DWD's Reviews

Three solid adventure stories Multicast Performance with music and sound effects Duration: 2 hours, 2 minutes. Published by Galaxy Press Tomb of the Ten Thousand Dead is part of a large series of books and stories that are being re-published by Galaxy Press as part of their Golden Age Stories series. In reality, they are a collection of L. Ron Hubbard's early works that were published in magazines and as pulp fiction books. Hubbard was a prolific writer and he wrote a lot of action stories that translate quite well into the multicast performance audiobook format. This edition features 3 short stories. The first is Tomb of the Ten Thousand Dead , the story of a team of freelance archaeologists that are searching for a lost treasure of Alexander the Great in what is now southern Pakistan. When a down on his luck pilot and a local guide find the map, well, who knows what they will find? The second story, Price of a Hat , is the weakest. It is set in Siberia at

A glimpse behind the veil in Taliban-held Afghanistan Read by Sarah Zimmerman Duration: 6 hours, 16 minutes Publisher: Harper Audio, 2011 Gayle Tzemach Lemmon had an interest in how women survive in male-dominated war zones. In the modern world, the war zone is, all too often, not a distant battlefield, but instead includes cities, small towns and plenty of women and children. She was interested in the types of businesses women might open in order to feed their families and she was given the name of Kamila Sidiqi, a college-educated woman who lived through the Taliban invasion of Kabul. Kamila Sidiqi (right) Kamila Sidiqi considered fleeing to Pakistan or Iran but decided that she would stay in Kabul with most of her family. Women were mostly confined to their homes, unless accompanied by a male "minder" to do the shopping. They were certainly not supposed to attend school, have a job or own a business. Kamila Sidiqi does all of these things during the Taliban

An Eye-Opening Book - A Must for Parents and Teachers Published in 2011 by Mariner Books. This is revised and updated from the 2002 edition. Rachel Simmons ' Odd Girl Out helped open up a mostly hidden world for me, a dad and 22 year teacher. Sure, I have lots of experience dealing with kids, but I was missing some of this subtle meanness because I am a guy and the minds of  most guys just don't work this way. Since Simmons completed her original work she has become a teacher and she can now add the perspective of an outsider to the tone of her original book which was based on a series of interviews with girls from around the country in a variety of schools.  The basic concept of the book is that girls bully one another in a way that goes under the radar in schools and at home. Unlike the overt taunting and physical violence that often happens in male bullying, girl bullying is more sly and includes such actions as shunning, sharing secrets, building alliances of frien

A different kind of book Read by Linda Emond Duration: 10 hours, 45 minutes Published by Harper Audio. Laura Lippman's The Most Dangerous Thing is a superbly deep character study that looks into the lives of 5 suburban children in the 1970s and follows them into the present. These kids are the best of friends for a couple of summers. They consist of three brothers, a beautiful tomboy and a chubby girl who blossoms. They come from three different families, go to three different schools but all live in the suburban neighborhood of Dickeyville, near Baltimore. They spend hours exploring the woods near their neighborhood and what they find there becomes part of a secret that eventually drives the least stable member of their quintet to commit suicide as an adult decades later. Laura Lippman As the friends gather for the funeral the secret is slowly drawn out for the reader through a series of flashbacks (through the eyes of all five of the friends and their parents) an

A troubling biography. Thomas Nelson Publishers has stepped out and published an attractive series of short biographies of American generals - all nicely bound and immensely readable. But, I found Sherman: The Ruthless Victor to be more than a little troubling for what really amounts to just a few sentences in a 163 page book. Clearly von Hassell and Breslin are not writing this biography as fans of Sherman - they dislike the man as a person and do not respect his accomplishments on the battlefield. That is fine. I can live with a negative biography of an historical figure, but this book has moments that stretch the limits of responsible biography. For example, on page 22 the authors note that Sherman's difficult childhood may have caused strains in his relationships with his wife and his children. Reasonable assumption. But, then they go on to say that his "revulsion from scenes of domestic happiness" caused him to be particularly rough on the South during the Civ

A very busy book that just didn't do it for me. I enjoyed meeting retired detective Harlan Donnally who was forced to retire due to an injury sustained during a shootout. He goes about his business with a battered body but a world class commitment to following the trail to wherever it leads. But, the book has so many twists and turns that it felt like the author was whipsawing the story around just build an artificial sense of tension. We start out with an investigation that dates back to the Haight Ashbury Summer of Love movement in San Francisco but the investigation soon veers into other territory: Catholic priest sex abuse and international sex trafficking as well as the dynamics of the dysfunctional relationship between a father and son. The first part was interesting to me, the last part - old and tired territory. Gore notes at the end of the book that his wife is involved in investigating Catholic priest sex abuse accusations in the San Francisco area, which is the in

