F. Ribeiro

Masterful Storytelling

Revisado: 11-10-22

As a reader fond of this category of novel, I thoroughly enjoyed reading Graham’s story. I found it refreshing in its ability to meld nimbly two divergent literary approaches to create an enormously enjoyable tale.

The narrative vacillates between two distinctive modes of crime/courtroom-drama storytelling, both of which I enjoy immensely. One style is the gritty realism and granular detail of the world of crime and punishment found in the works of a Michael Connelly, who’s tales, like Graham’s, take place in the greater LA area. But Graham successfully weaves into this hard-edged narrative a much more lighthearted and amusing thread, more in the style of a David Rosenfelt canine-themed Andy Carpenter mystery. WGraham seamlessly integrates these disparate narrative styles to create an engaging and entertaining read.

At its core the storyline is a hard-hitting crime and courtroom drama, made more intriguing by the intricate details and insights of an author who himself has served many years as a LA Superior Court judge, the same position held by the novel’s protagonist. It enables the author to provide color and texture to the story that only an insider could properly portray. For example, it was fascinating to learn about the wide diversity of personalities and backgrounds among the Superior Court judges. Their quirks and eccentricities were illuminating. And as the story content is represented as “a compilation of stranger than fiction events witnessed during (Graham’s) decorated career”, there is much of the real world to be discovered in the book, giving it an extra dimension of fascination. The twists and turns of the plot, largely unpredictable, become especially intriguing knowing the events are indeed based on actual occurrences.

The lighter aerating style is most prominent in the delightfully flawed junior heroines. Dawson, a college journalism student, is awkward and insecure in a manner that, to this listener at least, found much simpatico. In stark contrast is Dawson’s girlfriend. Assertive and a bit rascally, she nevertheless retains a charismatic charm that makes her irresistible. The two of them infuse the story with amusing dimensions of discovery and romance. I look forward to Matt Graham's next novel.

Mike Steele was a good choice for the narration. His voice is easy on the ear and he speaks in a comfortable cadence. As an audiobook listener, I found the very short chapters helpful. The nine hour book is broken into almost 90 chapters. It made it much easier to find where I left off in the narrative.

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Niall Ferguson's Most Enjoyable Book

Revisado: 01-08-12

If you could sum up Civilization in three words, what would they be?

Revised my thinking

What does Niall Ferguson bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?

Having heard him live, that same charisma he projects comes through the audio.

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

Not necessarily. But I did listen to the book more than once.

Any additional comments?

I have always found Niall Ferguson, in his books and lectures, to be insightful and thought-provoking. 'Civilization' may be the best example of this to date. Here is one example of a perspective that I found very instructive, Ferguson includes in his list of explanatory variables for the acceleration of civilization in the West the role of Protestant churches. But he goes beyond the obvious, the Protestant work ethic, to explain how church communities and the mutual trustworthiness they engendered enabled smaller merchants early access to credit and so develop early forms of supply chains in the fledgling free-markets of the colonial US (and Northern Europe). He also differentiates between monopolistic and ‘free market’ religions. The former refers to the state religions common in Europe, the latter to the open market for religion in the US. And clearly, churches and church-going have flourished in the US where free-market competition compelled churches to adapt to the changing needs of their congregations. Without that competitive motive, churches in Europe have stagnated or declined.Agree with Ferguson or not, this is a highly informative and enjoyable listen. And I must add, the voices used for quotes that several reviewers complained about I found neither distracting nor offensive. Niall’s reading of the text was articulated very clearly and sufficiently animated, enhanced all the more by that Scottish accent that I have come to enjoy.

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Insightful Listen, But for the Glenn Beck Section

Revisado: 10-13-10

D'Souza has always been a breath of fresh air in today's mangled political discourse. Amid the pseudo-intellectual and outright fanciful commentaries from both the right and left, D'Souza injects an intellectual rigor, in-depth research and a cogent writing style in promoting his conservative perspective. As a centrist, D'Souza has been a important source of factual information and intelligent reasoning for the conservative side. And indeed in "Roots" he came through once again.

However in the chapter on economic policy D’Souza descends to over-simplification, calculated misrepresentation or naïveté. This chapter would have you believe that TARP, FinReg and stimulus spending were all engineered by Obama as part of a grand scheme to weaken post-colonial America. But the design of these policy measures were not conceived in the White House, but by a diverse group: Chris Dodd, Barney Frank, Paul Volcker, Tim Geitner and Henry Paulson (from an earlier administration). And I don't think you could argue that all these individuals share this anti-colonial viewpoint.

To demonstrate the `obvious' failure of stimulus he posits: Party A (taxpayer) gives money to Party B (Government). Party B now spends more, but Party A now spends less. Conclusion: No increase in economic activity--stimulus fails. Trouble is Party A is not a taxpayer, it is the Chinese. The Chinese give the US government money (i.e. buys our bonds) which is spent; current period economic activity/GDP must increase. Of course this has other rather negative consequences. But it is either a naïve or a purposely misleading to explain stimulus this way, one worthy of Glenn Beck.

Despite my disappointment in D'Souza in this section, I think this is an important book and would recommend it. There is enough substantive information here to overcome my misgivings.

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Horrors: Not Poe as Much as This Audio Track

Revisado: 07-31-09

Only 1 hour in length, still I couldn't get through it. The audio track was just too annoying. The narration is constantly accompanied by sound effects aimed, I'm guessing, at creating a horror-film like mood. But these effects are so loud that it sometimes drowns out the narration. And it gets to be tedious very quickly, and ultimately it becomes highly aggrevating. Because of the distracting sound effects it may be a bit unfair to critique the narrator, but it did seem to come off as a very flat reading. It had all the drama of someone reading a cake recipe. The female voice never conveyed the suspense and menace one would expect for a reading of Edgar Allen.

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