NEWS of the WORLD (audiobook) by Paulette Jiles

 

Book originally published in 2016.

Audiobook published by Harper Audio.
Read by Grover Gardner.
Duration: 6 hours, 17 minutes.
Unabridged.

News of the World is a pretty simple book - on the surface. Set in 1870 Texas, a 70+ year-old veteran of the War of 1812 and the Mexican War is asked to travel more than 300 miles to deliver a 10-year old girl to her extended family near San Antonio, Texas. When she was 6, she was adopted by the Kiowa after they killed immediate family in a frontier attack. Their journey starts in Wichita Falls (near the Oklahoma-Texas border) and faces a lot of difficulties. 

The author

Jefferson Kyle Kidd goes by the name Captain Kidd because that was his rank in the Mexican War, where he served as a messenger. That is appropriate since his true love is bringing news to others. He worked on newspapers, he owned newspapers, he edited newspapers and now he is out of the newspaper business completely due to post-Civil War Reconstruction rules. 

Kidd can't stay out of the game, though. Since he can't be a publisher or a writer of the news, he becomes a newscaster of sorts. He buys all of the current newspapers, finds articles that would be of interest to local communities and then charges a dime per person for a reading of the news. He avoids local news (Reconstruction era politics were every bit as divisive as our modern politics) and instead prefers to read articles about faraway places and modern discoveries. He prefers to expose his audiences to news of the wider world to local news. 

The girl, Johanna,  has very few memories of life before the Kiowa and a great deal of the book deals with Kidd and Johanna, how they work out a way of communicating and the bond that forms between them. There are various adventures and outrages along the way, but the heart of the book is these two strangers traveling on a very long trip together in a wagon.

And, it is a fantastic book.

Grover Gardner read this audiobook. Gardner is a prolific narrator of audiobooks. He has read well over 1,000 audiobooks and I tend to think of his voice as more of a folksy style and it works perfectly with this book.

I rate this audiobook 5 stars out of 5. Highly recommended.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here:  NEWS of the WORLD (audiobook) by Paulette Jiles.

THE UNDOCUMENTED AMERICANS (audiobook) by Karla Cornejo Villavicencio

 

Published in 2020 by Random House Audio.

Read by the author, Karla Cornejo Villavicencio.

Duration: 4 hours, 53 minutes.

Unabridged.

Villavicencio is a "Dreamer", also known as a DACA kid. DACA is the program started by President Obama to deal with immigrants who came to the United States illegally as children. Generally speaking, the only country they've ever known is the United States and they had no say in immigrating to the United States. Congress refused to deal with this situation so President Obama created a program through executive orders. This meant that when President Trump came to office he was able to undo a lot of this plan with another executive order. 

Villavicencio's very personal look at the DACA program and the general mess of our immigration policy in The Undocumented Americans was inspired by the election of Donald Trump, but it was not what I was hoping for when I started listening to this audiobook. I was really hoping for policy analysis with a healthy bit of personal stories and interviews tossed in. 

Instead, this book is very much the reverse of the book that I was looking for. It was more of an extended highly personal rant about several immigration-related topics. Many of the (somewhat fictionalized, according to the author) stories she tells have compelling features, but I found the author's style to be too personal, as though the entire screwed-up immigration system was designed just to make her miserable, like most things in life. 

The author

Villavicencio is such a large part of this book that you literally cannot separate the author from the message or the stories she tells. I found her to be so annoying and almost intentionally unhappy that I was forcing myself to read the book, like it was some sort of assigned text. This was especially annoying because I really did agree with her at least 80-90% of the time. 

I rate this audiobook 2 stars out of 5.

It can be found on Amazon.com here: THE UNDOCUMENTED AMERICANS (audiobook) by Karla Cornejo Villavicencio.

HARRY POTTER and the DEATHLY HALLOWS (audiobook) by J.K. Rowling

Originally published in 2007.

Audiobook re-mastered and re-published in 2015 by Pottermore Publishing.

Read by Jim Dale.

Duration 21 hours, 37 minutes.

Unabridged.

Ten months ago I started to listen to the Harry Potter books. I had never read them before and only watched the first movie so I came to the party quite late.

