THE BATTLE of GETTYSBURG: AMERICAN HERITAGE SERIES (audiobook) by Bruce Catton

Published by Highbridge, a division of Recorded Books in January of 2017
Read by Eric Martin
Duration: 3 hours, 4 minutes
Unabridged

I love Bruce Catton's histories of the Civil War. As a rule, Bruce Catton (1899-1978) wrote histories that are easy to read, thorough enough to give the reader a solid grasp of the issues and peppered with well-told human interest stories. 

Confederate Major General
George Pickett (1825-1875)

This history of Gettysburg feels a bit disjointed, sort of like it was a knitted together from a series of articles that Catton wrote for American Heritage magazine. For example, it spends a lot of time looking at the events just before the battle and skips one of the more dramatic and important moments of the battle on the second day (Little Round Top).

However, the exaggerated emphasis on the first day did not bother me. Too often the first day is sort of skipped over and it's not like the second day was ignored - it just focused on Dan Sickles' horrible deployment and the danger it posed to his own army. That is also important. 

The third day, of course, focuses on the infamous Pickett's Charge. Catton's short history also includes a solid look at Lee's retreat back to Virginia, the consequences of this loss to the Confederacy and a peek at the ceremony in which Lincoln delivered his famed Gettysburg Address, including a reading of the speech itself.

Eric Martin did a nice job with the book. He has a pleasant voice.

I rate this audiobook 4 stars out of 5.

This audiobook can be found on Amazon.com here: THE BATTLE of GETTYSBURG: AMERICAN HERITAGE SERIES by Bruce Catton.

 

VICTORY at YORKTOWN: A NOVEL (George Washington Series #3) (audiobook) by Newt Gingrich and William R. Forstchen

Published in November of 2012 by Macmillan Audio.
Read by William Dufris
Duration: 12 hours, 2 minutes
Unabridged

Newt Gingrich and William R. Forstchen conclude their Revolutionary War-based trilogy with an up-and-down look at the final year of real action in the war (October of 1780 to October of 1781).

The actual battle descriptions are quite good in the book. The book is absolutely great with its explanation of the strategies employed to maneuver Cornwallis into the Yorktown fortifications, the coordination between the French and American forces and demonstrates just how narrow this victory really was. 

However, the audiobook starts out with a two hour overwrought description of the execution of Major Andre. Andre was the British officer that conspired with the infamous American traitor Benedict Arnold. While this scene was used referred back to often throughout the rest of the book, the scene itself was very repetitious and entirely too long to make it's point. I nearly quit the audiobook completely after an hour of it.

William Dufris did a great job with all of the accents the book, especially the French officers.

I rate this audiobook 4 stars out of 5.

This audiobook can be found at Amazon.com here: VICTORY at YORKTOWN: A NOVEL (George Washington Series #3).

THE GIRL on the TRAIN (audiobook) by Paula Hawkins

Published in 2015 by Penguin Audio
Read by Clare Corbett, Louise Brealey and India Fisher
Duration: 10 hours, 59 minutes
Unabridged

Every day Rachel sees the same couple in the same house as she is commuting to London on the train. The train makes a regular stop near this house while waiting for another train to clear the track and Rachel stares out at the backyards of the neighborhood where she used to live before her husband left her for another woman. She notes the attractive new couple that has moved in a couple of houses down from her old house and makes up pretend glamorous background stories for this seemingly happy couple whose house is identical to the one she used to live in.

One day she is shocked to see the lady from her fantasy world kissing another man. Even worse - soon after, that woman disappears, is presumed dead and becomes the center of a media frenzy.

Rachel tries to get involved by telling the police about the other man but she tells her story so poorly that it makes no sense. Even worse, she is known to the police because it turns out that Rachel is a boozy stalker of her ex-husband and his new wife and child and turns up at her old house (just a couple of houses down from the victim's house) on a semi-regular basis after she has gotten drunk so she has absolutely zero credibility.

But, Rachel carries on and gets herself involved in the story in so many ways...

I am going to be brutally honest here. I know this was a runaway bestseller and everyone is talking about how amazing this book is but I found it to be irritating on so many levels (the exception being the actual reading of the book by the 3 different narrators - they were great).

