Wait Wait...Don't Tell Me!: The Best of "Not My Job" (audiobook) by NPR

Published by HighBridge Audio in 2009.
Performed by the guests and cast of Wait Wait...Don't Tell Me!
Duration: Approximately 2 hours and 15 minutes.

If you have not discovered NPR's weekly radio show Wait Wait...Don't Tell Me! , then I pity you. This clever show is truly one of the funniest shows on radio or television or just about anywhere. This collection has 12 of the best visits from celebrity visits from 2001-2006.

Most of these are funny or at least interesting. Then Senator Barack Obama starts off the collection with possibly the funniest visit of the bunch (and I am not a fan of Mr. Obama, but funny is funny). Tom Hanks (Saving Private Ryan) and Tom and Ray Magliozzi (NPR's Car Talk) are also funny throughout their segments. 

This audiobook focuses on a part of the show - the "Not my job" segment. In this segment a celebrity is asked 3 questions about a topic about which they may not have any particular expertise  and if they get 2 of the 3 correct they win a prize for a listener. For example, Ken Jennings, most famous for winning the record number of games in a row on TV's Jeopardy but also known as a squeaky clean quiet guy, was asked about one night stands (since he was there for so many nights in a row on Jeopardy). Famous Hollywood nice guy Tom Hanks was asked questions about deceased Hollywood bad boys.

Solid listening entertainment even if the quality of the guests is a bit uneven.

This audiobook can be found of Amazon.com here: Wait Wait...Don't Tell Me The Best of "Not My Job".

I rate this audiobook 4 out of 5 stars.
Reviewed on July 17, 2013.

Lovelock (Mayflower Trilogy #1) (audiobook) by Orson Scott Card and Kathryn H. Kidd

Performed by Emily Rankin

Duration: 11 hours, 44 minutes

Blackstone Audio.

Unabridged.

Prolific author Orson Scott Card has published dozens of books, a handful of plays, writes multiple newspaper columns, publishes an online magazine and even had a hand in the creation of several video games over the years. Oh, and just in case you haven’t heard, the movie version of his most famous novel, Ender’s Game is going to be released in November. So, in a way, Lovelock is a bit strange for such an ultra-prolific author. It was intended to be the first novel in a trilogy when it was written in 1994 but the rest of the books have never been written. Officially, according to Card’s website, the second book in the trilogy is called Rasputin, but it has been listed as “in progress” for almost 20 years. Lovelock was co-written with Kathryn H. Kidd, an author who mainly specializes in writing religious-based articles and books.

Lovelock is the name of a Capuchin monkey and this story is told in the first person from his point of view. He is named for James Lovelock, the originator of the Gaia Hypothesis. Lovelock is a witness, a genetically engineered and highly trained Capuchin monkey assigned to chronicle the existence of his owner for posterity. His owner is Carol Jeanne Cocciolone, the chief gaiaoligist on the first ship leaving a near future Earth to colonize a distant world. Gaialogists will help to design the final environment of their new world as it is terraformed.

Capuchin monkeys are not the only witnesses, merely the top-of-the-line. They also use parrots and other animals. For example, Carol Jeanne’s husband, a family therapist, has a pig for a witness. The intelligence of these animals is enhanced to help them do their jobs better. The birds can speak and the monkeys can be taught to use sign language, for example. Lovelock speaks by writing or typing. He can read up to 2,000 words per minute and is quite the computer hacker. At the end of every day the video memory of what the witnesses saw is downloaded to a computer by way of a jack in the back of their skulls, tagged and cataloged.

The main theme of the book is supposed to be the struggles of Lovelock as he becomes more and more aware of the situation he is in. He is smarter than almost every human he meets but he is not allowed to communicate his thoughts (there is an exasperating lack of pencils and paper on this spaceship), his owner looks at him more as a machine than a thinking individual and he is not allowed to procreate or even think about procreation without receiving and immense amount of pain due to the extensive conditioning he received before his assignment. He realizes that he is merely a slave. There are repetitive long passages scattered throughout the book that emphasize every new insult and review the old ones as he attains a new awareness of his lowly position among humans and thinks about what he should do about it.