Lots of Fun! Duration: 1 hour, 50 minutes Multicast Performance Published by Galaxy Press First published in 1936, Sky Birds Dare! is part of a large series of books and stories that are being re-published by Galaxy Press as part of their Golden Age Stories series. In reality, they are a collection of L. Ron Hubbard's early works that were published in magazines and as pulp fiction books. Hubbard was a prolific writer and he wrote a lot of action stories that translate quite well into the multicast performance audiobook format. Sky Birds Dare! is the story of Breeze Callahan, a young glider pilot who is convinced that the U.S. military's pilots could learn a lot from learning how to pilot gliders before they fly motorized aircraft. A glider is like a small plane that has no engine and is towed into the air by a motorized plane or by a car with a rope (much like a person running with a kite trailing behind). Callahan and his mentor Pop Donegon are thwarted over and

                                 Wow! Read by Donald Corren Duration: Approximately 9 hours. Published by Blackstone Audio, 2011. T.C. McCarthy ’s Germline is a non-stop military techno-adventure set in the middle of a war in Central Asia in the 22 nd century. Russia and the United States are fighting over the resources of Kazakhstan. It turns out that Kazakhstan is rich in rare metals that are needed for the 22 nd century’s technological devices. They have to be mined deep in the mountains of Kazakhstan and the mines, countryside, little villages and cities of Central Asia become battlefields. Oscar Wendell is a washed-up, drug-addicted reporter for Stars and Stripes . He is the only reporter in the entire theater of war and he is not quite sure how he was picked over better-known reporters. But, he is determined to make the best of his opportunity, already envisioning the Pulitzer Prize as the world’s biggest story unfolds in his lap. He is given some very basic t

A tepid introduction to Dostoevsky Published in 2011 by Thomas Nelson. I freely admit to knowing only the barest of details about Fyodor Dostoevsky before starting this book. I was aware of the arguments of some of his works and am familiar with the broad strokes Tsarist Russian politics before the Revolution. I picked up this book after becoming intrigued with some of Dostoevsky's ideas while reading a book by A Point in Time by David Horowitz. Horowitz quotes extensively from Dostoevsky and talks about his thoughts about evil in the world, God's place in the world, if there is one. Sadly, I learned more about Dostoevsky's philosophy from Horowitz than I did from this slender biography dedicated to the man. Fyodor Dostoevsky (1821-1881) Don't get me wrong, this is a solid little book to learn about the details of his personal life, but it suffers from the lack of in-depth discussion about his ideas and the use of reconstructed conversations throughout tha

An interesting, disorganized read Published 2011 by Regnery Publishing David P. Goldman's Why Civilizations Die is an ambitious study in demographics, history and cultural legacy that attempts to predict the future of Western Europe, the Middle East and the United States. In a way it is a less humorous  version of Mark Steyn's After America , except that Goldman takes in the same data and comes up with radically different conclusions. Goldman is writes a monthly column under the pseudonym of Spengler at Asia Times Online , a fact that Goldman assumes his readers know before they open the book and a fact I did not know (it's on the dust cover, but I had set aside the dust cover). I kept wondering who Spengler was and why Goldman was quoting him so liberally and did not get the joke until the second-to-last page of the book. Throw in a chaotically arranged beginning to the book with lots of wonderful points arranged in an apparently random fashion and this reader was

An entertaining superhero story with a twist Published 2011 by Tor. Imagine if your parents were both legendary superheroes and you have no super powers at all. In fact, the closest you have come to being physically heroic is winning a silver medal at a high school swim meet.They have been "outed" and everyone knows them by their regular identities and as superheroes and you are a frequent target of various supercriminals who kidnap you to try to influence your parents. It happens so often that it would be funny if it wasn't interrupting your attempt to blend in, be normal and succeed in your career as an accountant. Carrie Vaughn That's the premise of After the Golden Age , a book that promises a superhero story with a twist and delivers. Celia West is a promising young accountant whose parents are the larger-than-life superhero duo of Captain Olympus and Spark. He's a Superman knock off with the nasty attitude and wealth of Batman. She creates fire at

An interesting history that has been told plenty of times before. Read by the author, Bill O'Reilly Duration: 8 hours Published by Macmillan Audio Probably no figure in American history has received more attention than Abraham Lincoln. Political commentator Bill O'Reilly was, in the early 1970s, a high school history teacher. He wrote this book out of a true passion for Abraham Lincoln. It is clearly not a professional work since it does contain many simple mistakes (for instance, he refers to the Oval Office when it was not actually added to the White House until the early 1900s). I listened to the audio version of this book. To be honest, I was reluctant to listen to it since it is narrated by O'Reilly and I am not a huge fan of his work as a political commentator. In fact, O'Reilly's rather odd style of speech both made the read more interesting. John Wilkes Booth (1838-1865) The book tells the story of the last few days of Lincoln's life, in

Fun and you just might learn something. Narrated by Tom and Ray Maggliozzi Duration: 3.5 hours. Publisher: HighBridge Audio Tom and Ray Maggliozzi's car repair show, Car Talk , has been a NPR staple for years now. The show features the two wise-cracking brothers as they field questions about cars and car repairs from all over the country. Car Talk Classics: The Pinkwater Files features four complete shows from the mid-1990s that featured phone calls from author and NPR commentator Daniel Pinkwater. Pinkwater's sense of humor is different than the Maggliozzi brothers, but they roll with him quite well and those four phone calls are the highlight of the collection. Pinkwater never really has a question for the brothers but instead offers his observations concerning his struggles with getting a car that fits his stocky build, how to know when your dog is going to throw up in your car and the Theory of Displaced Misery (this theory states that a person can only have so m

