The World Is Not Enough (audiobook) by Raymond Benson

Published by Brilliance Audio in 1999.
Read by John Kenneth
Unabridged

I never quite got around to seeing this Bond flick. I am a casual fan, meaning that I eventually get around to seeing them, but not usually in the theater. I ran across this audiobook version and figured I'd kill two birds with one stone - liven up my long commute with some entertainment and cross this Bond story off of my list.

The World Is Not Enough is read by John Kenneth. Kenneth was confronted with a tough choice - how does he read Bond? Does his version of Bond sound like Connery? Dalton? Moore? Who? Kenneth's voice for Bond is unique and unforced, which cannot be said of some of the other voices he uses. At times, Kenneth presents the listener with a variety of increasingly-shrill British voices that sound more like the soundtrack of a Monty Python skit rather than a more serious presentation.

Update on 6/28/25: The good news is that this audiobook was re-recorded and re-released in 2015. It is read by Simon Vance who is a top-notch audiobook reader. Click here to check that version out.

Being free of the movie format does offer the author, Raymond Benson, a bit of freedom and he uses it in two interesting ways:

#1 - the amount of sexual detail. Benson goes into graphic detail with Bond's sexual adventures. This is not in keeping with the movies which generally feature a wink and a nod and a female voice purring, "Oh, James!" as the camera fades to black. This is a trademark of the series, just as much as "Bond. James Bond" and "Shaken - not stirred" are and I think it should have been given more respect.

#2 - Benson explores the twisted background of a Bond arch-enemy rather than limiting his background to the bare oral briefing that Bond receives when he is assigned his mission. We learn all about the childhood of Renard, a terrorist bent on anarchistic chaos. I found that to be an interesting and welcome addition to the book.

Interestingly, this James Bond audiobook was directed by a man named Jim Bond!

This audiobook can be found on Amazon.com here: The World Is not Enough by Raymond Benson.

I rate this audiobook 3 stars out of 5.

Reviewed on November 11, 2006. Updated on June 28, 2025.

Pyongyang: A Journey in North Korea by Guy Delisle

WOW! An anti-Communist Manifesto

Published by Drawn and Quarterly in 2005

Right off the bat, Delisle shows where he is heading in this anti-communist manifesto when he tells how he snuck a copy of George Orwell's "1984" into North Korea (a banned book) - any moderately well-read person can identify the constant presence of the photos of "The Great Leader" and "The Dear Leader" with Orwell's omnipresent "Big Brother". It is intended to be a bit of foreshadowing to tell the reader where he is going with the book - and he hits a home run with it!

This is an anti-communist triumph from beginning to end - not with the soaring rhetoric of a Kennedy or a Reagan, but rather with its gentle story-telling style and its simple emphasis on communism's absurdities - from the lack of information, to the lack of food, electricity and choices of what to watch on TV and listen to on the radio. The constant barrage of revolutionary songs and the presence of "volunteers" who sweep an empty 4 lane highway to nowhere with straw brooms are perfect illustrations of the bizarre nature of both communism and North Korea.

I first heard about this book from an interview on NPR. Unfortunately, the NPR reviewer hadn't done much reading of the graphic novel and hadn't really figured out what the book was all about. So, I was not expecting much more than a lightweight travelogue in graphic novel form about a controversial country. Instead, I was pleased to see that it was that and so much more. This is one not to miss.

I rate this graphic novel 5 stars out of 5.

This graphic novel can be found on Amazon.com here: Pyongyang: A Journey in North Korea by Guy Delisle.

Reviewed on October 29, 2006.

The Amateur: Barack Obama in the White House by Edward Klein

Published in May of 2012 by Regnery Publishing

Edward Klein's The Amateur is reminiscent of the late Andrew Breitbart's vetting of the Barack Obama for the 2012 election. It is a job that many believe should have been done in 2008 but some in the media are finally getting around to it for the 2012 re-election effort. The title of the book comes from an argument between Bill and Hillary Clinton that happened in front of guests at their home in New York in August of 2011. Bill was encouraging Hillary to run for president against Barack Obama because, even after having been in office for 2 and a half years, Bill felt that Obama was still "an amateur."

