DWD's Reviews

  Published in 1998 by Sergeant Kirkland's Museum and Historical Society, Inc. Bonekemper lived the dream of most students of the Civil War - once he retired as an attorney, he created a second career as a Civil War author, college lecturer and a frequent guest on C-SPAN to talk about leadership in the Civil War. He also gave 10 lectures at the Smithsonian! Bonekemper is an unabashed fan of the Union side in the war, especially General Grant. I reviewed a book he wrote about Grant here . As Bonekemper loves to point out, only 4 armies were captured during the Civil War and Grant captured 3 of them Grant's subordinate Sherman captured the fourth after Lee had already surrendered his army to Grant. The only general on the Confederate side that can compare to Grant is, of Course, Robert E. Lee. Lee is generally celebrated as the best general in the war and Bonekemper dedicates How Robert E. Lee Lost the Civil War to proving that wrong.  Bonekemper ignores the easiest place to go

  Originally published in 1996 by Little, Brown and Company. The high school I teach at is in the midst of library book purge. I have no idea why Miracle on the 17th Green was ever in a high school library because it is aimed at adults. I don't mean that it has "adult themes" like a movie might label them (drugs, sex, violence, etc.), I mean that it has adult themes like questioning whether you have made the right choices in life, which comes first - family or career? Is it okay to put your family at risk just to achieve your personal goals, especially when they are a long shot? I really enjoyed this book despite never having played even one hole of real golf (I have played plenty of putt-putt golf, but that doesn't really apply, does it?). It didn't really matter - the story was compelling and I faked my way through the golf stuff. James Patterson has a long history of co-writing books. I always figure he's lending his name to up and coming authors in exchan

  Published in 2008 by Usborne Publishing, Ltd. Travis McClure is a teenaged cowboy with a horse named Deuce. He's good at his job and starting to work more and more on his own and he really enjoys being trusted with more responsibility, even if the work is hard and mostly boring. If they make enough money his family can finally return to their own ranch on Earth and make a go of it. You see, Travis and his family are part of a terraforming operation in a future where human beings are starting to move out into the galaxy. They are on Aletha Three, a planet with a climate and atmosphere similar to Earth's. Terraformers bring a few animals, a few planets and try to jump start a biosphere by spreading grass the old-fashioned way - by having animals eat the seeds and spread them in their manure. Or, as the book more delicately describes it: "On Earth, animals like wild bison and wild horses had once covered the grasslands, their hoofs churning the barren soil like a million t

  Published by Recorded Books in 2012. Read by George Guidall. Duration: 8 hours, 16 minutes. Unabridged. Kevin Kerney is a retired police detective living in New Mexico. His former partner has come to him with a plea for help. His former partner's son (Kerney's godson) has gone AWOL from White Sands Missle Range in New Mexico. He had been a model soldier up to the time of his disappearance with clear plans to attend art school once he left Army career.  Here's the difficulty. It wasn't Kerney's choice to retire - he was at the top of his game when he was shot twice in the line of duty in his gut and his knee. This happened because his partner and best friend was out of place -- drinking.  It has been three years. It took Kerney a long time to physically and mentally rehabilitate and he never forgave his former partner for letting him get hurt. Kerney is not asked to forgive his former partner, but to put aside his dislike to go and find his godson. Kerney agrees an

  Published in September of 2020 by Macmillan Audio. Read by Sean Patrick Hopkins and David French. Duration; 7 hours, 18 minutes. Unabridged. David French is, like me, a Never Trump Republican, which means he is a man without a party right now. French starts his book with some observations that rang very true to me. For example, he noted that while he was still a part of the two party system, he didn't really think about the automatic intensely negative reaction both sides have to the other side's proposals. The other side isn't just misinformed, they are evil. They are not just mistaken, they are trying to overthrow America and all of its institutions. They want to murder us in our sleep by taking away our rights. They HATE us. The author It doesn't matter which side is the "they" and which side is the "us" - it is the same argument, it is a dangerous pattern and it threatens to tear the country apart as we self-segregate into communities that tend

  Originally published in 1994. Audiobook version published in 2016 by HarperAudio. Read by Teri Schnaubelt. Duration: 9 hours, 5 minutes. Unabridged. Back in the 1990's, I worked at a used book store. A copy of Everywhere that Mary Went came in. I was intrigued so I read it.  After that, whenever a fan of legal thrillers would come in and ask if we had anything new or a little different I'd hand them that book. Soon enough, we were sold out and we kept on selling them whenever they came in. I even talked a group of ladies to use it for their book discussion group and they loved it. I sort of feel like I had a part in promoting Lisa Scottoline when she was starting out. Eventually, this one book grew into a series of eleven books and I read most of them (maybe all of them - it's been a while).  While I was scrolling through my possible choices of my next audiobook, I decided to go back and revisit this series.  Mary DiNunzio is a lawyer from a working class background abou