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Showing posts from May, 2017

DIE TRYING (Jack Reacher #2) (audiobook) by Lee Child

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Published by Penguin Audio Originally published in 1998. Read by Jonathan McClain Duration: 14 hours, 47 minutes Unabridged Jack Reacher helps out a lady in need with her dry cleaning and ends up being kidnapped, thrown in the back of a van with her and driven across the country as part of an over-the-top plan. Reacher tries to figure out a way to escape while simultaneously trying to figure out why the kidnappers them in the first place. Of course, once he starts to figure out things, he discovers that their near hopeless situation is actually worse than he thought... Lee Child This is a great Reacher novel. I am listening to them all out of order, which isn't much of a problem since Lee Child isn't really writing them in any particular order. Lots of action, plenty of plot lines and Reacher himself make this entry worth reading. This is the first Reacher novel I have listened to that was read by Jonathan McClain. Most of them I have heard were read by Dick Hil

THE POSTMAN by David Brin

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Originally published in 1985. This is the book that inspired the Kevin Costner movie of the same name. It has a lot of similar features but the movie changed a great deal. Gordon Krantz is a survivor of the Doomwar, a nuclear and biological war between all of the world powers. The war was bad enough but survivalist groups called the Holnists made survival in what was left behind. The Holnists are united by a common ideology that teaches that some men are naturally superior to others and every man must grab what he can get in this world. Krantz is slowly working his way across the country. He started out in Minnesota and 15 years later he has made it to Oregon. He has to walk because the nuclear pulse wiped out the electronics. Life is tough everywhere, but in most places it resembles the Mad Max movies more than anything else so it is slow going. Krantz loses everything to a group of thieves and luckily stumbles upon a mummified letter carrier in a postal jeep - a man who drov

BEHIND REBEL LINES: THE INCREDIBLE STORY of EMMA REDMONDS, CIVIL WAR SPY by Seymour Reit

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This is the story of a real-life Civil War hero. Despite technically not being able to join the army at all because she was a woman, Emma Edmonds joined crossed the American-Canadian border to join the Union army for the action and adventure. She knew full well that she could keep up with the men because she grew up helping on her family farm. But, she never expected the adventures she experienced during the war. Emma Edmonds (1841-1898) Seymour Reit tells a fictionalized version of this true story (the events are real, the details, like conversations, are made into a story) that starts out working in an army hospital but soon ends up dressing up in different outfits and crossing the enemy lines to act as a spy and had all sorts of close calls while generating plenty of usable information. This is an immensely readable book. My fifth grader chose it to read for a school project and her enthusiasm for the book inspired my wife and I to read it as well.  I rate this book 4 st

STANDARD HERO BEHAVIOR by John David Anderson

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Published in 2007 by Clarion Books Indianapolis native John David Anderson's Standard Hero Behavior is a tongue-in-cheek look at the Lord of the Rings type fantasy world, sort of like The Princess Bride .  Mason Quayle is a young, under-employed bard (he write epic songs about heroes and the like) and his best friend Cowel sells epic plumes for the hats of heroes (think Three Musketeer hats). The problem is that they live in a town that used to be full of heroes but the new duke of their city has the monsters under control. It used to take dozens of heroes, now it is handled by one man. Mason can't figure out how he does it all by himself because his father used to be the most-requested bard for all of those heroes and he's very familiar with the old songs and stories. But, that was a long time ago. His father is gone, disappeared along with several of the most powerful heroes while off on an epic quest.  One day Mason is summoned to the Duke's home and he

THE HARD WAY (Jack Reacher #10) (audiobook) by Lee Child

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Published by Brilliance Audio in 2008. Read by Dick Hill Duration: 12 hours, 2 minutes Unabridged Jack Reacher is just hanging out in a New York City coffee shop, drinking coffee and staring out the window when he gets caught up in a kidnapping case. Turns out he witnessed the money hand off without even realizing what he was seeing. The ransom payer tracked Reacher down, picked him up and brought him to his exclusive penthouse apartment/office. Turns out his wife and stepdaughter have been kidnapped and he has decided to leave the police out of it and just pay the ransom. The millionaire runs a quasi-legal mercenary operation and has decided to use his best men to search out the kidnappers and eliminate them...and he wants Reacher to help due to his previous police experience and offers him a hefty cash bounty if he produces. But, as Reacher starts to dig into why someone would want to kidnap his new employer's wife and stepdaughter he starts to find a lot more nagging qu