Klein does not wander off into the fringes of this effort to vet the President. There is no "birther" talk or any of that. Instead, Klein interviews nearly 200 people that Barack Obama has worked with over the years. There are interviews with Rev. Jeremiah Wright, an historian that was invited to a special White House dinner for historians, insiders with the Kennedy family, White House insiders that witnessed the power struggle between Rahm Emanuel and Valerie Jarrett, members of the Chicago media scene and members of the Oprah camp who feel that she has been disrespected by the President and his staff.

Some of these interviews and clearly the normal "dirty laundry" type stuff that every administration generates due to bruised egos and the like. But, there is a clear pattern of Obama's rank amateurism as a politician. He disdains the give and take of day-to-day politics and does not seem to understand that just because he decrees something should be done does not mean it will be done (the Middle East peace deal he demanded be agreed to comes to mind as a great example). Klein uncovers multiple stories of briefings that feature the President doing most of the talking and his experts doing most of the listening. My favorite story along this line is the President's staff serving Prime Minister Netanyahu and his advisers non-kosher food after they had had a difficult meeting. That was either profoundly ignorant or childish.

President Obama speaking to a joint session
of Congress in 2009.

More importantly, he does not seem to understand the simple fact that you remember your friends in politics for the simple fact that they may be useful to you again in the future. Obama disses the Kennedy clan multiple times and  he over and over again he fails to work with Congress to get anything done. LBJ was an arm-twister. Reagan and Clinton charmed and convinced their rivals to agree. Obama's team seems to miss the entire concept of "you scratch my back and I'll scratch yours."  Michelle blows off Oprah's efforts to promote her anti-childhood obesity campaign (Michelle rejects free, friendly publicity because it would help Oprah's ratings. Well, duh.) and her efforts to re-decorate the Lincoln bedroom (I didn't have a problem with that - why would you let Oprah do that?).

Throw in the President's solid record of ignoring advice from groups like the National Black Chamber of Commerce and you have a picture of a man who really does act like an amateur - he seems to not even know enough to know that he needs to learn more all of the time to do his job properly. Klein's book is very readable, well-researched and disconcerting.

I rate this book 4 out of 5 stars.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: The Amateur. 

Reviewed on June 5, 2012.

Covenant of War (Lion of War Series #2) by Cliff Graham

Published by Zondervan in March of 2012
348 pages.

There have been plenty of historical fiction books written about ancient wars as of late. Stephen Pressfield's Gates of Fire about the Battle of Thermopylae  or Conn Iggulden's Emperor Series about Julius Caesar come to mind. Bible-based historical fiction about war is pretty rare, however. Cliff Graham has chosen to write about the Old Testament's most complicated and best-documented warrior, David in the Lion of War Series.

In Covenant of War, David has just become King of Israel after the deaths of Saul and Jonathan. The kingdom is still quite torn and David's control of some areas is in name only. While he is still consolidating his power, the Philistines invade, yet again.



Graham has written the book based on the warriors described in 2 Samuel 23 and 1 Chronicles 11. The texts are hardly true histories in the sense that they tell a complete story and there is a lot of detail to fill in to make a full-fledged novel out of the material provided. Graham has done a solid job of providing a coherent story. The story focuses on the thirty leaders mentioned in the text, especially the three mentioned as "David's mighty warriors" is 2 Samuel 23:8. There is intrigue aplenty as David defends his people from the Philistines.

Graham fleshes out those warriors pretty well, but David is pictured as an erratic, capricious ruler throughout the book. I never got a feel for David throughout the book. It made the whole book seem rather difficult to read because the motivations of David are hidden. The battle scenes, however, are quite vivid (and bloody).

I rate this book 3 stars out of 5.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: Covenant of War.