Too much of the book, way too much, is consumed by intense detailing of the ongoing family strife between Carol Jeanne Cocciolone, her husband and his parents, especially his mother. Many hours of this audiobook are consumed by a series ongoing fights between the manipulative mother-in-law, Carol Jeanne and the busybody women of the “village” they are assigned to on this spaceship. Snarky comments fly back and forth as the gossip flies. When this book was written, Melrose Place ruled television and this book reminded me too much of that show. Backstabbing, snide remarks, and catty comments abound. Dramatic arguments, secret affairs, divorces and even more happen with amazing speed while ongoing family arguments are repeated in scene after scene.  A great deal of this book, way too much of this book, has nothing to do with science fiction, but just chronicles Carol Jeanne’s dysfunctional family dynamics, much to the detriment of the story of Lovelock, the slave who has realized his situation and became a free person, at least he is when no one is looking.

For all of my complaints about the book the reader did a truly wonderful job. She did not read the book – she performed it! Emily Rankin covered male and female voices perfectly, including those of little children and an old man on his deathbed as well as foreign accents and a Southern busybody that sounded a whole lot like Paula Deen. Rankin took what she was given and turned in an impressive and notable performance.

Note: If you are offended by talk of masturbation, be warned that this book has some lengthy passages on the topic. As you may or may not be aware, Capuchin monkeys engage in this activity often and Lovelock is prohibited from this due to his conditioning (people are bothered when monkeys sit around and do that in the office, I suppose). Since he is denied it he becomes fixated on it and talks about quite often.

Note: I received a download copy of this audiobook from the publisher in exchange for an honest review

I rate this audiobook 2 stars out of 5.

This audiobook can be found on Amazon.com here: Lovelock (Mayflower Trilogy #1).

Reviewed on July 14, 2013.

The Suns of Liberty: Revolution: A Superhero Novel (Volume One) (kindle) by Michael Ivan Lowell

Published in March of 2013 as an e-book.

The Suns of Liberty series is set in a future America that has undergone a second Great Depression. This economic crisis resulted in a takeover of the American government by a coalition of businesses. These businesses have veto power over the government and through that power have de facto control of everything. They have brought America back from the brink of chaos but at the cost of most civil liberties. They have even outlawed the American flag because it symbolizes a time when freedoms led to chaos.

A mysterious armored superhero named Revolution works in Boston, fighting crime and corruption. Sometimes he hacks into communication system and airs "commercials" that remind people of the way things used to be and the rights they used to have. No one knows anything about him, but he has inspired others to fight back as well. Some fight against the crime that has gone out of control in some areas, some push back against the government.

This story is mostly told through Paul Ward, a scientist who lost his child to street violence and, then, his wife to suicide. Ward quit his teaching job at Harvard to develop his own armored suit and fight crime. He has a connection inside the government that gives him inside information.

Paul Ward meets Revolution and eventually becomes an insider in his organization as Boston once again becomes the focus of an oppressive government and an angry citizenry that wants their freedom and is willing to fight to get it back...

I really enjoyed the political aspects of this book and I was enthralled until the half way point - the point where Paul Ward is introduced to Revolution's support system. It was too involved (it would make Bruce Wayne's and Tony Stark's organizations look pathetic in comparison). For me, that damaged the American Revolution theme that was being built. Rather than a true people's movement it seemed to be a technology-heavy movement of elites that was rarely helped by regular folks. To me, it undercut the first half of the book.

That being said, it was still quite entertaining and if you like stories where morality matters and, in the end, when it is all on the line the hero does what is right (even if he compromised himself earlier) no matter the cost and inspires others to stand up, well, this one is recommended for you.

I rate this book 4 stars out of 5.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: The Suns of Liberty: Revolution.

Reviewed on July 7, 2013

Best Little Stories From the Civil War: More Than 100 True Stories by C. Brian Kelly with Ingrid Smyer

This is a review of the 3rd edition, released by Cumberland House in 2010. 

The 1st edition was released in 1994. 

The 2nd edition was released in 1998.

