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Jackie Robinson's story - with a twist.

Revisado: 11-25-22 El oyente recibió este título gratis

Published by Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company in October of 2022.
Read by Shamaan Casey.
Duration: 10 hours, 57 minutes.
Unabridged.

Jackie Robinson.

He is an icon of sports. And politics. And American history.

All fans of baseball know at least the broad strokes of the story of Jackie Robinson (1919-1972) and how he integrated baseball. This book offers a detailed re-telling of that story with a twist - a look at how Jackie Robinson's faith led him to this path and helped sustain him.

Robinson's early life, his time in service during World War II and his college sports career and his relationship with his wife are all covered. The biggest single part of the book is, appropriately, the story of how he and Branch Rickey (the head of the Brooklyn Dodgers) worked together to integrate Major League Baseball in 1947. The book also looks at how Rickey's faith led him to act to make the world a more just place by acting in such a symbolic manner.

I am not going to go through all of the details of Robinson's life - that's what the book is for. This book covers it all pretty thoroughly right up until his death in 1972. Sometimes, it was a little slow and repetitive about how Robinson demonstrated his faith. On the whole, though, it was a good listen.

The audiobook was read by Shamaan Casey. He had a perfect voice deep solemn voice for narrating this book. The only complaint I had was that he mispronounced several people's names, including singer/civil rights activist Harry Belafonte and baseball players Orel Hershisher and Derek Jeter. I don't look at this as necessarily the fault of the reader - if you don't know the name, you don't know the name. In my mind, the producer or director of the audiobook should have caught and corrected the mistakes.

I rate this audiobook 4 stars out of 5.

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I tried...

Revisado: 06-26-20

I tried to listen to this book but I simply could not finish. I am a regular listener of audiobooks and it is rare for me not to finish a book

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2 of the 3 novellas are FANTASTIC!

Revisado: 06-15-19

Published by WordFire Press LLC in April of 2019.
Read by Charles Kahlenberg.
Duration: 5 hours, 22 minutes.
Unabridged.

The title of this audiobook says it all - this audiobook is actually a collection of three novellas. Nothing about any of these stories was particularly original, but I enjoyed two of the three immensely.

Story #1 is called Comrades in Arms. It is set in an asteroid belt that is actually the front line of a war between humans and a insect-like species. This story has a familiar vibe - think Robocop meets Enemy Mine. I rate this novella 5 stars. Very entertaining.

Story #2 is called Escape Hatch. It is set on a future earth in which a water-based alien species has invaded. They are sort of like eels and jellyfish. They combine together to create massive sea monsters and they are destroying Earth's combined navies. This story has a clever twist and has a very satisfying ending. I rate this novella 5 stars.

Story #3 is called Prisoner of War. This story is set in a world at war. No one really remembers why the war started and soldiers are literally being bred and raised just to fight the war. Several species of animals have also been adapted to fight. This story seemed like a missed opportunity. It hinted at being critical of our seemingly endless wars against "terror" and the toll they take on our soldiers - but it misses the mark and the story just fizzles. I rate this story 2 stars out of 5.

The stories were read by Charles Kahlenberg. He has an interesting voice - a change of pace from the typical voice stylings of most readers.

The average score is this collection is 4 stars out of 5.

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Suffers from peaks and valleys

Revisado: 06-10-19

Published in 2019 by WordFire Press LLC.
Read by Stephanie Minervino.
Duration: 13 hours, 33 minutes.
Unabridged.


In the year 2034 a private corporation is making an attempt to build a colony on the surface of the moon to act as a home base for asteroid miners. They make the long run from the moon to the asteroid belt and back so that the lunar base can refine the metals found in the asteroids. It's a solid plan, but it has to start with almost nothing and work it's way to the kind of lunar colony you see in the movies.

The world of 2034 is different in some ways. There are early references to some sort of traumatic biological problem, such as rampant infectious disease. A great deal of the early parts of the book is devoted to Stormie and Frank Pastorelli, two prospective lunar colonists that expose themselves to the risk of contracting a bloodborne pathogens when they help the victims of a car crash. The lengths they go to cleanse themselves of pathogens and the fear exhibited by other potential colonists tell me that this was not HIV or hepatitis. Sadly, it is never explained what the infection could have been even though the infection story line comes up again and again throughout the entire book.

