DWD's Reviews

  Book originally published in 2016. Audiobook published by Harper Audio. Read by Grover Gardner. Duration: 6 hours, 17 minutes. Unabridged. News of the World is a pretty simple book - on the surface. Set in 1870 Texas, a 70+ year-old veteran of the War of 1812 and the Mexican War is asked to travel more than 300 miles to deliver a 10-year old girl to her extended family near San Antonio, Texas. When she was 6, she was adopted by the Kiowa after they killed immediate family in a frontier attack. Their journey starts in Wichita Falls (near the Oklahoma-Texas border) and faces a lot of difficulties.  The author Jefferson Kyle Kidd goes by the name Captain Kidd because that was his rank in the Mexican War, where he served as a messenger. That is appropriate since his true love is bringing news to others. He worked on newspapers, he owned newspapers, he edited newspapers and now he is out of the newspaper business completely due to post-Civil War Reconstruction rules.  Kidd can't stay

  Published in 2020 by Random House Audio. Read by the author, Karla Cornejo Villavicencio. Duration: 4 hours, 53 minutes. Unabridged. Villavicencio is a "Dreamer", also known as a DACA kid. DACA is the program started by President Obama to deal with immigrants who came to the United States illegally as children. Generally speaking, the only country they've ever known is the United States and they had no say in immigrating to the United States. Congress refused to deal with this situation so President Obama created a program through executive orders. This meant that when President Trump came to office he was able to undo a lot of this plan with another executive order.  The author Villavicencio's very personal look at the DACA program and the general mess of our immigration policy was inspired by the election of Donald Trump, but it was not what I was hoping for when I started listening to this audiobook. I was really hoping for policy analysis with a healthy bit of p

  Originally published in 2007. Audiobook re-mastered and re-published in 2015 by Pottermore Publishing. Read by Jim Dale. Duration 21 hours, 37 minutes. Unabridged. Ten months ago I started to listen to the Harry Potter books. I had never read them before and only watched the first movie so I came to the party quite late. But, now I have finished the series. What did I think? The series is quite good. There are plenty of great themes and memorable themes throughout. It is well worth the time to read (or listen, like I did). The last book is an up and down affair. It certainly drags in the middle of the book. This was the part I heard my oldest daughter complaining about years ago when she said it was just three people sitting in the middle of a field talking for way too long. I agree. But, the book does bring the series to a satisfying conclusion with plenty of surprises (that I will not reveal).  So, in the interest of not providing any spoilers, I will just say that I rate this book

  Published in September of 2020 by Macmillan Audio. Read by Kevin Stillwell. Duration: 4 hours, 18 minutes. Unabridged. MacWilliams is a sociologist who studies authoritarianism. He has done a number of surveys over American attitudes towards the Constitution and the freedoms of their fellow citizens and there are areas of concern. For example, "31% of Americans agree that having a strong leader who does not have to bother with Congress and elections is a good way of governing the United States" and "30% of Americans agree with the statement 'I often find myself fearful of other people of other races.'" Other stats of concern are: "44% of Americans agree that increasing racial, religious and ethnic diversity represents a threat to the security of the United States" When you break down the numbers about "18 percent of Americans are highly disposed to authoritarianism. Another 23 percent or so are attitudinally just one step below them on the a

  Originally published in 1953. Digital Audiobook version published in 2008 by Blackstone Audio, Inc. Read by Paul Michael Garcia. Duration: 8 hours, 29 minutes. Unabridged. Legendary science fiction author Robert A. Heinlein (1907-1988) wrote a set of novels for the Scribner's publishing house early in his career as a novelist starting in 1947. Scribner's published 12 of them. One of his most famous works, Starship Troopers , was rejected as one of this series, but it was intended to be in it.  A 14th and final book featuring a female lead character was also rejected.  They all share a theme of space exploration moving roughly from humanity's first steps away from Earth to contact with massive alien empires in far and distant places. Robert A. Heinlein (1907-1988) Starman Jones falls right in the middle. It is the seventh novel in the series and humanity can travel to far and distant places and has met alien species, but it is exceedingly tricky.  Max Jones is a teenager

  Originally published in 2009. Published by Pottermore Publishing in 2015. Read by Jim Dale. Duration: 18 hours, 32 minutes. Unabridged. The Half-Blood Prince is the book that one of my daughters complained about several years ago when she read it. She said it was too much talking and not enough action. Certainly when compared to the previous two books, there is a lot less action and a whole lot more talking. Rowlings changed up the narrative and tells the back story of the villain of the series, Lord Voldemort, by way of an investigation by Dumbledore and Harry. The pace is certainly slower, but the information was valuable. Perhaps it might have been delivered differently, but I was glad to have it.  The last two hours of the audiobook were full of nothing but action and consequential moments.  Jim Dale continued to do a great job with the book, with the exception of the voice of Hermione.  This is my favorite cover of the entire series. Once you get done with the book you can see