DWD's Reviews

  Important information but not well-presented Mark Steyn I am a genuine fan of Mark Steyn. I am a frequent reader of National Review and his "Happy Warrior" column is what I read first. I picked this book up as a result of listening to a half-hour interview with him on my local radio station. I picked it up less than 4 hours after hearing him. The information in America Alone: The End of the World as We Know It is important, but the presentation is lacking. Steyn repeats himself so often that, if properly edited, this book would only have about 50 pages. Steyn writes brilliant columns. This book reads like a series of columns that overlap information, commentary and theme and was not up to the standards that I expected. Steyn has done a lot of research, includes dozens and dozens of quotes and paraphrasing. However, he includes absolutely no endnotes, no footnotes, heck, he doesn't even include a bibliography! C'mon, Mark, I expect my t

Read by John MacDonald Duration: 6 hours, 35 minutes Tony Hillerman (1925-2008) Talking God is good, but not the typical Tony Hillerman book. Rather than being based in the Four Corners area, this one mostly takes place in Washington, D.C. Navajo Tribal Police Lt. Joe Leaphorn and Jim Chee investigate a body found in Gallup, New Mexico. Some digging into the case discovers a trail that leads to the Smithsonian in Washington, D.C. and Navajo artifacts that are on display there. It is interesting to see D.C. through Navajo eyes, but we do spend a lot of time in the mind of the bad guy as well, which is to the detriment of the story in my mind. Chee's personal life features prominently as he re-connects with his on again-off again love interest Janet Pete, who is now an attorney in D.C. Leaphorn's painful loneliness and a general feeling of loss pervades throughout the book. I would have rated the book as four stars, but I am reviewing the audiobook. My audio

A must for Indy 500 fans Part of a series of DVDs produced by the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, this collection reviews all of the races from 1980-1989. The collection features original TV & radio commentary, sound and video and lots of interviews with the drivers and owners. Some of the interviews are from the 1980s and some are from nowadays looking back. 1988 Indy 500: all Penske front row (Mears, Sullivan, Big Al) Indianapolis 500: (The 80's) A decade for The Ages is more than mindless promotion of the race - the lowlights (1981 and the ridiculous court case that determined the winner) are exposed as well. Changes with racing technology is highlighted throughout. DVD features include collecting all of the bits and pieces of interviews with several drivers and some owners and adding a few bonus bits. Rick Mears, Roger Penske and Tom Sneva are especially strong interviews. Another nice feature is the inclusion of an uninterrupted highlight reel o

    A NASCAR legend deserves better Cale Yarborough's famed 28 car in the 1980s Published in 2008 by Triumph Books. Cale Yarborough is a living symbol of NASCAR from its beginnings to the very creation of the dizzying heights that it has achieved nowadays. Sadly, most of the Johnny-Come-Lately fans have no idea, or at best, only a very dim idea who he is. Sadly, this biography of Cale Yarborough, They Call Him Cale: The Life and Career of NASCAR Legend Cale Yarborough , only covers half of his career. Indeed, most of the book covers his life before NASCAR. There are only 203 pages in this biography and he joins NASCAR full-time on page 169. Considering that the last 11 pages discusses his retirement years, that leaves 23 pages to discuss his amazing run of 3 championships in a row, the famous fistfight at the 1979 Daytona 500, his decision to run a partial schedule for more than 7 years and his 11 year stint as team owner (just 5 pages for that). The book coul

A very short short story Dayle A. Dermatis' What Dragons Prefer is a Kindle "freebie"from Amazon.com, at least it is at the time of this review. If it were printed in book form it would be 5 pages or less, I am sure. The plot revolves around a "dragonseeker," a woman who was brought to a small town to deal with a dragon that lives nearby. The dragonseeker knows how to get rid of a dragon, if necessary, but her expertise is really knowing about dragons - how often they eat, what they eat and what they really like. The mayor of the town is a horrible, lecherous man and once his boorish ways get to be too much for the dragonseeker, she turns the tables. The story in and of itself is quite easy to read but it telegraphs its punch line early on. It's satisfying, but not overly so. I rate this story 3 stars out of 5. This short story can be found on Amazon.com here: What Dragons Prefer . Reviewed on July 29, 2011.

Funny story with a grisly ending. Read by the author, Stephen King Duration: 1 hour. Stephen King Read by Stephen King at a live performance in the UK, LT's Theory of Pets is an entertaining short story about a couple with two pets - a cat and a dog - and what the fact that family pets tend to actually prefer one member of the family over the others. LT is a friend of the narrator of the story - they work at the same packing plant in Iowa. LT's wife left him nearly a year before and LT has become quite adept at telling the story of how his wife left him and why she took their dog with her and left the cat with him. LT's telling of the story is quite funny. His wife's "Dear John" note she left him on the refrigerator the night she left him has to be the funniest Dear John note ever written. LT's observations about pets and married life are quite funny. The end of the story has a hurried feel to it. King prefaces the story with a short intr