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. 

WHAT IF? SERIOUS SCIENTIFIC ANSWERS to ABSURD HYPOTHETICAL QUESTIONS (audiobook) by Randall Munroe

Published by Blackstone Audio in 2014

Read by Wil Wheaton

Duration: 6 hours, 36 minutes

Unabridged

Randall Munroe is the writer and illustrator of the web-based comic strip xkcd. On his website, he has a place where people can leave "What if..." science-based questions and he tries to answer them. Why would they leave science questions on a comic strip website? Well, it turns out that Munroe is also a physicist - with a sense of humor.

Munroe has collected the best questions and put them into this book: What If? Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions. The questions include things like what would happen if the earth kept growing and when would you notice a change in gravity? What would happen if you fired in an arrow in a zero-gravity environment? How does all of the computing power of all of humanity stack up against all of the actual computers? What would happen if you opened up a giant drain in the lowest part of the ocean and drained it all away? And more.

The author, Randall Munroe

Many of the questions are interesting and some of the explanations are really interesting. But, many of the explanations go on too long for my tastes. The author takes the answer and extends it on too long - many times he goes beyond the scope of the question and expands it to the point where the results end up in the destruction of the earth and/or the death of all of humanity. It was cute at first but after a while I began to roll my eyes when I saw it coming. There were times when I got tired of the length of the answer and just forwarded on to the next question.

Wil Wheaton read the audiobook version and did a stellar job like he usually does. He captured the attitude of the author perfectly.

I rate this audiobook 3 stars out of 5 - too many answers that were just too detailed and too long.

This audiobook can be found on Amazon.com here: WHAT IF? SERIOUS SCIENTIFIC ANSWERS to ABSURD HYPOTHETICAL QUESTIONS.

NATIONAL BURDEN: A PATRIOTIC THRILLER (CORPS JUSTICE SERIES, BOOK 5) (audiobook) by C.G. Cooper

Published by Tantor Audio in 2017
Read by David Colacci
Duration: 8 hours, 17 minutes
Unabridged

The Corps Justice series continues its tales of SSI (Stokes Security International), a private security firm that sometimes doubles as the President's personal private paramilitary army that acts when he just can't do things politically.

In National Burden, the President is in political trouble. There is a plot to frame the President and a very connected contact of SSI is concerned about strange movements in the stock market. So, he contacts his friends at SSI to give him a hand. And, they soon discover that things are much worse than they had ever imagined...

Politics, as portrayed in this book, are just not realistic. For example, the President appoints a new Vice President (it was a vacant position) and he just goes to work as the VP. No hearings. No fuss. No muss. No Congressional approval (as required by the 25th Amendment). Imagine all of the squabbling and all of the controversy that would be generated if Donald Trump had to replace Mike Pence as Vice President. It would go on and on for weeks, if not months.

I think the idea of a private army that only answers to the President is just really a bad idea (and very illegal), but the book justifies it by making all of the characters in SSI very honorable, upright heroes who depend on their own sense of justice to guide them. That's great, but we don't depend on self-regulation because, in the long run, it's a horrible idea because people can't be trusted. But, hey, that's not just me. Read the thoughts of the guys who wrote the Constitution - it's why they didn't let the President just do whatever he wanted.

For a book series that is mostly about action (terrorists being foiled, explosions, car chases and the like) there was a surprising lack of action in this book. Lots and lots of talking in offices, hardly any action.

Anyway, if you like political fantasy, I suppose this is the book for you. I found it way too cartoonish.

David Colacci read the audiobook. He reads a lot of C.G. Cooper's books and does a stellar job with the accents and the voices but he couldn't save this book all by himself.

Note: I was sent a copy of this audiobook by the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

I rate this audiobook 1 star out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: National Burden: A Patriotic Thriller (Corps Justice Series, Book 5) by C.G. Cooper.

THE OTHER WES MOORE: ONE NAME, TWO FATES (audiobook) by Wes Moore

I Blasted Through this Audiobook.