NASA is rarely mentioned in this book because this colony is a private venture. Imagine if Elon Musk and Space-X decided to go the moon and you get the idea. But, it's not entirely a company operation - there are independent contractors that manage parts of the small-but-growing lunar colony and there are independent contractors that deliver goods. It all can be very complicated and decidedly not glamorous to hash out who has what responsibilities with the lawyers - just like most corporate gigs.

If you remember the literary devices you learned about in school (man vs. man, man vs. self, man vs. nature) - this book is almost entirely man vs. nature - the nature is the harsh environment of the moon. It is the ultimate unforgiving environment - it is so cold that you will die almost instantly upon exposure, it has no atmosphere so you can't even take a breath and fluids burn away immediately when the sunlight hits them. The temperature extremes (more than a 500+ degree Fahrenheit difference) are tough on the machinery and the dust...well the dust gets everywhere and unlike Earth dust, it can be sharp and jagged (no weathering to take off the harsh edges) and it can tear up all sorts of stuff.

Building a colony in such conditions can be a tedious venture. You cannot just say "good enough for now" and then come back and fix the leaks later on once the colony starts to make some money. It all has to be perfect on the first try or people die.

The audiobook was read by Stephanie Minervino. She was given a hard task in this book - there are a lot of male voices and there are a variety of accents (the first lunar colonies will have to access talent from around the world). She did a strong job with this book.

This book gives the reader a taste of what our first lunar colonists (I do believe that we will be there eventually - NASA is making rumblings about it again) will be up against. It will be, as noted above, a tedious venture. Tedious things do not make the best topics for a book and there are times when this book drags. It is is not a horrible book by any means - but it suffers from peaks and valleys and some of the valleys are pretty big.

I am giving this book 3 stars out of 5. It is not the most riveting of books, but this is a must listen/must read book if you are interested in getting a glimpse of the difficulties in the eventual colonizing of the moon.

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Strong premise but it just doesn't follow through

Revisado: 03-28-19

Published by T.A. Ward Books in May of 2018.
Read by Tom Askin.
Duration: 8 hours, 41 minutes.
Unabridged.

In this science fiction novel, the United States suffered a horrible day of terrorist attacks known as the Day of Destruction in the 2040's. There were nuclear attacks in some places but Philadelphia was attacked by a nerve gas called Obcasus. The gas itself was bad enough, but the side effects are worse. Women who were exposed give birth to children with brain damage that makes them uncontrollably violent - even as infants. They are called inexorables.

Our main character is Dr. Ethan King, a Philadelphia infectious disease doctor that has treated patients for Obcasus exposure since the Day of Destruction. He is happily married but he and his wife cannot have children.

One day, Dr. King spots a starving, nearly dead Inexorable child as he is leaving the hospital late at night and he decides to take it home...

The premise behind this book was very strong. However, I did not enjoy the presentation very much. There is way too much description in scene after scene. There are also long soliloquies and strange turns of phrase by Dr. King that I can't imagine people actually saying in real life. On top of that, I cannot imagine that no one has figured out the big mystery in this story before now.

I listened to this book as an audiobook. The reader, Tom Askin, has a pleasant voice but reads with a soft tone, like a parent might read a bedtime story to a child. He also makes strange pauses, like William Shatner. It made for an odd listen.

There is a sequel to this book and I will not be listening to it.

I rate this audiobook 2 stars out of 5

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Ethan Allen's story is pretty complicated

Revisado: 03-28-19

Published by Tantor Audio in May of 2018
Read by Peter Berkrot
Duration: 7 hours, 4 minutes
Unabridged

I pounced on this history because Ethan Allen and the Green Mountain Boys have always been a mysterious presence in my readings on the Revolutionary War. They show up during the early days of the war and add a zest of mystery and frontiersman derring-do that blunts British momentum. And then...they just disappear from the typical history.

The book follows the timeline history of the American Revolution, going back and forth between a series of the Green Mountain Boys. My fleeting impression of them was that they were some sort of super-patriotic mountain men. The reality, on the surface, seems more nuanced. But, in reality, I think that I was right. They were super-patriotic mountain men, but their loyalties did not lie with the United States - their devotion was to Vermont and only Vermont.