Reviewed on June 4, 2012

The Gods of War: Book IV of the Emperor Series (audiobook) by Conn Iggulden

Published April of 2012 by AudioGo.
Narrated by Paul Blake
Duration: 15 hours, 23 minutes

Unabridged.

I did not read or listen to the other three installments of Conn Iggulden's Emperor Series, but I was already familiar with the last few years of Julius Caesar's life so it was not difficult to join in here at the end.

Book IV of the Emperor Series starts with Caesar's decision to cross the Rubicon River with his army when he was ordered home from Gaul. This actions begins a civil war, with Caesar leading one faction and Pompey leading the other. From there we get the other highlights - Caesar's triumphal entry into Rome, the defeat of Pompey's army in Greece, the pursuit of Pompey into Egypt, the romance of Caesar and Cleopatra, the return to Rome and Caesar's murder by the Senate.

Gaius Julius Caesar (100-44 B.C.)

It's all standard issue history textbook stuff but Iggulden makes it a story that demands to be listened to. To be sure, he has fiddled with the historical record a bit but his revisions flow very smoothly with the betrayal of the Republic by Pompey and Caesar, Caesar's mastery of the symbolic gestures, the intrigues in the Egyptian court and, most of all, Brutus. Brutus steals the show as the man who betrayed Caesar twice. His brooding, angry nature, his pride and his ego burn in the background of every scene and eventually destroy Caesar.

Iggulden notes at the end of the book that he is considering extending the series to tell the story of the aftermath of Caesar's assassination. I hope he does.

The book was read by Paul Blake. To say that Blake read the book or even narrated it is to understate it. He performed it. You can hear the dangers of night attacks, intrigue and the open battlefield in his voice. He also made Brutus seethe, Cleopatra scheme and made the listener hear the physical weakness that made Pompey such a poor general at the end. Top notch!

I rate this novel 5 stars out of 5.

This audiobook can be found on Amazon.com here: The Gods of War: Book IV of the Emperor Series by Conn Iggulden.

Reviewed on June 3, 2012.

One Step at a Time: A Young Marine's Story of Courage, Hope and a New Life in the NFL by Josh Bleill with Mark Tabb

Published in 2010 by Triumph Books

In a sentence, this book is about a 27 year-old Hoosier Marine who lost his leg due to an explosion in Iraq, re-built his life and got a job with the Indianapolis Colts as a community spokesman.

All true but the book is so much  more than that because Bleill makes his story resonate with the reader.

Josh Bleill joined the Marines at age 26. He never quite finished college. He never quite got serious with his girlfriend. He never quite got serious about his career. He just never quite going with much of anything until he decided to join the Marines, much to the surprise of his family (and to the dismay of his mother).

Bleill tells the story of his experiences in basic training and the special training he received for Iraq with a lot of humor and gives the reader a sense of how difficult this training can be. Bleill takes us to Iraq and tells of his "one bad day" - the day he lost his legs and two of his friends when his Humvee drove over the top of an Improvised Explosive Device (IED).

The tale of his immediate recovery and the struggle to learn how to use his prosthetic legs take up the great majority of the book. Bleill and his fellow Marines comfort and encourage one another in these struggles and the camaraderie they demonstrate throughout to be very uplifting. The support Bleill received from his family back in Indiana and the community he grew up in was simply amazing. Bleill practically became his own PX as he received hundreds and hundreds of DVDs and dozens of portable DVD players that he handed out all over Walter Reed Medical Center is a testament in and of itself.

All of that being said, Bleill's difficulty with getting his prosthetic legs to fit properly, his survivor's guilt when he thinks about his friends that died in the attack on the Humvee and his initial anger at being stared at when he enters a room makes Bleill all the more human and understandable.

