No More Mr. Nice Guy, by Dr. Robert A. Glover

This audiobook was obtained from Netlibrary.com through the Alachua County Public Library. It was 6 hours and 38 minutes long and was narrated by Robert O'Keefe.

The long version of this title included this: A proven plan for getting what you want in love, sex, and life. Presumably, this was meant to boost Google hits. However, as a lifelong nice-guy/doormat, I could say, with apologies to Renee Zellweger, "You had me at the title".

Dr. Glover is a clinical psychologist who has been treating a lot of nice guys for years. And he recognized that they were suffering from the same sort of things that he was. They all had partners who they slavishly tried to please, which only gained them more scorn.

No friend to modern feminism, Dr. Glover blames this on an American culture which left raising boys to become men to women. When men started leaving the home to work in factories and offices, the boys had to stay home. They no longer worked with their fathers, learning the trades and learning to be men. Women raised their sons to be more passive aggressive, and when they grew up, they were incapable of providing leadership in their homes. They usually had a finger in the air to figure out what would please their wives.

This description may be a bit off-putting, but it is a legitimate challenge to our current nanny culture of risk avoidance that steals the spine from American males. It's a four star read.

Marker, by Robin Cook

This audiobook was obtained from Netlibrary.com through the Alachua County Public Library. It was 16 hours and 7 minutes long, and was narrated by George Guidall.

Laurie Montgomery and Jack Stapleton are both doctors with the Medical Examiner's office. They determine cause of death by day and are lovers by night. Right about the time that Laurie decides that she has no future with the noncommittal Jack, she takes notice of some unusual deaths at a particular hospital. The deaths have no apparent cause. Everyone else is willing to call them an anomaly. But the decedents are all relatively young people who came in for pretty ordinary surgeries. She begins to suspect foul play.

Laurie comes under a lot of pressure to bury her suspicions. To infer that someone is murdering patients at a prestigious hospital with a low death rate could create problems for the reputation of the medical staff there. Her only ally is the handsome, charming doctor who is the director of personnel at that hospital, who wants to get involved with her.

I know this sounds like a soap opera, and some of it is. It also sounds like the typical Robin Cook novel: young, good-looking doctor with strong ethics runs afoul of rich, powerful, greedy medical community. But Cook has been doing this for a long time, and knows just how much relationship fog to give a book without losing sight of the fact that he is writing a thriller. This is one of his better ones, and I give it 3 stars.

John Paul the Great, by Peggy Noonan

This audiobook was obtained from the Alachua County Public Library through Netlibrary.com. It was read by the author and was 8 hours and 30 minutes long.

This book is almost as much about the author, Peggy Noonan, as it is about Pope John Paul II. This is a very personal recollection of Pope John Paul II by a woman who was greatly affected by him.

Noonan, the former speech writer for Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush, was only a nominal Catholic when she was covering the election of John Paul II by the College of Cardinals as a reporter for CBS. What she learned about him from this fairly close perspective caused her to examine her own life and what she believed. Subsequent close encounters, including a personal audience near the end of his life, had a deep impact on her, and she is not shy about discussing how she arrives at her own need for God.

There is also a good bit about Mother Theresa, who Pope John Paul began pushing for beatification as a saint soon after she died. And, as fawning as Noonan is about Pope John Paul in general, she is pretty tough on him for not dealing directly with the American sex scandals involving priests molesting minors and the church bureaucracy that covered it up.

This was very skillfully written, very touching, and very challenging to anyone who saw the Pope as a mere figurehead in history. Give it 4 stars.

Team Rodent: How Disney Devours the World, by Carl Hiaasen

This audiobook was obtained from the Alachua County Public Library through Overdrive Audio. It was 1 hour and 41 minutes long, and was narrated by Richard Gilliland.

Carl Hiaasen has been known for years for his comedic novels in which the villains are complete greedheads with no respect for Florida's ecosystem. And that's why this non-fiction offering comes as no surprise as he analyzes the corporate entity that could be a composite of all his antagonists worst traits. At least, that is Hiaasen's portrayal of Disney as it goes beyond Orlando and even threatens the skin trade in Times Square.

He makes the case that Disney is able to grow with impunity because it takes so many people with it as it prospers. Land values skyrocket and support businesses flourish, so everyone is excited when Disney is involved in a project. And its values are just as usurping as its lust for property. The level of trust that consumers have in Disney gives it a leg up in evry negotiation and the benefit of every doubt.

But Carl Hiaasen doesn't believe it. And even though he is a bit of an extremist on the other side, he does humorously make the case that Disney is a company that should be watched and held to account by the rest of us. And he does so in such an appealing way, that he gets you nodding and smiling and agreeing with him, just as he believes Disney does with its wholesome image.

It was a rather short book, but informative and funny, and left me wanting more. If that doesn't get you 4 stars, I don't know what does.

Younger Next Year, by Harry S. Lodge, MD and Chris Crowley

This audiobook was a Christmas present and it came on 6 CDs. I highly recommend that you buy it.

I often tell people that I have been fat and thin more times than Oprah. I have frequently gone on diets on which I have lost 40 pounds. At 49, I don't know how often I can get away with this. So, when I listened to this audiobook on a trip right after Christmas, I was ready to listen.

Harry and Chris tag-team this book as Chris, a retired attorney, and Harry, a renowned gerontologist, make the case for daily exercise to fight the tide of aging. They convincingly tell you how you can be "functionally younger" next year. They don't promise you that it can go on forever, but that you can make sure that your last years are lived feeling healthy and vibrant pretty much until the end. Well, sign me up!

Motivation is an important part of the program, which is why a daily regimen is necessary. Anything else is just treading water, so there is relatively little payoff. Harry has the numbers, and Chris has the stories. I wish there was a place to download this for free, but it ain't there yet. However, I can direct you to their website, and I can give this book 4 stars.