DWD's Reviews

Originally Published in 1993 Audiobook version published in 2001 by Listening Library Read by Ron Rifkin Duration: 4 hours, 51 minutes Lois Lowry has done a very clever thing in her book The Giver . She has written a book at a very simple level that explains some very complicated things in a way that most children will be able to easily grasp. A text does not have to be complicated to express complicated ideas. In The Giver the reader is presented with a simple, Utopian society in an undetermined future time. Everything is peaceful. Everyone is fed, cared for and everyone has a place. The children are excited because it is time for the children to go through The Ceremony. All children up to age twelve are moved forward to their next year and receive some new responsibility or right, such as the right to ride a bicycle or to volunteer after school hours. Twelve-year-olds are assigned to their future work assignments by the Committee of Elders. Author Lois Lowry in 201...

Published by Carlos G. Cooper in January of 2015. Read by DJ Holte Duration: 4 hours, 57 minutes Unabridged. If you like military-type thrillers, C.G. Cooper's "Corps Justice" series may be of interest to you. This is a self-published series - and everyone who has read much by self-published authors is rolling his or her eyes right now. But, if you have read a lot by self-published authors you also know that while some self-published authors are really deluding themselves, some can really deliver the goods. In this case, C.G. Cooper is one of those that can really do the job. Now, don't get me wrong, Lethal Misconduct a thriller and that means it is fairly formulaic- like westerns and romance novels, military thrillers seem to have just a few standard plot lines. In this case, this book features an all-star team of experts who are working for a gifted leader with a great moral vision who is also independently wealthy.  Photo by Niels Noodhoek This book is...

Published by Blackstone Audio in December of 2014 Read by Stephen E. Thorne Duration: 10 hours, 5 minutes Kenneth E. Bailey spent more than forty years teaching theology in Egypt, Lebanon, Jerusalem and Cyprus and along the way he developed a natural curiosity about shepherds. This is natural, considering how often shepherds are mentioned and that many of the main figures of the Old Testament were shepherds at one point or another (Abraham, Moses and David to name a few) and that Jesus refers to himself as both a shepherd and a lamb.  Combine that natural curiosity with a willingness to research and the ability to see the stories from a different cultural perspective and you have something new, at least new for those of us in the West.  What Bailey has delivered here is a very readable (or in my case, listenable) overview of the major passages about shepherds in the Old and New Testaments and how they relate to one another and the cultural meanings of these texts an...

     I just love Bill Gastner This series actually extends over the careers of two law officers who hold a position called Undersheriff in the fictional Posadas County, New Mexico.  An undersheriff is the person right below the elected position of Sheriff and is appointed by the Sheriff.  Generally, the Undersheriff would be the expert in the law that is there to advise the elected Sheriff. The first half of the series covers Undersheriff Bill Gastner, an experienced law officer. Bill would laugh at that at just say that he is old. Bill is sort of grumpy, a little creeky in the knees, moves slowly but makes up for it with a lot of experience and really knowing the people of Posadas County, New Mexico.  He is especially good at thinking while eating very spicy burritos at all hours of the day or night. The second half of the series covers the career of Undersheriff Estelle Guzman. She is quite talented and, for me, simply not as interesting as Bill...

Published by Harper Audio in 2008 Originally published in 1960 Winner of the Pulitzer Prize Voted "Best Novel of the Century" in a Library Journal poll Read by Sissy Spacek Duration: 12 hours, 17 minutes I almost feel silly writing a review for a book that is nearly universally regarded as one of the best, if not THE best, novels written in the last century. This book is read in schools across the country, was adapted into an amazingly successful movie that is as highly regarded as the book. This book is not just respected - it is loved. I also hate to admit that it had been nearly 25 years since I had read To Kill a Mockingbird .  Although I remembered that I loved the book, I had really forgotten why. So, when I was offered the chance to review this audio version by the publisher for free I jumped it at. It had been such a long time that I needed to remind myself why it was so great.  I am not going to waste everyone's time by re-telling the story in detai...

Originally published in 1991 by Baen Books David Drake, a science fiction author who usually specializes in tales of high-tech fighting told from the grunt's point of view changes pace with Old Nathan , a tale of backwoods folk magic.  Photo by DWD Set in the the 1830s in rural Tennessee, this book features Old Nathan, often called the "cunning man". Old Nathan suffered a life-changing injury during the battle of Kings Mountain in the Revolutionary War. As he recovered, he discovered that he had been gifted with some magical powers, including the ability to talk with animals.  Fifty years later, he is living in Tennessee and serves as the local area's potion-maker and a resolver of problems of last resort. He also can cast some spells. He does not understand the powers, but he understands that the spells he cast do not always resolve the problems the way that his clients hope. The book consists of five inter-related short stories. The best story by far...

Published by Scholastic Audio in 2013. Read by Charlie McWade Duration: 8 hours, 41 minutes The Lost Kingdom is an alternate history set in a world in which mastodons still roam North America in great herds and are hunted by giant predators called bearwolves. The story is set just before the French and Indian War and the situation is easily recognizable for anyone familiar with that time period. The English colonies arranged along the Eastern Seaboard but the interior is largely controlled by the French and their numerous Indian allies through a vast trading network. As the English move farther inland they encounter more and more resistance and everyone knows that it will lead to open warfare, probably sooner rather than later. In a bold move to secure a new set of allies in the interior, the American Philosophical Society, a group of intellectuals led by Benjamin Franklin, have decided to send an expedition in search of a fabled Welsh kingdom built around the legendary tal...