All of the main female characters (except for Rachel's roommate who gets dumped on in the narration for not wanting a roommate that vomits in the hallway and does not clean up the mess) get their validation from the approval of men - expressed through sex and their ability to make babies. It is a pathetic little inbred world. In a way, this an anti-feminist story (woman have no value except to make babies for their men). Or, maybe it's a too-clever feminist satire. Either way, it's very annoying.

Even worse, the whole thing could've have been a short story if the very articulate Rachel would've just explained herself a little better to the police from the beginning. An extra 3 or 4 sentences would've made a world of difference.

This is one of those books where I found myself rooting for the killer to just take out a few more of these characters before the book ended.

I rate this audiobook 2 stars out of 5.

This audiobook can be found on Amazon.com here: The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins.

In November of 2023 it was announced that the group Moms for Liberty had challenged more than 300 books in Florida. This is one of the books that the Moms challenged. Read more about the books here.

OUT of RANGE (Joe Pickett #5) by C. J. Box

Originally published in 2005.

Wyoming Game Warden Joe Pickett has been re-assigned in Out of Range. Normally, he covers the area around the town of Saddlestring but he has been temporarily re-assigned to a plum location - Jackson, Wyoming - the home of the Grand Tetons and a well-known retreat for the rich and the famous.

While Joe is thrilled for the opportunity, he is not happy about the circumstances behind it. A fellow game warden that he knew and respected suffered some sort of mental breakdown and killed himself. Plus, his family has been receiving ominous "breather" phone messages at all times of day and night...

So, Joe Pickett goes off to Jackson only to find that this new assignment is extraordinarily complicated by politically-connected power players, trendy protesters and the investigation into the previous game warden's suicide and things are getting weirder and more complicated all of the time...

I am reading this series in what seems to be an insane random order. A lot of the events in this book are referred to in other books down the line so this is an important chapter in his story. But, this was not the best of the Joe Pickett series and certainly not a good one to start with if you are thinking of starting the series. But, for me at least, a book with Joe Pickett is like a visit with old friends.

I rate this book 4 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazom.com here: OUT of RANGE (Joe Pickett #5) by C. J. Box.

Reviewed on May 15, 2017

WORLD WAR II: AIR WAR: AMERICAN HERITAGE SERIES (audiobook) by Stephen W. Sears

Published by Highbridge in February of 2017
Read by Paul Boehmer
Duration: 2 hours, 47 minutes
Unabridged

Stephen W. Sears used to write for the magazine American Heritage and in that capacity more than 50 years ago he wrote a short and simple history of the air war over Europe in World War II. It was designed to be an introductory read for high school students. I am not sure if this audio edition is the same book, but it is serves the same purpose.

If you are a casual student of World War II, the kind of person that watches an occasional documentary from the time to time, World War II: Air War is the perfect book. There are details, but not enough to drown the reader. Sears moves the story along at a brisk pace, but still slows down enough to tell a personal story to remind the reader that this was a real story full of real people. He is more likely to tell the story of the average airman than of the generals.

Four P-51 Mustangs in formation over Britain.

Sears discusses the air war over Britain before the United States was drawn into the war but once America is drawn into the war he mostly focuses on American pilots and strategies and how the Germans countered them. He also talks about what happened to airmen who were shot down over enemy territory.

The only problem that I have with this audiobook is the narrator, Paul Boehmer. His style took a lot of getting used to. His frequent odd pauses in sentences are distracting (I would call them Shatner-esque). I am not a fan.

I rate this audiobook 3 stars out of 5.

This audiobook can be found on Amazon.com here: World War II: Air War.

THE BODY BUILDERS: INSIDE the SCIENCE of the ENGINEERED HUMAN (audiobook) by Adam Piore

Published in March of 2017 by HarperAudio
Read by Fred Sanders
Duration: 12 hours, 56 minutes
Unabridged

In The Body Builders, Adam Piore describes the advances in medicine in a number of areas, especially (but not limited to) recovering from injuries, illness or dealing with genetic disorders.

