DWD's Reviews

Published in 2019 by Fortress Press Lenny Duncan, as noted in the title, is a black pastor in a very white church body - the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA). I belong to a different Lutheran denomination, but I recognize the congregations and the issues he is talking about. I found out about Dear Church from an interview on the morning news on NPR. Duncan took a unique route to becoming a pastor. He was a homeless teen, he was a prostitute, he served time in jail and he was seeking something spiritual when he attended an ELCA church and heard the Lutheran teachings on God's grace and his life was changed. Now, he is a pastor telling this church that he loves that it must do better. To be fair to the ELCA, this letter is not just applicable to that denomination, it is applicable to most of the mostly white mainline protestant denominations. But, comments like this one are more than fair for all Lutheran churches: " People are deciding not to come to our churche...

  Published in 2001 by Forge (Tor). Treason has been in my to-be-read pile for a long time. I was inspired to finally read it after watching the musical  Hamilton on a streaming service. As you may know, the character of Aaron Burr plays a large part and I got to wondering exactly what happened to Burr when he went west after his term as Vice President. The problem, as the author points out, is that we don't really know exactly what Aaron Burr did. He went on trial for treason, but it was a hurried and botched trial and Burr was found not guilty. Nevin does a solid job of explaining what Burr might have been doing. Nevin goes along with the popular theory that Burr was working with the commanding general of the U.S. Army, James Wilkinson. In 1854, letters were discovered that showed that Wilkinson was in the pay of the government of Spain and was feeding them all sorts of information. Aaron Burr, 1756-1836. Nevin supposes that Wilkinson gave Spain false information designed ...

  Originally published in 2000. Read by Jim Dale. Duration: 20 hours, 37 minutes. Unabridged. I am continuing my first time read (technically a listen) of the Harry Potter series 20 years after the fact. Rather than go through the plot of the book, I am going to skip to my review. The fourth installment of this book is best so far. A slow start builds up to a tremendous ending. I have been pretty critical of Jim Dale's performance in this series up until now. In Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire  Jim Dale nails it. As it goes along he gets better and better. His reading of the scene where Harry looks into Dumbledore's pensieve is absolutely riveting. This is the book where the Harry Potter series makes a turn from being a bunch of cute kid's books. For example, grown-up topics like racism are dealt with. Racism is actually dealt with in 3 different ways - with the House Elves, Giants and the topic of pure blood wizards. Jim Dale I rate this audiobook 5 stars out of 5. It ...

Published in 2019 by Random House Audio. Read by Pete Simonelli Duration: 7 hours, 44 minutes. Unabridged. Tank Rizzo is a retired police officer. He retired early because his partner suffered a career-ending injury in a botched raid on a drug dealer's apartment.  Tank's retirement consists of hanging out at the neighborhood restaurant, dating the owner of the restaurant, helping his partner with his rehab and catching a few hockey games with the father of his girlfriend (a retired mob boss). The author, Lorenzo Carcaterra But, Tank has a hobby that is sort of an open secret. He has built his own team of crime solvers and he solves cold cases for his old boss. His former partner helps by working remotely. They are paid from sort of slush fund or a secret budget line. It's not really clear, but money is not an issue. Tank's estranged brother and wife die in a car crash in a snowstorm and Tank's mystery-loving nephew moves in and joins the team and they have just caug...

  Published in 2015 by HarperAudio. Duration: 8 hours, 13 minutes. Read by Steven D. Levitt, Stephen J. Dubner and Erik Bergmann. Unabridged. Levitt and Dubner are the authors the co-creators of the Freakonomics franchise. They have published several books, have a radio show, have a website and have had a long-running column in the New York Times . All of them have featured odd takes on economic theories (as the title of this book suggests). They also have a blog that they used as a place to put their odd thoughts - not complete articles or chapters. This book consists of 132 entries from their blog. And, that, in short, is the weakness of this audiobook. Their other works are much more thought out and this one just feels like the results of a preliminary brainstorming session. There were some interesting entries and there were some real clunkers. Also, there were way too many entries about gambling. I have absolutely no interest in gambling but the authors are really into it....

Published in 2020 by HarperAudio. Read by the author, Bakari Sellers Duration: 5 hours, 9 minutes. Unabridged I came to My Vanishing Country not knowing a thing about Bakari Sellers. I don't know where I heard about his book, but I had placed a hold on the audiobook at my library. I assume I heard him in an interview on NPR or found his name on a list of prominent books to be released in 2020. Bakari Sellers in 2018. Photo by Luke Harold. Sellers has the distinction of being one of the youngest state legislators ever and the youngest African American ever elected to a post in American history. He is from South Carolina, was a member of its legislature for 8 years, is an attorney and is now a commentator for CNN. I am not from South Carolina and I don't have cable or satellite so I had never seen his work on CNN, either.  My complete unfamiliarity with Sellers made the book a little tedious at times. But, the last quarter of the book is very strong. It was so strong, due to mor...

Originally published in 1982 as a novella in the collection Different Seasons . Read by Frank Muller. Duration: 3 hours, 57 minutes. Unabridged. I originally read this novella when it was published as a part of the collection called Different Seasons  more than 35 years ago. This is the third time I have read this story, but the first time in the last 20 years.  I have never seen the beloved movie. Stephen King Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption tells the story of two prisoners in Shawshank Prison in Maine, starting in the late 1940's. One is the main supplier of things smuggled into the prison (but not hard core drugs) and the other is a banker that has been falsely convicted of murdering his wife and her lover. They are not exactly friends, but they are friendly and they certainly respect one another. The banker has an odd habit of collecting rocks he finds in the prison yard and carving them into little sculptures - but could it be a sign of something more? I have neve...