A smart spy thriller Read by Simon Vance Duration: 12 hours, 15 minutes Daniel Silva 's Portrait of a Spy features Israeli master spy Gabriel Allon, now semi-retired and living and working in rural England as a restorer of paintings. Europe is suffering a wave a suicide bombings. While in London on business he spots a suicide bomber on his way to blow himself up in a London open-air area of markets and restaurants. He steps in with his weapon but is stopped by UK agents that think that he is the threat and the bomber detonates himself. Allon is told to walk away but he is haunted by his failure. When he is approached with the chance to infiltrate the financial network of the same terror network he leaps at the chance. This is a joint CIA/Israeli operation and the muddled politics of our current administration (make grand overtures, continue the rendition program, bomb some dictators, not others) are mirrored in this fictional administration. Silva has brought the "A

Regnery Publishing's newest imprint, Regnery History has found something new to tell about one of the most written-about parts of World War II: D-Day. You may ask yourself, what else can be said about D-Day that hasn't been said? We have had powerful, visceral movies like Saving Private Ryan , The Longest Day and Patton and the famed HBO series Band of Brothers . Article after article and book after book have been written about D-Day, the Battle of the Bulge and the final days of Nazi Germany but somehow we have failed to have had a serious biography of one of the invasion's central planners and one of the men who engineered the entire campaign from the beaches of Normandy until the defeat of Germany: American 5 star general Omar Bradley. The problem with Omar Bradley and historians is that he is not Patton. Patton is brash, daring and iconic. Bradley did not chase headlines and did not wear fancy pistols. He was daring, but not as daring as Patton. He knew that

Overreach hurts the overall argument Published in 2011 by Regnery Publishing. I feel I must establish my bona fides here. I am an Iain Murray fan. I really enjoyed his book The Really Inconvenient Truths (to see my review click here ). On my favorite quotes page on this blog, there is an Iain Murray quote (really!). But, while I am a fan, in this book, I think that Murray has made many, many valid points but overreached on others. The over-argument weakens the overall book, in my opinion. Also, in the interest of making everything clear, I have chosen to be a member of public employee union - the Indiana State Teacher Association (we choose to be a member or not in Indiana). I have actually gone to state level meetings as a representative of my local union. I have been invited multiple times to attend trainings so that I can become more involved but I have not done so due to family commitments. That being said, I can clearly see that there are tensions between being a political c

                                          Not good. Published by MacMillan Audio in 2011 Read by Scott Sowers Duration: 15 hours, 6 minutes Unabridged Multiple Edgar Award-winning author John Hart delivers a dud with Iron House , a book with too many disparate themes, too many stereotypical storylines and characters that might have been stolen from central casting at any Hollywood B movie and with too much detail about the scenery. Combine it with an overly dramatic reading by Scott Sowers and it makes for an altogether unsatisfying audiobook experience. In Iron House we have a mafia crime boss on his death bed. His adopted son, Michael, has asked to be released from his obligations to the family business so that he might pursue a normal life with his pregnant girlfriend. But, as everyone knows, you cannot just walk away from the mafia, especially if you are known as the most effective hit man in the organization. So, Michael becomes a target of the organization he helped b

Steve Martini The book that launched the series Almost 20 years ago, the first book in the Paul Madriani series was released. Over time (and 12 books), it has morphed into less of a legal thriller series into more of an action series with a legal thriller bent to it. But, the first one is a good old-fashioned murder mystery and courtroom drama - and a surprisingly good one for a debut effort. In Compelling Evidence we are introduced to Paul Madriani, a struggling solo practice attorney who has recently left a big league law firm because he was having an affair with a senior partner's wife. In the office next door is a new friend, Harry Hinds (his law partner in later books). When that same senior partner is found dead, Martini is hired to defend the widow in a wild and wooly murder trial in which everyone seems to have a motive, including Madriani. This is truly a great legal thriller. It may very well be the best in a very solid series. It has aged very well and is

A Big Change of Pace for Horowitz David Horowitz is best known as a fearless in-your-face political brawler. He will literally go anywhere to debate anyone about any political topic - the more strident the opponent, the better he seems to like it. My local news and talk station interviews Horowitz once a week and I have heard a great deal of those interviews over the years. Horowitz is a formidable debater - a partisan of the first rank. To be honest, it never occurred to me that Horowitz had another gear (which, of course, is silly - we all have other interests) so when I read the description of this short book I knew I had to check it out. In A Point in Time: The Search for Redemption in This Life and the Next , Horowitz waxes philosophical on time, how things change in this world (or more properly, how nothing ever seems to change), the way dogs live their lives compared to the way people live their lives, the paradox of the fragility and strength of horses, how out history i