He starts out with a profile of a leader in the field of prosthetic limbs who has reverse-engineered the human leg and, for the first time, makes the idea of TV's "Six Million Dollar Man" seem like a real possibility. There is the amazing story of the engineer who created a device that allows a blind woman to "see" with her ears.

Piore describes advances in experimental genetic engineering and muscle therapies that promise not only to help with genetic disorders but also may ultimately end aging as we know it.

But, it's not just about the body, it is also about the mind. There are advances in figuring out what causes Obsessive Compulsive Disorder and Parkinson's and those advances are leading to new discoveries - like the ability to give a person a photographic memory. 

The audiobook was read by Fred Sanders. His reading style is solid, but not exciting. Very much like listening to almost 13 hours of an NPR broadcast.

This book is very informative with only a few minutes scattered throughout that are really too detailed and too technical to keep up my interest. But, those are more than made up for with the amazing human interest stories and the news (at least it was for me) about the newest advances and where they might lead.

I rate this audiobook 5 stars out of 5.

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

1453: THE HOLY WAR for CONSTANTINOPLE and the CLASH of ISLAM and the WEST (audiobook) by Roger Crowley

EXCELLENT!

Unabridged Audio Edition 

Published in 2016 by Hachette Audio and Blackstone Audio
Read by Simon Prebble
Duration: 10 Hours, 56 Minutes

When Rome was at its height, it split itself in half and created a second capital for the eastern half in Constantinople (modern day Istanbul). The eastern half survived the official "Fall of Rome" in 476 AD and continued on for nearly 1,000 more years until it succumbed to the Ottoman Turks in 1453. It was the seat of the Orthodox Christian Church and oftentimes stood as the bulwark against Muslim military advances into Eastern Europe.

From the time of the first formal attack against Constantinople in 674 AD until it finally fell in 1453, the capture of this city was, at the least, on every Muslim leader in this region's "to do" list, if not an active goal.

Once the Ottoman Turks arrive on the scene the Byzantine Empire is clearly on its last legs. The city is still defended by one of the most elaborate set of walls ever built and its history and architecture are truly amazing. But, its glory days are long gone. The city has sold a lot of its treasures to defend itself. Its territorial holdings, at one point, included a majority of the territory of the Roman Empire. By 1453 it only held a part of modern Greece and the territory immediately around the walled city.

The Ottomans, in contrast, were an Empire on the rise and they understood that the capture of Constantinople offered great strategic, economic and symbolic value. 

1453: The Holy War for Constantinople and the Clash of Islam and the West is a book that could have truly been horrible. We've all had that professor or teacher or book that takes the most exciting parts of history and drains all of the joy from the learning experience and leaves behind a dry, lifeless exercise in tedium. 

This book had all of the hallmarks of that experience. 

1. Medieval battle? Check.

2. The Byzantine Empire, whose very name is literally synonymous in English with being unnecessarily complicated? Check.

3. Multiple religious traditions that most American readers know little about? Check (Islam) and check (Orthodox Christianity).

Constantine XI (1405-1453)

However, Roger Crowley's history is almost always highly entertaining and informative. He paints vivid word pictures of the battles and they come off much more like the epic struggles depicted in a Tolkien novel than the a dry recitation of facts. He introduces new historical figures and makes them feel like real people.

Constantine XI, the Byzantine Emperor comes to life as an honorable and brave warrior who refused to escape and leave his city even when there was no hope. He was an experienced soldier who actively led his men throughout the siege. Legend has it that he dressed as a regular soldier in his last moments and led his men in a hopeless last-ditch defense of the city. His body was never definitively identified.

Mehmed II was the hard-headed and often difficult young Ottoman emperor. He spoke multiple languages, survived the brutal family dynamics of the Ottoman leadership and embraced new technologies, like cannon. He was rewarded for this flexibility when he took the city that many considered impossible to take.

Simon Prebble's reading of this book was excellent. It was like listening to an amazing English history professor give one of the most interesting history lectures you have ever heard. Perfect combination of voice and text.

I rate this audiobook 5 stars out of 5,

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: 1453: THE HOLY WAR for CONSTANTINOPLE and the CLASH of ISLAM and the WEST by Roger Crowley.