When I read Civil War histories I enjoy the standard, sweeping re-telling of the tale with the battles and the politics. But, I also enjoy those little nuggets of history that make the larger story more personal - stories like the general who chastised his men for hiding from a sniper and then immediately gets hit by that sniper and falls over dead. Or, the story of how Booker T. Washington picked his last name. 

One of my favorites in Best Little Stories from the Civil War is the story of the 90 day recruit who was due to leave immediately after the First Battle of Bull Run - but Colonel William Tecumseh Sherman refused to hear about it and if he tried to leave he would shoot him "like a dog." That same day Lincoln came by to review the troops, the man complained that Sherman threatened him. Lincoln interrupted and told him in a loud stage whisper, "Well, if I were you and Colonel Sherman threatened to shoot, I would not trust him for, by Heaven, I believe he would do it."

Those nuggets are like the marshmallow pieces in Lucky Charms - they make the cereal more fun. If you compare those little stories in a standard history to the marshmallows in Lucky Charms, well than this book is almost all marshmallows, which is kinda fun.

Varina Howell Davis (1826-1906),
the  only First Lady of the
Confederate States of America

Kelly notes in the introduction that these nuggets make the history more personal and can tell huge amounts about the larger story. Booker T. Washington's story tells about the condition of American slaves and how they wanted to demonstrate their new found independence. The story about Colonel Sherman demonstrates that Lincoln would support officers with backbone and the he was serious about creating an effective army. Also, it shows Lincoln's trademark sense of humor and how it was valuable in getting people to do what he needed them to do.

This book is a great read in short bursts. I read it on my kindle, but I read about half of it on my smart phone's kindle app while waiting in lines or while waiting on my daughters while we were out and about. The short chapters were perfect for that.

The exception to that are the comparatively lengthy biographies of Mary Todd Lincoln and Varina Howell Davis in a section written by Ingrid Smyer called "The Civil War's Two First Ladies."

I rate this book 4 stars out of 5.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: Best Little Stories from the Civil War: More than 100 true stories

Reviewed on July 7, 2013.

Frozen In Time: An Epic Story of Survival and a Modern Quest for Lost Heroes of World War II (audiobook) by Mitchell Zuckoff

Published by HarperAudio in April of 2013
Read by the author
Duration: 8 hours, 57 minutes
Unabridged

Frozen In Time is an adventure story, a mystery story, a story of perseverance and a story of honor - all wrapped up in one audiobook by Mitchell Zuckoff.  To be more exact, it is really two stories. The first story is set in World War II, the second one is set in 2012.

During World War II American airplanes, men and supplies were ferried to Great Britain by flying from the United States to Canada to Greenland to Iceland and finally on to Scotland. But, Greenland proved to be consistently tough. Freak storms, horizons that seem to merge into the ice pack and thick fog are all common in one of the toughest environments in the world. To make it worse, Greenland is not just covered with ice, it is covered with moving glaciers. These glaciers make the ice rough and full of deep cuts in the ice caused by the glacier moving at different speeds. These cuts can go down hundreds of feet and can be covered by "ice bridges" that hide the drops but really can't hold any weight.

A Grumman Duck

In November of 1942 an American cargo plane crashed into this nightmare environment. A B-17 bomber was diverted to try to spot the cargo plane and it also crashed. Zuckoff tells the story of these men and how they managed to survive for months on the ice. Their story is pitiful and moving. The men who made one effort after another to save them and dropped supplies to them.  A Grumman Duck amphibious plane from the Coast Guard also went down in the rescue effort. That plane was never found  and its men were never recovered.

The second story in the book is the story of the 2012 attempt to find the Grumman Duck so that its men could be brought back to the United States and given a proper burial. Lining up the funding, getting the right equipment (including those last-second purchases), and the right crew (they have to be unique, the kind of person that gets excited about Greenland and says things like this: "I have never before worked in a place that can kill you in a second without batting an eye. It was great.").



