DWD's Reviews

Published in June of 2017 by Blackstone Audio Read by Liisa Ivary Duration: 3 hours, 28 minutes Unabridged This small book grew from an article that the author wrote after the 2016 Presidential Election. She wrote this article to explain the results to her friends in what she calls the "professional elite". The article created a lot of buzz so she expanded it into a small, accessible book that I found to be very accurate. Williams distinguishes the working class from the poor and the professional elite. In layman's terms, the working class is the middle class. It consists of factory workers, teachers, police officers, mechanics and restaurant managers. People with training and skills that literally go to work every day. The professional elite are doctors, lawyers, investment bankers, professors at elite universities and the political class. Williams details why the working class looks at the world differently than the professional elite and why the policies and ...

Published by Random House Audio Originally published in 1997. Read by Dick Hill Duration: 17 hours, 47 minutes Unabridged Lee Child I've been listening to the Jack Reacher series for a couple of years now, and I have been slowly working my way through the series in a random order. That's okay, though, because Lee Child doesn't write this series in any sort of chronological order. While this is book #1 in terms of when it was written, it comes as #8 in the current lists of Jack Reacher books and stories according to Jack Reacher's perspective. For me, this book was particularly interesting because it filled me in on a frequently-mentioned event in Jack Reacher's life - the death of his brother Joe. Jack Reacher decides to get off of a bus in Margrave, Georgia on a whim and ends up under arrest for a brutal murder in this town's small warehouse district out by the highway where Reacher got off the bus.  Soon enough, Reacher proves it couldn't h...

Published in 2017 by Listening Library Read by Abigail Revasch and Tara Sands Duration: 7 hours, 53 minutes Unabridged I am new to Squirrel Girl, sort of. Years ago, I had a middle school student on the autistic spectrum in my class with a comprehensive Marvel heroes book. He loved to look at that book rather than do his class work so I would "borrow" his book and find an interesting character and then talk to him about that character later on. Squirrel Girl caught my eye because, on the surface, she is ridiculous. All cute, fluffy and imbued with all of the powers of a squirrel. Doesn't seem like much when compared to the Incredible Hulk, does it? So, I told him my favorite all-time superhero was Squirrel Girl. And, to be honest, I liked the idea of a superhero that is not enhanced with over-the-top powers so she became my default answer to the question, "Who's your favorite superhero?" (asked by students who want to get off topic). In reality, The...

Published by HighBridge, a division of Recorded Books in 2007 Read by Garrison Keillor Duration: 8 hours, 22 minutes Unabridged Evelyn Peterson is the town iconoclast in many ways. She is an active member of many town institutions, but she also is one of the few that questions any of the cherished beliefs of the town of Lake Wobegon. But, she is also quite elderly and she has passed away in bed. Her daughter Barbara, a cafeteria lunch lady and often the opposite of her mother, discovered her body and a note that details how she wants her body to be disposed of. This note kicks off the a great deal of the rest of the story. Throw in a woman who made it big in California returning to Lake Wobegon for her wedding, a visiting delegation of Lutheran ministers from Denmark, the discovery of a great number of family secrets that were held by Evelyn, a really stinky stray dog, a glider, a bowling ball urn and an Elvis impersonator and you have the recipe for a day that Lake Wobegon ...

Published in 2008 by Ace In Marsbound , Earth is just starting to colonize Mars and the Dula family was picked to go as part of a weighted lottery system. The story is told through the eyes of Carmen Dula, a 19-year old college freshman.  The first part of the story is a technology-based sci-fi adventure. Lots of explanation of the technology to get to Mars, but at a layman's level and with an eye for the kinds of things that teenagers are concerned about - entertainment, potential romance, how annoying the slightly younger passengers are, and so on. Carmen accidentally stumbles into one of the most remarkable events in human history - literally. A near-fatal fall while on an unapproved excursion away from the colony buildings initiates first contact with an alien species (this is not a spoiler, it is in the inside cover of the hardback). At this point, the book changes focus into a clumsy first contact book. The motivations of some of the characters get more unclear and errati...

Published in 2014 by Ace Jack Daley is a former sniper turned down and out author in this near future sci-fi tale. But, he gets an odd offer to write the book adaptation of a movie before the movie script has even been written. Basically, the offer is to write the book and they'll adapt it a little or a lot to make the movie. And, he doesn't have to turn it in now, he can turn it in as first draft chapters as he goes along. One of the more interesting features of the first part of the book is that it goes back and forth between Jack's story and the story he is writing - mostly in alternating chapters. He also gets a second offer - from an unknown person that obviously knows his schedule and can track his movements. He has to kill someone with a sniper rifle (Daley was a sniper in a war, but not the Iraq War or the Afghanistan War) or his girlfriend will die.  So, he goes on the run with his girlfriend. He uses a laptop to write his book and e-mail in chapters as the...

Published by Books in Motion Read by Rusty Nelson Duration: 6 hours, 55 minutes Unabridged Sixty-two year old Undersheriff Bill Gastner is recovering from heart surgery. He has been told to get out and exercise more and to get away from work. You see, Gastner has a lot of bad habits when he works. He doesn't sleep, he gets involved in things that get him hurt and he eats large, spicy burritos. So, Bill decides to go on a camping trip and visit a former colleague, Estelle Reyes-Guzman, who has taken a job in the sheriff department of a different county in New Mexico - up in the mountains. But, while he is trying to sleep in a campground he hears sirens and sees lights so he decides to go check it out. Soon enough, Bill is working with Reyes-Guzman and investigating a murder, looking into a smooth-talking hippie-type who quotes the Bible and brandishes a gun and eventually ends up questioning a priest. Heck of a vacation, huh? This was an interesting change of geography fo...