Published by Random House Audio in 2010.
Read by the author, Wes Moore.
Duration: 6 hours, 12 minutes
Unabridged

Wes Moore, the author of The Other Wes Moore, is originally from a tough Baltimore neighborhood. His family struggled with loss, poverty, his neglect of his own education and rebellious flirtation with crime. But, he "made it", eventually becoming a Rhodes Scholar, have a career in international finance (which was interrupted when he volunteered to serve as a paratrooper in Afghanistan), and now heads two educational foundations, writes articles and makes political commentary.

One day, Moore was sent an article about another young man from Baltimore also named Wes Moore. The other Wes Moore is a convicted murderer and is serving time in prison. This prompted the author to reach out to the other Wes Moore and eventually write this dual biography about how they both ended up in two very different places.

It is not a judgmental book. The author is very aware that he was oftentimes on a path very similar to that of the other Wes Moore and sometimes it is hard to tell their stories apart.

It is a very absorbing story. I listened to the audiobook version of this book over the course of a weekend, going out of my way to find reasons to listen. The narrator is the author, which can sometimes be a bad idea. In this case, the author is an excellent reader.

This is simultaneously an inspiring and depressing book and well worth your time.

I rate this audiobook 5 stars out of 5.

This audiobook can be found on Amazon.com here: The Other Wes Moore.

THE STATE of JONES: THE SMALL SOUTHERN COUNTY that SECEDED from the CONFEDERACY by Sally Jenkins and John Stauffer

Published by Random House Audio in 2009
Read by Don Leslie
Duration: 13 hours
Unabridged

I am an avid reader of Civil War era histories (I own more than 100 and who knows how many that I have read from the library) and it is rare for me to find a book that covers new territory for me.

This book did. I knew as an abstract fact that there were thousands of white Union soldiers that came from the Confederacy. They are mentioned in many histories, but they are rarely a focus.

The State of Jones focuses on the family of Newton Knight, an unwilling Confederate soldier who was forcibly drafted, fought in multiple battles and eventually went AWOL. Newton Knight was not afraid to fight and kill for what he believed in. When the government tried to force him back into the military he started an anti-Confederate insurgency movement centered in Jones County, Mississippi. Those renegades tied up Confederate military assets and virtually stopped in-kind tax collections that were necessary to feed the Confederate military.

Newton Knight (1837-1922)

Newton Knight was a larger-than-life figure. A complicated man from a complicated family. His grandfather was one of the largest slaveholders in Jones County. But, Newton Knight's parents were outspoken opponents of slavery and Newton continued that tradition. Newton was an anti-secessionist but, when drafted, he became a competent soldier who earned at least one promotion.

The book's authors do a fantastic job of describing life on the march in the Confederate Army - no luster and no sheen. Very honest.

Knight's family back home was often targeted because of his political stances and that was one of the reasons Newton Knight left the army and, in his mind, switched sides and began to fight for the Union. The book runs into some of his weakest parts (scholarship-wise) in this section. Generally speaking, insurgency movements don't keep detailed written records of the membership or their plans, so there are gaps. The authors are clear that they are filling in the gaps with extremely educated guesses - but they are still not confirmed. These educated guesses are the only reason that I am giving the audiobook 4 stars out of 5.

Newton Knight's post-war life was just as complicated. He supported the Reconstruction government of Mississippi as it dealt with its own insurgency movement. Eventually, he completely broke with Southern tradition and married a former slave. They may have been the first interracial couple in the county. And, the county didn't know what to do with them. Thanks to the fearsome reputation of Newton Knight, the county mostly ignored them because they did not fit in to an easy category.

The audiobook was read by Don Leslie. His mournful, somber voice was perfect for Newton Knight and his story.

This audiobook can be found on Amazon.com here: THE STATE of JONES: THE SMALL SOUTHERN COUNTY that SECEDED from the CONFEDERACY.