But, with Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, I have finished the series.

What did I think?

The series is quite good. There are plenty of great themes and memorable themes throughout. It is well worth the time to read (or listen, like I did).

The last book is an up and down affair. It certainly drags in the middle of the book. This was the part I heard my oldest daughter complaining about years ago when she said it was just three people sitting in the middle of a field talking for way too long. I agree.

But, the book does bring the series to a satisfying conclusion with plenty of surprises (that I will not reveal). 

So, in the interest of not providing any spoilers, I will just say that I rate this book 4 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: HARRY POTTER and the DEATHLY HALLOWS (audiobook) by J.K. Rowling.

Note: this entire book series has been on banned book lists multiple times since it was originally published due to complaints from religious conservatives. Check out this website for more info.

ON FASCISM: 12 LESSONS from AMERICAN HISTORY (audiobook) by Matthew C. MacWilliams

Published in September of 2020 by Macmillan Audio.

Read by Kevin Stillwell.
Duration: 4 hours, 18 minutes.
Unabridged.

MacWilliams is a sociologist who studies authoritarianism. He has done a number of surveys over American attitudes towards the Constitution and the freedoms of their fellow citizens and there are areas of concern that he outlines in On Fascism.

For example, "31% of Americans agree that having a strong leader who does not have to bother with Congress and elections is a good way of governing the United States" and "30% of Americans agree with the statement 'I often find myself fearful of other people of other races.'"

Other stats of concern are:

"44% of Americans agree that increasing racial, religious and ethnic diversity represents a threat to the security of the United States"

When you break down the numbers about "18 percent of Americans are highly disposed to authoritarianism. Another 23 percent or so are attitudinally just one step below them on the authoritarian scale." He goes on to explain that people who are disposed to authoritarianism value "authority, obedience and uniformity over freedom, independence  and diversity" and when they grow fearful or are manipulated by an autocrat they will not defend the freedoms of the minority - the freedoms enshrined in the Constitution. 

MacWilliams argues that this is not a new phenomenon. There are some old surveys he can access but there is also the historical record, which is spotty. He didn't have to look very deep - most of these items are in every school child's American history book. For example, the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798, the Trail of Tears, The Dred Scott decision, the Japanese Internment camps and the McCarthy hearings. 

Lesson 1: American Enlightened or Authoritarian?
Lesson 2: Fomenting Fear
Lesson 3: All Lies Matter
Lesson 4: Gagging the press, Quashing Dissent
Lesson 5: Taking What is Rightfully Ours
Lesson 6: Using Fear and Violence to Control and Subordinate Others
Lesson 7: The Driving Out
Lesson 8: Fear as a Path to Power
Lesson 9: Galvanizing Group Identity
Lesson 10: Silence of the Law
Lesson 11: Fear Breeds Repression; Repression Breeds Hate; Hate Menaces Stable Government
Lesson 12: The Surveillance Society and the Big Lie

I found this short audiobook to be engaging and thought-provoking. I just kept wondering what MacWilliams would have thought about everything from Election Day up to January 6.

Highly recommended.

I rate this audiobook 5 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: On Fascism: 12 Lessons from American History.

STARMAN JONES (audiobook) by Robert A. Heinlein

 

Originally published in 1953.

Digital Audiobook version published in 2008 by Blackstone Audio, Inc.

Read by Paul Michael Garcia.

Duration: 8 hours, 29 minutes.

Unabridged.

Legendary science fiction author Robert A. Heinlein (1907-1988) wrote a set of novels for the Scribner's publishing house early in his career as a novelist starting in 1947. Scribner's published 12 of them. One of his most famous works, Starship Troopers, was rejected as a volume in this series, but it was fully intended to be a part of it.  A 14th and final book featuring a female lead character was also rejected.  They all share a theme of space exploration moving roughly from humanity's first steps away from Earth to contact with massive alien empires in far and distant places.

Robert A. Heinlein (1907-1988)

Starman Jones falls right in the middle. It is the seventh novel in the series and humanity can travel to far and distant places and has met alien species, but it is exceedingly tricky. 