The audiobook is read by the author, Mitchell Zuckoff. Zuckoff generally does a solid but unexceptional job of reading. The positive thing is that he knows what he wanted to be emphasized when it was read and his reading voice is better than some professional readers. But, sometimes Zuckoff's reading voice became a pleasant monotone that encouraged me to drift off a bit and I would have to rewind a few minutes to see what I had missed.

I rate this audiobook 4 stars out of 5.
Reviewed on July 4, 2013.

A Terrible Beauty by D.W. St. John

This is the most truthful book about teaching that I have ever read. 

Originally published in 1998.

D.W. St. John's A Terrible Beauty has been rolling around for a while now. I read what must have been the original imprinting of the book back in 1998. The teacher who was the heart and soul of the 7th grade team at the inner-city middle school I taught at for 7 years found it at her local library, read it and passed it on to the rest of us to read. She liked it so much that when the local library wanted it back she reported it lost and paid for it so we could all read it (remember, this was in the days before Amazon.com was popular - heck, we just got a computer in our classrooms that year!)

What struck us all about the book was the fact that it spoke so much truth about teaching - the mindless meetings, the hovering parents that question every move and every grade on every assignment, the worthless parents that don't even raise their own offspring, the kids who do nothing but expect to be rescued, the kids who do everything you ask and just do so-so but love the class because they learned so much anyway (you just love those kids), overcrowded classes, mind-games from administrators, athletic directors covering for their stars, administrators that don't discipline (Kids sent right back to your classroom five minutes after they called you a motherf*****r because, you are told that if only you would have taught your class better that one kid with a felony sheet as long as your arm would love to learn about French or math or whatever...) and on and on.

The reader is also allowed to see the power of a gifted teacher using a variety of strategies to reach kids and not only deal with the subject matter, but help that student as a person.

Is Dai O'Connel a good teacher? Fundamentally, he is - but he has giant flaws, the kinds of  flaws that will get your fired, and properly so. Mostly, he is the tool in the story that is used to talk about American education and he should only be viewed as such. He takes the reader on a huge tour of the problems and the joys experienced by teachers. This is the most truthful book about teaching that I have ever read.

He is targeted for firing by the central office of his school district because he fails too many of his students. The person sent to fire him is a too-young administrator who admired him from afar when she used to teach in his school years ago. They develop an improbable romance that, while sweet, is far-fetched.

All of that is window dressing, though. This is a book about teaching and the only thing that I want to know is if Mr. St. John would come back and address these same issues but also the climate of standardized testing the rules over everything nowadays (this book was written before No Child Left Behind changed everything, and not necessarily for the better).

I read this on my kindle and whoever scanned the print version of the book into its e-book format did a horrible job. There are numerous formatting and spelling errors caused by computer error.

I rate this admittedly flawed book 4 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: A Terrible Beauty by D.W. St. John.

Reviewed on July 3, 2013

Unthinkable (Jane Candiotti and Kenny Marks #4) by Clyde Phillips

Published in August 2013 by Thomas and Mercer

This is my 1,000th review on my blog. I have several good books that are already read and just waiting to be reviewed, but only one could be my 1,000th review. This is the best of that small bunch of books and it is really quite good.

This is the fourth book in a series of books about married San Francisco homicide detectives Jane Candiotti and Kenny Marks. I had not read any books in the series until this one and the reader does not have to read them in order to join in.

Candiotti and Marks are called in to a nasty murder scene in a fast food restaurant. Six strangers are massacred in the basement storage area right after the lunch rush. They have nothing in common except for the way they died. To make everything much, much worse, one of the victims is Marks' nephew.

The San Francisco Police Department starts to sort through the clues and work through the pasts of all of the victims looking for a motive and their search leads them to a former gang member who is conducting an investigation of his own and he promises to deal with the murderer in his own way...

Photo by Rich Niewiroski Jr.

This story grabs you from the first moment and pulls you right through. I flew through this book and I was genuinely surprised by who actually committed the murders and the ending is quite satisfying.

Disclosure: the publisher sent me an advance reader's copy of this book through the Amazon Vine program at no charge in exchange for an honest review.

I rate this book 5 stars out of 5.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: Unthinkable by Clyde Phillips.

Reviewed on June 30, 2013.