Vermont was not a colony when the Revolutionary War started. At best, it was the beginnings of a colony, but it was claimed by New Hampshire and New York - especially New York. Before the Revolution, the Green Mountain Boys were already fighting a low-level insurgency against the colonial government of New York in an attempt to make themselves a separate colony.

When the Revolution began, many Vermonters looked at the confusion of the was an opportunity to break away from New York, especially if Vermont could prove itself useful to the 13 colonies as an ally. But, repeated attempts to officially become the 14th state were rebuffed and some of the Green Mountain Boys began to court the British in an attempt to play both sides against each other. The goal was always the same - an "independent" Vermont. There were three options: 1) become the 14th state, 2) become a colony attached to Canada but with its own government, 3) become an independent country (not seriously considered by many, but it was always a thought on the back burner).

Ethan Allen tried all of these options at one point. Some of the Green Mountain Boys dedicated themselves to just one course, and if their course failed, they were forced to move away or suffer other consequences.

There was not as much detail to the book as I would have liked. Sometimes, it seemed like the author was skimming the surface, bouncing back and forth as the narrative moved forward.

I "read" Those Turbulent Sons of Freedom as an audiobook. The reader, Peter Berkrot, has a beautiful voice for audiobooks, but his presentation was too dramatic. He made every sentence sound like it was the most dramatic moment of the book - even mundane sentences like lists of supplies that were captured in forts and crops sold by Vermont to Canada. There were certainly plenty of dramatic moments in this book, but the overall effect is weakened when so much of the book is presented as a dramatic moment. It made the book tiresome rather than enjoyable.

I rate this book 4 stars out of 5.

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A short look at the life of Paul

Revisado: 03-28-19

Published in 2015 by Brilliance Audio.
Read by the author, Karen Armstrong.
Duration: 5 hours, 21 minutes.
Unabridged.

Karen Armstrong is a multiple award-winning author of more than 25 books, the great majority of them exploring religion. She is particularly interested in Islam, Christianity and Judaism.

This book is aimed at the informed layman - not at other historians or religious experts. I read A LOT of history and have gone to church my entire life, but I can get lost in the weeds pretty quickly if too much professional jargon is used. Armstrong assumes a basic knowledge of the Christianity and of the New Testament. Nothing too complicated or deep and most of my Bible knowledge comes from Sunday school and small group Bible studies led by layman with a workbook. Armstrong takes care to explain things along the way because she is not out to impress the intellectuals - she has written a history for regular folks.

Paul has always been interesting to me. His writings have always seemed to me to be the first real attempt to move Jesus' teachings into a formal religion. There are times when I find his writings to be quite inspirational. At other times, he strikes me as obtuse and misogynistic. But, I wanted to get into the book to have a better understanding of what he was teaching and when he taught it.

The first thing that surprised me was the concept of Deutero-Pauline letters. Many scholars are now assuming that nearly half of the New Testament letters from Paul were not actually written by Paul, but by writers that came after him and used his name. This was a fairly common practice in Roman times - if you liked an author, you just borrowed his name. The evidence for this comes from analyzing the vocabulary used, the writing styles and changes in theology.

For me, this mostly cleared up one of my major frustrations with Paul - his inconsistencies. I say mostly because he still had some, but not nearly as many.

Her biography of Paul was interesting, but a bit skimpy since the audiobook was only a little over 5 hours long. But, it does hit the main points and I ended up feeling much more informed than I was before I started. I wish she had added more about his impact on the development of the Church over the nearly 2,000 years since his death.

This audiobook was read by the author. Sometimes, that can be a problem because being a great author is not the same thing as being a great audiobook reader. However, Armstrong has considerable experience with public speaking and her performance was quite good.

I rate this audiobook 5 stars out of 5.

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Around the world for 3 cents a mile

Revisado: 10-13-18

Published in October of 2016 by Mark Mooney
Read by the author, Mark Mooney
Duration: 5 hours, 57 minutes
Unabridged

CNN Money editor Mark Mooney's Three Cents a Mile tells the story of his 2 year trek across the world as a vagabond traveler more than 35 years ago. He left New York City and headed east, visiting Ireland, England, France, North Africa, Greece, Turkey, Iran, Pakistan, India, Thailand and even more destinations with nothing more than a few dollars in his pocket and a typewriter and a notebook to compose travelogue articles that he sold to newspapers back in America.