Max Jones is a teenager in the Ozarks on a future Earth. Times are tough and people with pull, connections or money are moving off-planet. Max has no pull, maybe has a connection and certainly has no money. When his widowed step-mother marries the neighborhood bully and lets him sell the family farm without warning Max runs away from home to find his own way.

As you can tell by the title, Max eventually makes it to space. The problem is that Heinlein spends a lot of time explaining the bureaucracy of the various space guilds (every profession has its own guild and its own obscure rules) and then goes on to explain in excruciating detail the formal and informal rules of a ship - how the galley works, how discipline is maintained, how to run an illegal still on board, how the crew relates to the passengers, how the crew relates to the officers, how the officers relate to the passengers, how the bridge officers relate to the other officers, how the bridge officers relate to each other and how the captain can help or hinder the ship's morale. It reminded me quite a bit of the extended descriptions of military life in Starship Troopers. 

If all of the "explaining" were edited out, or at least cut back, this book would probably come in 3 hours shorter and be all the better. 

I rate this audiobook 3 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: Starman Jones by Robert A. Heinlein. 

HARRY POTTER and the HALF-BLOOD PRINCE (Harry Potter #6) by J.K. Rowling

 

Originally published in 2009.
Published by Pottermore Publishing in 2015.
Read by Jim Dale.
Duration: 18 hours, 32 minutes.
Unabridged.

The Half-Blood Prince is the book that one of my daughters complained about several years ago when she read it. She said it was too much talking and not enough action. Certainly when compared to the previous two books, there is a lot less action and a whole lot more talking. Rowling changed up the narrative and tells the back story of the villain of the series, Lord Voldemort, by way of an investigation by Dumbledore and Harry.

The pace is certainly slower, but the information was valuable. Perhaps it might have been delivered differently, but I was glad to have it. 

The last two hours of the audiobook were full of nothing but action and consequential moments. 

Jim Dale continued to do a great job with the book, with the exception of the voice of Hermione. 


This is my favorite cover of the entire series. Once you get done with the book you can see that it covers the major points of the story in one picture. Well done.

I rate this audiobook 4 stars out of 5 and I look forward to the last book of the series.

This audiobook can be found on Amazon.com here: HARRY POTTER and the HALF-BLOOD PRINCE (Harry Potter #6) by J.K. Rowling.

Note: this entire book series has been on banned book lists multiple times since it was originally published due to complaints from religious conservatives. Check out this website for more info.

LINCOLN and the FIRST SHOT (Critical Periods of History Series) by Richard N. Current

Originally published in 1963.

27 years ago I took a night class about the Civil War offered by Ball State University in a middle school off campus. It was a great class and Lincoln and the First Shot was the first book that we discussed. The book covers the two month period from the day that Lincoln arrived in D.C. after he was elected President and the day that P.G.T. Beauregard opened fire on Fort Sumter at Charleston, South Carolina.

When the Confederate states seceded they took over all Federal property, including forts and military bases. Two forts were not surrendered - Fort Pickens in Pensacola and Fort Sumter. Fort Sumter was always the most argued over because of the symbolism of being smack in the middle of the main port of the first state to secede. 

Lincoln refused to give up the fort because he refused to give up any of the seceded states. South Carolina demanded the fort because they insisted they were part of a new country and they did not want a foreign power to have a fort blocking a port in their new country.

South Carolina was ready to fire on the fort but did not want to look like they were provoking a fight. A peaceful separation might still be possible. Lincoln was preparing to reinforce the fort if he could - but without provoking a fight. After all, the country might be peacefully reunited. 

Fort Sumter immediately after its surrender
to South Carolina troops in April, 1861.

Neither side wanted to fire the first shot, but both sides could foresee the rush of patriotism that follow if their side were fired upon.

Historian Richard N. Current's description of the situation faced by both the North and the South at the beginning of the crisis was excellent and well done. But, his description of all of the plotting, fake peace proposals and sometimes outright confusion felt like he was stretching out the story to fill the pages of this book - like there was a minimum number of words he had to reach to fulfill his book contract.

So, I rate this book 3 stars out of 5. It can be found here on Amazon.com:  LINCOLN and the FIRST SHOT (Critical Periods of History Series) by Richard N. Current.