DWD's Reviews

Published by T.A. Ward Books in May of 2018. Read by Tom Askin. Duration: 8 hours, 41 minutes. Unabridged. In this science fiction novel, the United States suffered a horrible day of terrorist attacks known as the Day of Destruction in the 2040's. There were nuclear attacks in some places but Philadelphia was attacked by a nerve gas called Obcasus. The gas itself was bad enough, but the side effects are worse. Women who were exposed give birth to children with brain damage that makes them uncontrollably violent - even as infants. They are called inexorables. Our main character is Dr. Ethan King, a Philadelphia infectious disease doctor that has treated patients for Obcasus exposure since the Day of Destruction. He is happily married but he and his wife cannot have children. One day, Dr. King spots a starving, nearly dead Inexorable child as he is leaving the hospital late at night and he decides to take it home... The premise behind this book was very strong. However, I

Published in 2017 by NavPress The title of the book comes from a passage in the fifteenth chapter of the Book of Luke. In the previous chapter, Jesus ate with Pharisees (a Jewish sect that prided themselves on their strict adherence to all of the religious rules of the day) and told them not to be too prideful as they picked their seats for this "dinner party". In Chapter 15, we come across this passage: Now the tax collectors  and sinners were all gathering around to hear Jesus.   2  But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law muttered, “This man welcomes sinners and eats with them.” 3  Then Jesus told them this parable:   4  “Suppose one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of them. Doesn’t he leave the ninety-nine in the open country and go after the lost sheep until he finds it?   5  And when he finds it, he joyfully puts it on his shoulders   6  and goes home. Then he calls his friends and neighbors together and says, ‘Rejoice with me; I have found my lo

Published in 2015 by Eastern National A year and a half ago I visited the Lincoln home at Springfield, Illinois (a great place, by the way) and in the visitors center I found this book. I was intrigued for three reasons: 1) the Park Service books are always beautifully put together, like a National Geographic with lots of color pictures; 2) I knew nothing about any Asian participation in the Civil War - I figured there had to be some because the war was so vast and involved so many people - but I knew nothing about them; 3) This was the physically largest book in the series - even bigger than the books on the Underground Railroad and American Indians in the Civil War - two areas that are well documented. This book continues in the tradition of being beautiful visually. It is written as a series of articles, each telling a part of the overall story and each article is illustrated with high quality photos. However, the articles are often overlapping, with mentions of some of the sa

Published by Basic Books in 2018. Zoologist Lucy Cooke explores some of the offbeat bits of the animal world in The Truth About Animals - a book that shows us that most of us think we know a lot about the animal world, but we really don't. None of the animals featured are obscure - they are all well-known, with the possible exception of the eel (at least in the United States).  A surprising example of an invasive species - wild hippos thriving in Colombia thanks to Pablo Escobar. The animals featured in the book are: eels, beavers, sloths, hyenas, vultures, bats, frogs, storks, hippos, moose, pandas, penguins and chimpanzees. Cooke usually begins with a look at the animal in question in historical texts so that we can see that these misunderstandings have been going on for hundreds, if not thousands, of years. For example, bats have been misunderstood and mis-classified since...well, forever. The struggle to figure out how exactly bats travel at night was especially grues

Published by ChristianAudio.com in 2012. Duration: 2 hours, 19 minutes Read by Mirron Willis Unabridged Even though this book was published 4 years prior to the 2016 election, it was surprisingly relevant to the Trump era of politics. Tony Evans is a pastor and also a chaplain for an NFL team. This is important, because he uses a football analogy the referee to describe the role of Christians in the election process. I went into this audiobook ready to be irritated - irritated because so many big name Christian leaders have become very political as of late - forgoing the work of God's kingdom for the work of a politician or a political party, in my mind. Evans is quite clear that Christians should vote and should fully participate in the process - to not do so would be not using one of the tools we have to impact the culture and the country. BUT, Christians should not become blind followers of a politician or a party because they do not necessarily advocate the kinds of law

Published by Tantor Audio in May of 2018 Read by Peter Berkrot Duration: 7 hours, 4 minutes Unabridged I pounced on this history because Ethan Allen and the Green Mountain Boys have always been a mysterious presence in my readings on the Revolutionary War. They show up during the early days of the war and add a zest of mystery and frontiersman derring-do that blunts British momentum. And then...they just disappear from the typical history. Ethan Allen (1738-1789) The book follows the timeline history of the American Revolution, going back and forth between a series of the Green Mountain Boys. My fleeting impression of them was that they were some sort of super-patriotic mountain men. The reality, on the surface, seems more nuanced. But, in reality, I think that I was right. They were super-patriotic mountain men, but their loyalties did not lie with the United States - their devotion was to Vermont and only Vermont.  Vermont was not a colony when the Revolutionary War star

Published in 2009 by Christian Audio Read by David Cochran Heath Duration: 2 hours, 26 minutes Unabridged This collection of Martin Luther's writings has a great strength in that it lets Martin Luther speak for himself with no other author offering interpretations. However, this is also its weakness since some of these documents could have used a bit of explanation.  Martin Luther (1483-1546) Considering that these texts are around 500 years old, most are surprisingly accessible. The editors chose to include the Ten Commandments section from Luther's Small Catechism   that was easy to understand with no additional explanation necessary. However, it would have been helpful to have some sort of introduction to the opening text - Luther's 95 Theses . I am both a lifelong Lutheran and a history teacher and even I found the straight through reading of all 95 theses to be more than a bit dry.   The most powerful text is a sermon on Confession and the Lord's Su