 by Stephen King.

Note: This book was banned from a school library in the state of Florida in the 2023-2024 school year. Here is a link to a story about this extensive list of banned books. UGH! 

DAD IS FAT (audiobook) by Jim Gaffigan

Published in 2013 by Random House Audio
Read by the author, Jim Gaffigan
Duration: 5 hours, 26 minutes
Unabridged

Despite the title, stand up comic Jim Gaffigan's first book is not about weight or food. No, Dad Is Fat is about being a parent and raising 5 little kids in a small New York City apartment.

Jim Gaffigan

If you are not a parent, there is probably not much about this book that would appeal to you. This is a point that Gaffigan makes at the beginning of the book in a story early on about when he and his wife traveled with parents of a new baby. True, those parents were obsessive to the extreme, but just about any parent could look at that extreme and think to themselves, "Yeah. That's nutty...but it's not crazy nutty.

For me, the best part was when Jim talked about his own parents and growing up in northern Indiana. His impersonation of his father and his constant throat clearing (something that Jim never points out but always does) was funny and ending up being thoughtful and poignant.

This is not nearly as good a book as his second book, Food: A Love Story. But, it wasn't bad. I would give it 3.5 stars. 

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: Dad Is Fat by Jim Gaffigan.

FIRE in the WATER by James Alexander Thom

Published in 2015 by Blue River Press

Not many people know about the horrible story of the Sultana, a paddlewheel steamboat that sank into the Mississippi River in April of 1865. It is the worst maritime disaster in American history but was largely overshadowed by the events surrounding the assassination of Abraham Lincoln and his dramatic funeral train tour from Washington, D.C. to Springfield, Illinois. The Sultana was grossly overcrowded. It was designed to carry 376 passengers, but it was carrying 2,155 passengers when three of its boilers exploded in the early morning hours of April 27, 1865.  Most of its passengers were survivors of the infamous Andersonville prisoner of war camp that were being shipped home. 

This book is technically a sequel to Saint Patrick's Battalion. It continues the story of a boy who traveled with an American army during the Mexican War. In Fire in the Water, that boy has grown up and become a famous war correspondent. He is traveling to Springfield with his newlywed wife to cover Lincoln's funeral. Along the way, he interviews as many of the former prisoners of war to work on a story about Andersonville.

This book starts out too slowly, but the last 50 pages or so are full of the kind of magic that James Alexander Thom can bring to historical fiction. 

I rate this book 4 stars out of 5.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: Fire in the Water by James Alexander Thom.

JOSEPH ANTON: A MEMOIR (audiobook) by Salman Rushdie

Published in 2012 by Random House Audio
Duration: 26 hours, 59 minutes
Read by Sam Dastor
Unabridged

For most people, Salman Rushdie is, and will always be, that author that the Iranians tried to have killed all of those years ago. I freely admit that this is an accurate description of me. Although I am an avid reader, this is the first Salman Rushdie book that I have even contemplated reading. 

Rushdie narrates this autobiography in the third person, which is a little weird and gave me the impression that he is trying to distance himself a bit from his own story.

The biggest chunk of Joseph Anton: A Memoir tells about how Rushdie dealt with the fatwa, or ruling against him and his book The Satanic Verses by the leader of the Iranian Revolution himself, the Ayatollah Khomeini. Khomeini ruled that the author, the publishers and the editors of the book should die for blasphemy and that anyone who died in an attempt to kill them would be considered a martyr. This caused Rushdie to go into hiding and be officially under police protection provided by the British government. Joseph Anton became his code name.

Rushdie the "icon" - the man who came to symbolize the intolerance of government-sponsored religion and offered a real-life preview to the dangers of radical Islam - and Rushdie the actual man are quite different people. I admire iconic Rushdie, but everyday life Rushdie is hard to like sometimes. Rushdie is often brutally honest about his friends and colleagues and their shortcomings - as he saw them. I can only imagine that many of his friends read this book and were horrified at how they were portrayed.

The book ends with a moving account of the 9/11 attacks on New York City, his adopted hometown. It makes a elegant bookend to a book that basically is about Islamic terror aimed at one person that morphs into terror aimed at an entire city.

The reader, Sam Dastor, was excellent. Interestingly, he is also the reader of the audiobook version of The Satanic Verses.

I rate this audiobook 3 stars out of 5. Way too long and too many uncomfortable comments about the author's supposed friends.

This audiobook can be found on Amazon.com here: Joseph Anton: A Memoir by Salman Rushdie.