Ten Big Ones (Stephanie Plum #10) by Janet Evanovich (audiobook)

Published by MacMillan Audio
Narrated by C.J. Critt
Duration: about 8 hours.

Ten Big Ones features Stephanie Plum and Lula going up against 1) a soccer mom who raids potato chip trucks and 2) a psychopathic street gang member. Stephanie's endless on-again-off-again relationship with Morelli continues its strange path - but the twists and turns seem forced this time. Too bad, I was such an enthusiastic supporter of the early books in the series - but the newer ones just don't have it.

In fact, the whole franchise seems tired. Lula and Stephanie's banter. Stephanie's sister and her fiance. Grandma. Morelli. Ranger. It has a warmed over feeling.

I found Stephanie's total lack of awareness of street gangs (and their propensity to violence) in her hometown is silly, especially considering that she admits to having caught some of these gang members in the past. She didn't notice the graffiti? The outfits? Doesn't she listen to the news?

My unabridged audio version was read by C.J. Critt. Critt did an okay job, but not a great job. Too many of the lines were read as though they were one-liners - too many punchlines that just hung there because they really weren't terribly funny. She is not the reader of the Audible.com or CD versions of the book.

This was a solid two-star read for me except for the last scene - it made me laugh out loud and that's worth a star to make it a total of 3 stars out of 5.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: Ten Big Ones.

Reviewed on February 16, 2008.

Glacial Period (Louvre) (graphic novel) by Nicolas de Crecy

"Glacial Period" comes up short despite self-proclaimed greatness.

Published in 2007 by NBM Publishing.
80 pages.

So, what do you get when a hotshot graphic novelist teams up with the Louvre to showcase their works of art with a twist?

Well, you get a short sci-fi book that has a solid start but a contrived, odd end. In short, this is a half-hour read for most and the story was not all that great. It wasn't bad, but it just doesn't live up the self-promotional hype that fills the inside flaps of the front and back covers - such as "Here are the most intelligent comics the world has to offer" and claims that the other is a "mad genius" and his artwork is "breathtaking."

Not really. This one is too sketchy (not the art style, the plot) to be considered great by this reader.

I rate this graphic novel 2 stars out of 5.

This graphic novel can be found on Amazon.com here: Glacial Period. 

Reviewed on February 7, 2008.

Ending Slavery: How We Free Today's Slaves by Kevin Bales

An Important Book

Published in 2007 by University of California Press.
274 pages.

So, who is surprised to hear that there are still slaves in this modern world in such places as India, Burma, Brazil, Haiti, Maryland and San Diego? What - Maryland? San Diego? Sadly, yes. Approximately 27 million of them around the world.

Ending Slavery is a well-researched, easy-to-read, hopeful book that details several individual examples of slavery, how slaves are captured nowadays, the jobs they typically do, what to look for, how to combat slavery, and long-term solutions.

It is occasionally repetitive, but it will definitely make you think.

Pet peeve: Bales includes lots of endnotes with commentary. This necessitated my having to flip back and forth from the text to endnotes. Please authors - if you are going to make comments in your endnotes, make them footnotes!

I rate this book 4 stars out of 5.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: Ending Slavery: How We Free Today's Slaves.

Reviewed on February 16, 2008.

Chicano Visions: American Painters on the Verge by Cheech Marin

A great collection, a terrific exhibition

Published in 2002 by Bullfinch.
160 pages

I caught this exhibition at the Indiana State Museum while it was on a nationwide tour. It was so interesting that I took full advantage of my museum membership and came back and saw it several times while it was here in Indianapolis. I picked up the book Chicano Visions as the exhibit was winding down but only recently read the well-written introductory essays that make up the first 35 pages or so of the book.

Cheech Marin has created a high-quality full color text of this travelling show which is mostly comprised of pieces from his own personal collection. Marin's taste tends to run towards political art, but there is plenty that speaks of life for artists who are both Chicano and American, as the exhibition title (also the book title) imply.

Artists that grabbed my attention include:

Carlos Almaraz - his car crash paintings were gigantic attention getters in the gallaries. His other works are great as well.

David Botello - his Monet-like style is fascinating.

One of the best paintings may well be "Janine at 39, Mother of Twins" by Margaret Garcia. Cheech Marin's comment on page 67 hits it on the head: "If there is a visual definition of the lushness, the strength, and the beauty of women, this painting is it."

Cesar Martinez's "Hombre que le Gustan las Mujeres (The Man who Loves Women)" is funny and a sadly realistic portrayal of the ways that men see women.

Patssi Valdez's "Room on the Verge"

Patssi Valdez was the painter that stole the show in Indianapolis, at least from the comments I heard. Her pictures are so bright and have the power to make the viewer feel as though he or she is being drawn in to the canvas, especially with works like "Room on the Verge." Another painting of hers graces the cover of the book.

I did not care for the works of a couple of established artists: Gronk and Mel Casas. The Casas pieces in this show seemed less like a work of art and more like very large, not very clever political cartoons. That being said, it was entirely appropriate to include their works considering their standing in the Chicano art movement.

I rate this book 5 stars out of 5.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: Chicano Visions: American Painters on the Verge.

Reviewed on February 17, 2008

Stranger in Paradise by Robert B. Parker

I think I've read this one before...

Published in 2008 by Putnam
304 pages

I am a gigantic fan of Robert B. Parker. I've read all of the Spenser books, the Stone books and the Randall books. And I'm slowly "re-reading" the Spenser books as audiobooks.

It is not lightly that I give Stranger in Paradise two stars.

