DWD's Reviews

  Published in 2014. I have a real weakness for oddball travel books. I have read a memoir about a man that hitchhiked throughout Europe and North Africa, a book about a man's bicycle trip from the UK to India, a book about a man who walked across Afghanistan, a book about a man who rode a motorcycle around the edges of Afghanistan, a book about two women who biked from Turkey to China, a book about a man who walked the length of the Nile, a man who walked the Appalachian Trail with his deeply irresponsible friend from high school...and more. And more. And more. This book fits in best with my book about the 2,190 mile Appalachian Trail because it is set on the American West's counterpart to that trail: The 2,650 mile Pacific Crest Trail. This trail runs from Mexico to Canada through California, Oregon, and Washington State.  Foskett is an experienced long-distance hiker but this hike is a challenge for any hiker to complete in a single attempt. The threat of snow in the mountai

  Published by Recorded Books in April of 2023. Read by the author, Eli Cranor. Duration: 7 hours, 29 minutes. Unabridged. I first heard  this book at an indie book store in a very hip part of the city. If you are an avid reader it is not hard to find more books than you should (or can) buy at one time - so I made a list. This book was on the list and I really wish that it was half as good as I hoped it would be. Synopsis: Jeremiah Fitzjurls owns a junkyard at the edge of a dying Arkansas town. His son is in prison and he is raising his granddaughter. He is a grumpy old curmudgeon and she is an all around great kid. She works at an animal shelter. She is a cheerleader. She is smart.  She is also sneaking away from the high school dance with the starting quarterback after homecoming... Things don't end so well and she decides to walk back to the school rather than spend another minute with her boyfriend. That's when she is abducted by strangers... My review: This brooding book w

Published in 2014 by HarperAudio. Read by the author, Amy Poehler. Duration: 7 hours, 31 minutes. Unabridged. Amy Poehler tells about her life in this memoir. She is best known for her work on Saturday Night Live and her starring role in the NBC series Parks and Recreation . I love Parks and Rec so I decided to give her memoir a listen. She starts with her early life, her first jobs, college and finally discusses her pre- SNL career. From time to time she has guest readers come along and contribute audiobook-only material. Seth Meyers was no surprise, but Kathleen Turner, Patrick Stewart and Carol Burnett were. Her parents each read their own short chapters. It gave the audiobook a bit of a podcast feel. Most of the book was quite enjoyable, but there were too many instances of TMI (too much information.) For example, I now know Amy Poehler's feelings about men performing oral sex on her. I didn't need to know that. z The section about SNL was fun. The chapter on  Parks and

  Published in 2015 by Listening Library. Read by multiple actors from the 2022 movie adaption of this book. Duration: 6 hours, 9 minutes. Unabridged. Synopsis: Greg is a senior in high school. His plan has been to get along with everyone, be welcomed by every group but avoid being a part of any of them. So far, that has worked out.  His only friend is a kid named Earl. Earl is a rough sort of guy. Greg and Earl don't have a lot in common - they don't even hang out together in school. But, they do share a love of moviemaking. They watch movies, dissect them and even make their own movies.  One day, Greg's mom comes and tells him about a girl he knew in middle school. She had developed leukemia. It's a particularly tough form of leukemia and she is unlikely to live more than a few months. She wants him to befriend Rachel (without really realizing how big of an "ask" this is) and Earl comes along... My review: The author, Jesse Andrews I picked this book based o

  Published in 2015 by Penguin Audio. Read by the author, Dan Jones. Duration: 7 hours, 12 minutes. Unabridged. The Magna Carta is commonly considered to be the founding document of Western Democracy. Many believe that there is a direct line goes from the Magna Carta to the Enlightenment (17th and 18th centuries) to the Declaration of Independence (1776) to the Bill of Rights in the American Constitution (1791)  to the Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen (1791) to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948). Jones believes that there is a whole lot of truth to this. but he spends a lot time explaining why the "direct line" is not as straight as many think. King John (1166-1216) signing the Magna  Carta in 1215.  Jones does an excellent job of explaining the political situation in England that led to the Magna Carta in 1215 in reasonable, layman terms. Once the reader understands how the system was supposed to work, Jones demonstrates that King John abused th

Originally published in 2016. English translation published in 2018 by Penguin Press. Before reading this massive 421 page graphic novel, I knew relatively little about Che Guevara (1928-1967.) I knew that he was from South America, he was famous for his part in the Cuban Revolution and that he died trying to lead a revolution in Bolivia. And, of course, I knew him from the famous picture. This graphic novel filled in a lot of blanks for me. It is a friendly biography of Che but doesn't glorify him. When I got to the end I was struck by how much of a failure Che actually was after he left Cuba. He tried to replicate the success of the Cuban Revolution but he could not. It's hard to tell if counter-revolutionary measures from the governments he was trying to overthrow (and the U.S.) were simply more successful than Batista had been in Cuba or if they were missing an additional spark like the Castro brothers had provided. The graphic novel was put together well. It had no confusi

  Published in 2018 by Penguin Audio. Read by Stephen Mendel Duration: 10 hours, 44 minutes. Unabridged Synopsis: The third entry in the Peter Ash series begins with Peter Ash working on a team rebuilding hiking trails in Oregon and writing long heartfelt letters back to his love interest from the second book. He makes friends with an older man named Henry (a Vietnam vet, as opposed to Ash being a vet of Iran and Afghanistan.) Henry gets a call from his daughter in Colorado and asks for Henry's help with her business that provides security for some of the legal marijuana businesses. Turns out that these businesses have to operate completely in cash because marijuana is still illegal so far as the federal government is concerned so banks cannot take credit cards, debit cards or even deposits because it would be considered helping to traffic drugs. This means that there are shipments of pot and shipments of cash coming and going and that can attract bad guys. An entire security crew