DWD's Reviews

          A review of the abridged audiobook Published by Random House Audio in 1998 Duration: 2 hours, 54 minutes Read by Anthony Heald Abridged I was not a fan of this book. I'm not sure if it was the abridgment or the writing style, but I'll give the author the benefit of the doubt and blame the abridgment. Like most abridged books, it was too abridged (where are the Reader's Digest abridgers when you need them?). Characters, ships and situations show up without preamble but we're expected to be familiar with them. The whole book seemed hurried. The typical special effects that Lucasfilms provides their audiobooks are a bonus, but they were somewhat haphazardly applied in this case - sometimes the music overpowered the text and jungle background noises were on a continuous loop that was too loud and too repetitive. The lightsaber sound effects are wonderful, but they were not timed with the text very well - sabers were being turned on before

  Inspired by an event in the author's life, a bit of "film noir" on paper First published in 2003. If you are familiar with the movie style called "film noir" than you get a good idea what this book is like. In a "film noir" movie the protagonist is a regular guy with a secret. He gets sucked into the criminal underworld (or into the world of spies) by events he cannot control and does not understand. Betrayals make him question everything and his old life is shattered. Michael Connelly Well, all of that happens here. Henry Pierce gets a new phone number and a series of calls intended for the old owner of the number. He gets curious as he tries to tell the old owner, a prostitute who advertises herself on a porn site as an escort, to change her number. From that point on he gets sucked in to an out of control situation. I wasn't in to this one for the first 75 pages or so. But, once it gets going this one really had me. C

  Not a great movie, but a must for Richard Petty and early NASCAR fans (from a Petty fan from way back) Just so you know, I've given this movie 4 stars - not because it is a great movie. It is not, unless you are a die hard Petty fan. But, it is a valuable piece of NASCAR history - a little gem that I picked up in the super-cheap DVD section of a local store. It is a snapshot of the beginnings of the modern heyday of stock car racing. Released in 1974 and full of footage from the early days of NASCAR, the production values in this one are not great, which is a mixed blessing. The old footage does not stick out from the rest of the film because the film itself is pretty grainy and has questionable sound at times. Richard Petty plays himself and he comes off as a fairly wooden actor, which would be a pretty unfair assessment to make if you are not familiar with Richard's personality. He is slow-talking (careful with his words), casual, straight-backed and

Thoughtful Ruminations of a born and bred Hoosier Published in 1997 by D and C Publishing Chuck Avery writes a column for the Richmond Palladium-Item , the local paper in Richmond, Indiana. His typical essay could be classified as one of those slice-of-life pieces - a little reminiscing, a little wry observation, a bit of good-natured humor. Avery is also a teacher. I never heard of Chuck Avery before I picked up this book at a local book sale (ironically, he describes picking up books in a similar sale in one of his essays  - the essay that gives the book its title). A Committee of One is one of those rare books that gets better as it goes along. I particularly enjoyed the essays "Clevenger's Pond" (a humorous look at human nature and why his farm pond is no longer open to the public), "The Allure of Instant Esteem" (a look at the self-esteem movement in the classroom and why it makes no sense unless you have actually done something), "Solitude

An Entertaining Take on English History Published in 2007 by W.F. Howes Ltd. Read by the author, Robert Lacey Duration: 6 hours, 15 minutes King George III (1738-1820) Robert Lacey's quirky 3 volume collection Great Tales from English History was truly a joy to listen to. Volume III ran from the late 17th century to the 1990s and covered such topics as John Locke, The Boston Tea Party (a remarkably even-handed presentation of the American Revolution in general), King George III, the beginnings of the Methodist movement, the Industrial Revolution, Bonnie Prince Charlie, the Charge of the Light Brigade, Darwin, Queen Victoria and World Wars I and II. If you are listening to this audiobook to get a complete history of England, you will be sorely disappointed. This series cherry picks the interesting and fun stories (the type I love to tell  in the classroom) and strings them together for a most entertaining listen. Lacey reads the book himself and does a very good job

Exposes the vulnerable state of the American (and the world) economy Published in 2012 by Regnery Publishing, Inc. When I was reading this book I was tempted to make a sort of smart-aleck introduction about the complex nature of Kevin Freeman's warning about the dangers we face by way of economic terrorism. After all, Paul Revere just rode through the streets yelling, "The British are coming! The British are coming!" and that was enough. But, after a little thought I realized that Freeman can't just yell, "The economic terrorists are coming! The economic terrorists are coming!" It has to be explained and that explanation is long and can be full of statistics and new terminologies. I am a licensed high school economics teacher and I can honestly say that I knew just enough about finance, the real nitty-gritty of the to and fro of the markets, to say that this book is downright scary. It is the proverbial "firebell in the night" that screams