The Stone novels were always different than the Spenser / Sunny Randall novels. Spenser and Sunny always have that buddy network to fall back on (especially Hawk and Spike, respectively) Jesse has always been alone, except for his on-again off-again ex-wife, who actually makes his sense of being alone even stronger.

The whole formula for Jesse Stone is thrown out. Instead, we have a re-make of Spenser's April Kyle and Paul Giacomin stories told under Jesse Stone this time around with a girl named Amber.

Stone is not a lone, principled character this time. Instead, Parker reverts back to a mainstay of the formula he uses in the Spenser novels - the amazing sidekick. Rather than Spenser's Hawk (a mysterious, unstoppable African-American who operates on the wrong side of the law that the ladies find irresistible and shares witty racial banter with Spenser) we now have Stone's Crow (a mysterious, unstoppable Native American who operates on the wrong side of the law that the ladies find irresistible and shares witty racial banter with Stone). Hawk. Crow. C'mon!

Robert B. Parker 
(1932-2010)

Parker often recycles previous plots (how can he not - he's written so many books!) but this was just too much for me. The story is easy to read, interesting and enjoyable, but it has too many recycled features for my taste.

I rate this book 2 stars out of 5.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: Stranger in Paradise.

Reviewed on February 20, 2008.

The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick

The book that turned into a phenomenon.

Published 2007 by Scholastic.
533 pages.
Text and illustrations by Brian Selznick

The Invention of Hugo Cabret was a gift to my daughter by her great aunt way back when she was in 3rd grade. She was at a critical time when some of her friends were losing interest in books (how sad to throw away such a powerful thing as reading for pleasure) and her great aunt stepped in in a big way with this book. The sheer magnitude of the thing made her eyes open wide and she looked at her great aunt dubiously as if to say, "Can I read anything this big?" Of course, she read it - that night. And, she got up again and read it again at 4 o'clock in the morning. She was so thrilled that she could read something with this much heft that she has never shrunk from another book again. And, she has read it at least once a year (if not more) since then.

So, because of my daughter I loved this book even before I read it. But, what did I think about it?

I enjoyed it. The pictures are great and they tell the story well. The writing is also good. It is simply told but not a simple story. I very much enjoyed both parts of the story. I appreciated the respect paid to old movies, to history in general and the honor given to people who are very talented with their hands. It does a great job of creating a whole new world and putting the reader right into it.

Very loosely inspired by real events, the plot involves an orphan named Hugo who lives in the Paris train depot and works as the keeper of the clocks. All of the clocks are powered by springs and have to be turned to keep running on time. Hugo is an orphan and his uncle was the keeper of the clocks and gets a room to stay in at the depot as a part of his pay. However, his uncle has now passed away and Hugo keeps the clocks running as though he is still alive just so he can have a place to live. Hugo is also afraid that he will lose an automatos (robot-like machines that look like people powered by gears) that his father was restoring at the time of his death. He has been stealing gears from a toymaker/seller in the depot to work on his automaton and at the beginning of the story he gets caught and everything looks like it will fall apart for Hugo...

I rate this book 4 stars out of 5.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: The Invention of Hugo Cabret.

Reviewed on December 30, 2011.

Blaze by Richard Bachman (Stephen King)

Blaze is Stephen King's twist on Steinbeck's "Of Mice and Men."

Hardcover edition - published June 2007 by Scribner.
285 pages.

Stephen King and DWD's Reviews have had an "on again off again" relationship. 25 years ago I read everything the man wrote and very much enjoyed it. It is one of my favorite books. But somewhere around Insomnia I got very tired of the Stephen King train and I got off for about 15 years. I picked up Cell at the library and I enjoyed it. Since then, I've done a little more Stephen King reading (and audiobooks) but not a lot. I've missed a lot of his books and will slowly work my way through many of them. I always enjoyed his Bachman books - Thinner and The Running Man have stayed with me for decades (especially The Running Man - King predicted reality television even better than he would have imagined way back when) so I picked this one up at a local bookstore and decided to give King another whirl.

Stephen King

Blaze can be summed up in just one phrase: "What if George and Lennie from Of Mice and Men moved from the Steinbeck novel to a Stephen King novel?" Of course, this world will be even darker than Steinbeck's world (which was dark enough) and our two main characters are not goodhearted day laborers, one worldly and one mentally retarded, trying to make their way through the world, they are con men and car thieves trying to make that one big score.

Bachman/King's book is much more detailed that Steinbeck's tiny classic, but it is every bit as interesting. This is an enjoyable, yet sad book that goes into the detail of Blaze's life (Blaze is the nickname for the Lennie character) and his attempt to follow through with a rather complicated kidnapping of a baby even though George died several months earlier. Blaze hears the voice of George in what I would assume is a personification of Blaze's own thoughts. Or, since this is Stephen King, it could be a ghost of George. It is never made clear.

It is an engrossing book that has the reader ironically pulling for a kidnapper. It is also a story of multiple "What ifs...?" at several points in Blaze's life. King is at his character-creating best in Blaze (I think that he gets overlooked for his ability to create rich and full characters) and when the book ends by a river in an homage to the ending of Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men. King acknowledges the inspiration in an entertaining introduction ("...kinda of hard to miss," he notes on page 4) and he also includes a short story first published in 2006 called Memory at the end of Blaze.

I rate this novel 5 stars out of 5.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: Blaze by Richard Bachman (Stephen King).

Reviewed on December 30, 2011.

Note: This book was banned by a school district in Florida in the 2023-2024 school year. Here is a link to the extensive list of books that were banned in Florida that year.