DWD's Reviews

Published in 2015 by YWAM Publishing. Read by Tim Gregory. Duration: 4 hours, 55 minutes. Unabridged. YWAM Publishing offers a series of biographies of Christian "heroes of history" aimed at home school students. The fact that this was part of series about "Christian" heroes was a surprise to me since this book didn't mention Hershey's faith at all. Nevertheless, this is an interesting and enjoyable biography of one of America's most successful businessmen, Milton Hershey (1857-1945). This is a book showcasing the value of persistence. Starting with a failed attempt by his father in the oilfields of Pennsylvania in the late 1850's, the first half of this book is a series of business failures from Milton Hershey and his father, Henry. Henry Hershey was more of a dreamer sort of entrepreneur - prone to rash decisions, excited by new technology and not very good on doing the follow up work to make sure that the venture succeeds. They traveled fro

Published in 2018 by HarperAudio. Read by the author, Helen Thomson. Duration: 7 hours, 19 minutes. Unabridged. The author and narrator, Helen Thomson Helen Thomson is a science writer with a background in neurology. She was inspired by the story of the Jumping Frenchmen of Maine to set out to meet and interview ten people who literally experience the world differently than the rest of us. Thomson does a solid job of explaining possible scientific explanations for each of these people's conditions and how those conditions may simply be extreme versions of a phenomenon that we all experience. As in all collections (in this case, a collection of people), some are more interesting than others. For example, I found the story of the man who believed he was dead to be interesting but the story of the man who believed that he was a were-tiger was pretty lame all of the way around. She also looks at a person who doesn't forget anything, a woman who gets lost everywhere, incl

Lincoln Boyhood National Memorial - replica of his boyhood farm. Photo by DWD. Published in 2008 by Indiana Historical Society Press. Most know that Abraham Lincoln came from Springfield, Illinois. But, a lot of people are not aware that at age 7, Lincoln and his family moved to Indiana from Kentucky. Lincoln and his family stayed in Indiana until just after his 21st birthday. In a four paragraph autobiographical sketch written in 1859, Lincoln devoted a little more than a paragraph to these years in Indiana, including this nice little sentence: "There I grew up." All of the stories of Lincoln's childhood (reading by firelight, the legend of the rail splitter, his aversion to shedding blood of any sort, his kindness to animals and more) took place in Indiana. Hoosiers are happy to claim him. The author, William E. Bartelt, worked for fifteen summers at the Lincoln Boyhood National Memorial as a ranger and historian and was the vice chair of the Indiana Abraham Lin

Art by Ed Benes, Rafael Albuquerque, Rags Morales, and John Dell. Published in 2010 by DC Comics. There are three stories in this collection. Story #1. "The Fathers" The weakest of the three. A piece of Kryptonian technology is found in a farm field near Smallville. It comes to life for a few seconds and triggers a reaction in the Batcave. It turns out that the Caped Crusader and the Man of Steel have a previously unknown connection... I rate this story 3 stars out of 5. Story #2. "Lil' Leaguers" Worlds collide in this one. Smaller, more childlike versions of all of your favorite DC superheroes and supervillains enter the Superman / Batman world. Their world is literally smaller and weapons don't really hurt each other in that world. In fact, their universe is just a much more pleasant place on every level. The page where Superman and Batman meet their miniature selves is quite amusing. Lil' Batman and big Batman do not get along and mayhem ensues. S

Published by DC Comics in 2016. Art by Neal Adams. A group of men dressed like Superman crash land in an older couple's Iowa cornfield. They then fly to Lex Luthor's corporate headquarters and engage in a fight against an invasion. It is Darkseid's soldiers coming through a red "tunnel" called a "boom tube". The boom tube allows people to travel from one planet to another instantaneously - like a tunnel between worlds. But, these three new Supermen are not very good at fighting the bad guys are are fairly confused about how to use their super powers. Turns out they are three Kryptonians that have come to defend Earth from an invasion of Darkseid's troops led by his oldest son, the immortal Kalibak, in the hopes that Superman will go to Krypton to deal with a Darkseid invasion.  Meanwhile, Superman is in the Middle East saving civilians in a war zone. Among those civilians are an orphan and his dog. Superman is stopped by a time-controlling alien

Published in 2011 by Brilliance Audio. Read by Phil Gigante. Duration: 7 hours, 56 minutes. Unabridged. The premise of this book is pretty simple: The Bruce Willis movie Die Hard meets Minnesota's  The Mall of America , except in this book it is called America: The Mall. It's Black Friday, the biggest shopping day in the biggest shopping mall in America. Suddenly, Islamic terrorists throw off their disguises, shoot the mall Santa between the eyes and take a thousand people hostage. Turns out that super tough retired Marine Ray Cruz is shopping in the mall and almost immediately sets out to start taking out the bad guys... So, if the book had just followed that basic story line, it would have been better. Instead, it moves away from this compelling story (the "thriller" promised in the title). Instead, we get a lot of political wrangling with an up and coming politician-type leader of the Minnesota State Patrol, his subordinates and the FBI. This character, named Ob