DWD's Reviews

Published by Simon and Schuster in 2013 Read by Robert Petkoff Duration: 8 hours, 47 minutes. I teach in a public high school that is in the midst of transforming from a suburban/affluent to an urban/poverty school. I currently teach Spanish but I am also licensed to teach several social studies classes including economics. While this hardly makes me an economist, it does mean that I know enough about economics to make me dangerous to myself. I always think that it is interesting when economists take on non-traditional topics, like the Freakonomics guys do. In this case Sendhil Mullainathan and Eldar Shafir look at the effect of scarcity on impulse control, poverty, time management, dieting and lonely people. Kids at my school have a horrible time with impulse control, poverty and time management so I was hooked when the authors started to look at how scarcity affects these behaviors. Through a series of studies (theirs and others) they demonstrate that people who are fina

Originally published in 1970. Audiobook version published in 2013 by HighBridge Audio. Read by David Shih Duration: 7 hours, 34 minutes. Based on historical facts, the story of the 47 Ronin is a very popular one in Japan that has been told and re-told hundreds of times in books, plays, films, manga and more. A friend of mine that teaches Japanese compared it to the tale of King Arthur in England in that some versions feature magic, some extra characters, some are longer and some are shorter but there are some things that are consistent in every version. Of course, not being Japanese, Westerners often miss some of the power of the story. John Allyn's knowledge of the language, his time in Japan during the Post-World War II occupation and his extensive experience with theater made him a fairly unique talent to present this story to Westerners. Allyn explains quite a bit as he tells the story , including items that would not have to be explained to native Japanese. It is

Published in July of 2013 by Thomas and Mercer Kerry Wilkinson has done what almost all of Amazon's self-published authors have dreamed of - he has published a Kindle e-book, outsold the established names and got the attention of mainstream publishing houses and won himself a publishing contract.   While this series is not life-changing literature, I found it to be better than the latest offerings that I have read by much more established authors such as Patricia Cornwell and James Patterson. In the second book of this series Detective Sergeant Jessica Daniel is searching for a serial killer. But, there are people who don't seem to care too much if she actually catches this murderer since the only people he kills are criminals. While vigilantes are officially discouraged, more than one police officer notes that this murderer is making their jobs easier. The DNA results make everything all the more confusing because the results point to a man who would be a great suspec

This will be of interest to fans of brooding mysteries Guy Pearce (the villain in Iron Man 3 ) plays Jack Irish in this Australian mystery show. Jack Irish is a former prosperous defense lawyer who lost his wife when a past client came to his office to argue about how his case was defended in court. Jack Irish tells his wife to leave the office and head for the car and he will meet her after he and his client talk a bit. Instead, the client follows his wife out to the car, shoots and kills her and then kills himself right in front of Irish. Irish's life goes into a tailspin. Now,he spends his time woodworking, drinking,doing a bit of bill collecting and gambling. But, sometimes the right case comes along and he gets motivated to really care about something that matters again... I was honestly not impressed by Guy Pearce in Iron Man 3 , but I thought he hit all of the right notes in his portrayal of Jack Irish. His new (and seedy) friends are there to help as well and t

  A Unique Entry Into an Crowded Field Published by Scholastic in August of 2013. If you have read the Diary of a Wimpy Kid or the James Patterson Middle School series you get how this book is designed. The twist is that Roan Novachez is a middle school student from Tatooine who really wants to get into Pilot Academy Middle School (much like Luke Skywalker in Star Wars: Episode IV ). If you were trying to place this book in the timeline of the Star Wars movies it would be about 200 years before the events of Return of the Jedi based on Yoda's stated age. Anyway, Roan does not get into the Pilot Academy but Yoda extends a special invitation for him to come to the Coruscant Jedi Academy. He is the newest student and has the traditional new student problems at a middle school (finding friends, figuring out your teachers, finding your classrooms and so on) plus he has additional problems such as trying to understand what his Wookie gym teacher is saying and figure out how to

Published by Simon and Schuster in 2013. Read by the author, Rush Limbaugh. Duration: 4 hours, 31 minutes This is bound to irritate some listeners of Rush who may not read any more than the simple fact that I was not impressed by this book. Let my establish my bona fides right off. I have been a semi-regular listener to Rush since 1991 when I heard his parody song about Ted Kennedy called "I'm a philanderer" to the tune of Dion's "I'm a Wanderer." I have read Rush's books. I remember his TV show, if you look at my reviews you will see that I'm fairly well-read in Conservative literature and I even have a subscription to National Review. That being said, I cannot say that I was a fan of this book. I am a history teacher and I really have no problem with the history Rush presented. The book is about the Puritans, the Mayflower, their trip across the ocean and their first year in the New World. It was a bit simplistic and did not go into m