When the Super Bowl Champion Colts visit Walter Reed he and Jim Irsay, the Colts owner hit it off and Irsay tells him that to come see him about a job when he returns to Indianapolis. And, Bleill does. He is a community spokesman for the Colts - and they work him a lot. Here is a great passage that tells a lot about Bleill and the Colts:

     "'Now, don't misundertand me,' he (Tom Zupancic) said, 'I am thankful for what you've done, but I'm not going to feel sorry for you in the least. I know you've lost your legs, but that doesn't mean I'm not going to push you hard every day.'
     This was music to my ears." (p. 189)

Bleill is a spokesman for the Colts. Many years ago I saw a rookie Colt speak to an eager group of parents at the middle school I taught at for 10 uncomfortable minutes. I can only imagine that having a professional help out with some of the public relations duties is a positive for the audience and the players.

By the way, Bleill keeps his sense of humor, gets the girl and gets the job of his dreams. Sometimes, nice guys do finish first - but reading about this nice guy's journey is worth your time and effort.

I rate this book 5 stars out of 5.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: 
One Step at a Time: A Young Marine's Story of Courage, Hope and a New Life in the NFL
 
Reviewed on June 2, 2012.

Batman: The Dark Knight Strikes Again by Frank Miller

It drew me in, but it was not as good as The Dark Knight Returns

Published by D.C. Comics in 2004

It's hard to be critical of a graphic novel that sucks you in, entertains, fascinates and makes you wish there was another volume in the series, but I am going to criticize anyway.

For me, The Dark Knight Returns was an awesome addition to and reinterpretation of the Batman Saga. The simplicity of the dichotomy between the "sell-out" Superman and the embittered-but-still-fighting Batman powered the story. I am a casual comic book fan so I was easily able to follow along since every casual fan knows the basics of both Batman and Superman.

The Dark Knight Strikes Again, however, has so many characters and so many sub-plots going on that it actually gets confusing unless one backs up and re-reads a bit. Many of the characters are relatively minor when compared to The Dark Knight Returns' focus on Superman, Batman, Robin and the Joker.

Another strength of The Dark Knight Returns was that it primarily focused on an aging Batman who is appalled at what has become of the world that he voluntarily (well, sort of...) retired from protecting. Batman becomes the tool that Miller uses to criticize modern society and what we have done to ourselves. Strikes Again has so many characters that Batman often becomes just a part of the crowd. In the second volume, Superman is the focus - we get to see him re-born into something new after he sacrifices himself. In fact, the series deals so much with Superman, it would not have been inappropriate to have re-worked it a bit and called it "Superman Returns". However, that name has already been used so perhaps "The Blue Knight Returns".

It also would have been better to have slowed it down and made it a 10 volume series rather than forcing everything in to a 3 volume set. The third volume seems awfully rushed - too many things with too many characters going on in too few pages.

Perhaps most disappointing was the presence of Lex Luthor. I have no problem with Luthor vs. Batman. What disappointed me was that all of the ills that Batman is fighting against are not the ills of humankind's very nature (as implied in Batman Returns). No, they are the product of the skillful manipulations of a master criminal. Batman's Quixotic struggle agains the built-in evils of the human race is transformed into a standard plot that could have been stolen from Adam West's Batman TV show (Holy holograms, Batman! The President has been replaced by a computer generated image controlled by that Evil Lex Luthor! Pow! Bam! Oof!)

All that being said, I enjoyed myself thoroughly. It was a fun dip into the mind of Frank Miller. I don't agree with many of Miller's political stances, but I do enjoy the presentation of his arguments. The sloppy style that many have criticized was part of its strength - the reader has to closely look at the pictures to see what is going on. Miller hides lots of fun stuff in his art so it is worth a closer look. I especially enjoyed the touch of having Superman's "S" logo changing as he changed - it went from the oversized block style "S" of the 80's and 90's Superman to the more informal "S" that Superman started with in the 30's as Superman's worldview began to change.

So, final thoughts: Despite the deep, deep flaws in this series, I have to give it a grade of 4 stars.

This graphic novel can be found on Amazon.com here: Batman: The Dark Knight Strikes Again

Reviewed on October 26, 2006.