Along the way he met playwrights, authors, poets, star-crossed lovers, thieves, hippies, drug burnouts, farmers, beggars, mystics, and he turned down the chance to meet Mother Theresa. He slept on beaches, in flophouses, on buses, above a bookstore with other aspiring writers, in an apartment building filled with strippers/prostitutes and in a barn. He traveled by plane, by ferry, by bicycle, by bus and, of course, by foot and barely made it out of Iran before Ayatollah Khomeini's revolution took completely took hold of the country. His story of the buses having to carry the right picture (the Shah or his opponent the Ayatollah) in order to be granted safe passage was both scary and funny.

Interspersed with the travel adventures are remembrances of a troubles childhood, especially his relationship with his father, a difficult man. This tense relationship is most likely the reason why Mooney took off on his world-spanning trek in the first place.

I listened to this story as an audiobook. It is read by the author, Mark Mooney, who does not have the typical voice of an audiobook reader. At first I was turned off by his reading style and the fact that I could hear papers rustling from time to time. It was clear to me that he did not put as much into the audio production as the books that I generally listen to. But, his personal style grew on me and there are times when the reader can hear that he is genuinely moved by having to actually speak the words of difficult passages and that adds to the story in a way that a professional reader could not.

I rate this audiobook 4 stars out of 5.

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Surprisingly slow-paced considering its length

Revisado: 10-13-18

Published by Stark Raven Press in 2017.
Narrated by Charles Craig.
Duration: 3 hours.
Unabridged.

Bass Clayton is a bounty killer, basically a paid assassin, in the Old West. He has had no qualms about doing this job - at least he didn't until he tried to kill Silver Grimes. He fired blindly into Grimes' cabin with a shotgun, wounding Grimes and splattering Grimes' girlfriend all over the bed.

Clayton walks away from his bounty hunter gig and becomes the town drunk in a town called Rueful Regret. His plan to slowly drink himself into oblivion is going well until Grimes walks into the bar...

I did not enjoy this audiobook. The book was full of too many folksy expressions and was surprisingly slow-paced considering that it was just a three hour audiobook. But, the worst aspect of the book was an overly detailed description of animal cruelty and bestiality that did nothing to advance the plot. All it did was provide a few minutes of padding in an already slow story in a misguided attempt to add a bit of humor.

Charles Craig was a good choice to read a Western. He has the correct sound for the genre.

I rate this audiobook 2 stars out of 5.

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Travis Henry Carter's performance was memorable

Revisado: 10-13-18

Published by David D. D'Aguanno in 2018.
Read by Travis Henry Carter.
Duration: 8 hours, 32 minutes.
Unabridged.

Brett Cornell is a private detective in Rhode Island. He's big, he's fearless and he knows how to fight. He is full of smart comments, opinions about orange juice and is quite sure that he is the most amazing lover of all time. He is cunning. He is unscrupulous and will certainly pad his bill to eke out as much money as he possibly can from his clients. And, he's not much for education.

Brett begins by running into a series of rough cops at a bar. These are violent officers who throw their weight around with everyone - especially with know-it-all loudmouths like Brett. Soon enough, Brett ends up being challenged to participate in a charity fight with the biggest bruiser cop of the bunch - except that everyone knows that this fight will be for real.


In the meantime, Brett has been hired to find a missing woman who is suspected of having run off to Florida with his client's husband. It's the middle of winter in Rhode Island - who wouldn't want to take a working vacation to Florida? But, things get more and more complicated the more Brett investigates...

The audiobook was read by Travis Henry Carter who delivered a fantastic performance. He performed lots of accents and male and female characters with a lot of skill.

However, I found Brett's long-winded expositions to be wearisome. He is a memorable character, but not one that I would ever choose to spend any time with. The book is told in first person and Brett takes a long time to tell any story. He can be amusing, especially in his profound ignorance (he thinks Tampa is in Arizona, for example), but he just plain old wore me out.

I rate this audiobook 3 stars out of 5.

Note: I received a free copy of this audiobook from the publisher so that I could write an honest review.

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