DWD's Reviews

Published in 2004 by Books on Tape. Read by Richard Allen. Duration: 9 hours, 39 minutes. Unabridged. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar is most famous as a basketball player - in high school his team won 71 games in a row . He won three national championships in the three seasons he was allowed to play in college (freshmen had to play on a freshman team back then so his first season doesn't count). No one scored more career points in the NBA than Abdul-Jabbar. He is arguably the best basketball player ever. Turns out that he is also a thoughtful, active man with an interest in social justice and history. That's where this book comes in. The 761st Tank Battalion was brought to his attention because, it turns out, he knew one of its members growing up - he just didn't know his story. The problem is, no one really knew the story of these young men - and they should. The 761st Tank Battalion was one of the lead elements of General Patton's push into Germany during the last months o

Originally published in 1937. Penguin Audio edition published in 2011. Read by Gary Sinise. Duration: 3 hours, 11 minutes. Unabridged.  The narrator, Gary Sinise, as the character George in the 1992 film version of this novel.  This is probably the 5th or 6th time that I have read this book. I reviewed it as a print book 10 years ago (click here to see that review ). Gary Sinise read this book and did a fabulous job, especially with the voices of Lennie and Crooks. He played George in one of the many movie adaptations of this novel in 1992. This was my first time hearing this book as an audiobook and I was very impressed that it was an even more effective book when read aloud than in print. This review of one of the most-read, most-celebrated novels in the English-speaking world will not include a plot synopsis - what's the point? Instead, let me say that this short novel has an amazingly tight plot. In this 3 hour and 11 minute story, nearly every scene, and most lines o

Published by Listening Library in September of 2019. Read by the author, Akilah Hughes. Duration: 4 hours, 58 minutes. Unabridged.  To be fair to Akilah Hughes , I had never heard of her before I heard her interview on NPR promoting this book. The interview was good enough that I got the book. If you are not familiar with her, she is a comedy writer and YouTuber with a pretty good following. I really enjoyed the first half of the book - the part that talks about her early life. It was fun in tone and sometimes seriously funny, except for the story of her horrible 5th grade teacher. She tells her story in an episodic manner - by theme. Sometimes, the stories overlap and sometimes she (always confusingly, at first) tells them backwards, such as when she detailed her struggles with weight towards the end of the book. But, when she makes her move to New York, the story changes its tone. It becomes a lot more about name dropping and telling stories about people she is angry with (personal

Museums, parking duty and the point of it all. This book was originally published in 2017 by Abingdon Press. I had a week off of school for fall break last week. During that week I had three experiences of a religious bent (beyond my weekly church attendance): 1) I read this book, 2) I helped park cars for my church's annual "Trunk or Treat" that we host for the community, 3) I visited the Creation Museum in Kentucky. I listed the activities in this order because that is the order of importance on a spiritual level. The Creation Museum is an impressive and beautiful 75,000 square foot facility that, to me, is just the wrong approach to Christianity. It is so bent on proving that every little sentence fragment in Genesis is accurate that it almost entirely misses the point of Christianity. I felt no love or comfort there. It reminded me of the passage from 1 Kings Chapter 19: " 11-12  Then he was told, “Go, stand on the mountain at attention before   God .   Go

Published in May of 2018 by Macmillan Audio. Duration: 6 hours, 58 minutes. Read by Holter Graham. Unabridged. A.D. Jameson is a student of cinema - not just science fiction and fantasy movies, but of cinema in general. I used the word "student" in the previous sentence carefully because he is not just a fan of movies, he studies the directors, the movements and the ideas behind the movies. Photo by DWD But, he is also a proud geek - a fan of sci-fi and fantasy literature and movies. Like me, he was really into those genres in middle and high school, moved away from them for a while during and after college and then came back to them in a big way when the Star Wars "Special Edition" movies were released. My own children do not believe me, but there was once a time when the mere sight of a Star Wars t-shirt or bumper sticker was worthy of comment. Now, they are everywhere. My family probably owns more than 20 Star Wars -related t-shirts alone. A.D. Jameson

First published in 1999. Composition with Red Blue and Yellow  by Piet Mondrian. Reacher's favorite piece of art, according to this novel. Tripwire is the third book in publishing order in the Jack Reacher series (the sixth in chronological order - as of right now). Jack Reacher starts out in the Florida Keys. He is digging swimming pools by hand during the day, working as a bouncer in a strip club at night and drinking lots of bottled water. It is mindless work, but he is getting enjoying that aspect of it. Then, a man from New York City comes to the bar where he is drinking a bottled water and asks if anyone knows Jack Reacher. Reacher lies and says he never heard of the guy. Two more guys from New York City find Reacher at the strip club. They are different than the first guy - pushier and rougher.  Reacher has to get physical with them. When he finds the first guy dead on the street, he decides to head off to New York City to see if he can figure out who is looking