THE BATTLE of GETTYSBURG: AMERICAN HERITAGE SERIES (audiobook) by Bruce Catton

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Published by Highbridge, a division of Recorded Books in January of 2017 Read by Eric Martin Duration: 3 hours, 4 minutes Unabridged I love Bruce Catton's histories of the Civil War. As a rule Bruce Catton (1899-1978) wrote histories that are easy to read, thorough enough to give the reader a solid grasp of the issues and peppered with well-told human interest stories.  Confederate Major General George Pickett (1825-1875) This history of Gettysburg feels a bit disjointed, sort of like it was a knitted together from a series of articles that Catton wrote for American Heritage magazine. For example, it spends a lot of time looking at the events just before the battle and skips one of the more dramatic and important moments of the battle on the second day (Little Round Top). However, the exaggerated emphasis on the first day did not bother me. Too often the first day is sort of skipped over and it's not like the second day was ignored - it just focused on Dan Sickles

VICTORY at YORKTOWN: A NOVEL (George Washington Series #3) (audiobook) by Newt Gingrich and William R. Forstchen

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Published in November of 2012 by Macmillan Audio. Read by William Dufris Duration: 12 hours, 2 minutes Unabridged Newt Gingrich and William R. Forstchen conclude their Revolutionary War-based trilogy with an up-and-down look at the final year of real action in the war (October of 1780 to October of 1781). Surrender of Lord Cornwallis by John Trumball The actual battle descriptions are quite good in the book. The book is absolutely great with its explanation of the strategies employed to maneuver Cornwallis into the Yorktown fortifications, the coordination between the French and American forces and demonstrates just how narrow this victory really was.  However, the audiobook starts out with a two hour overwrought description of the execution of Major Andre. Andre was the British officer that conspired with the infamous American traitor Benedict Arnold. While this scene was used referred back to often throughout the rest of the book, the scene itself was very repetitious 

THE GIRL on the TRAIN (audiobook) by Paula Hawkins

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Published in 2015 by Penguin Audio Read by Clare Corbett, Louise Brealey and India Fisher Duration: 10 hours, 59 minutes Unabridged Every day Rachel sees the same couple in the same house as she is commuting to London on the train. The train makes a regular stop near this house while waiting for another train to clear the track and Rachel stares out at the backyards of the neighborhood where she used to live before her husband left her for another woman. She notes the attractive new couple that has moved in a couple of houses down from her old house and makes up pretend glamorous background stories for this seemingl y happy couple whose house is identical to the one she used to live in. One day she is shocked to see the lady from her fantasy world kissing another man. Even worse - soon after, that woman disappears, is presumed dead and becomes the center of a media frenzy. Rachel tries to get involved by telling the police about the other man but she tells her story so poor

SMALL WARS: A JACK REACHER STORY (audiobook) by Lee Child

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Published in 2015 by Random House Audio. Narrated by Dick Hill Duration: 1 hour, 30 minutes Unabridged Lee Child. Photo by Mark Coggins Jack Reacher is back in his Military Police days in this short story. He has been moved to a new base in Georgia and immediately has a murder to investigate - a new female intelligence officer who is beautiful, rich and is on the fast track to the top is found dead beside her Porsche on a country road near the base. Jack Reacher starts to dig and quickly puts all of the pieces together in a satisfying, but too-short story. All of the stuff you love about a Reacher novel are here:  smart comments, a little bit of fighting, quick thinking and an ending that makes you think about the difference between what is legal and what is just. Dick Hill's narration is spot-on, like always. I rate this audiobook 4 stars out of 5. This audiobook short story can be found on Amazon.com here: Small Wars by Lee Child .

OUT of RANGE (Joe Pickett #5) by C. J. Box

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Originally published in 2005. Wyoming Game Warden Joe Pickett has been re-assigned. Normally, he covers the area around the town of Saddlestring but he has been temporarily re-assigned to a plum location - Jackson, Wyoming - the home of the Grand Tetons and a well-known retreat for the rich and the famous. While Joe is thrilled for the opportunity, he is not happy about the circumstances behind it. A fellow game warden that he knew and respected suffered some sort of mental breakdown and killed himself. Plus, his family has been receiving ominous "breather" phone messages at all times of day and night... So, Joe Pickett goes off to Jackson only to find that this new assignment is extraordinarily complicated by politically-connected power players, trendy protesters and the investigation into the previous game warden's suicide and things are getting weirder and more complicated all of the time... I am reading this series in what seems to be an insane random order.

WORLD WAR II: AIR WAR: AMERICAN HERITAGE SERIES (audiobook) by Stephen W. Sears

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Published by Highbridge in February of 2017 Read by Paul Boehmer Duration: 2 hours, 47 minutes Unabridged Four P-51 Mustangs in formation over Britain. Stephen W. Sears used to write for the magazine American Heritage  and in that capacity more than 50 years ago he wrote a short and simple history of the air war over Europe in World War II. It was designed to be an introductory read for high school students. I am not sure if this audio edition is the same book, but it is serves the same purpose. If you are a casual student of World War II, the kind of person that watches an occasional documentary from the time to time, this is the perfect book. There are details, but not enough to drown the reader. Sears moves the story along at a brisk pace, but still slows down enough to tell a personal story to remind the reader that this was a real story full of real people. He is more likely to tell the story of the average airman than of the generals. Sears discusses the air war over