Atlas Shrugged, by Ayn Rand

This unabridged audiobook was obtained from the Alachua County Public Library website, was 63 hours long, and narrated by Scott Brick.

The only book I ever read by Ayn Rand was Anthem. That was in High School, and I disliked it so much, that the last thing I ever wanted to do was read a 1300 page novel by this woman. Thanks to the advent of the downloadable audiobook, and fast Internet connections, I finally decided to take on this behemoth.

As a novel, it's quite engaging. The characters do not leave you without some sort of emotional reaction, even though that reaction ranges from low grade annoyance to a desire to be a part of their firing squad. The story has enough action to keep you moving to the next long-winded diatribe, and even those serve the purpose of helping you distill the whole into your own personal outrage. There is even a romantic element. Dagny Taggart, railroad tycoon and serial femme fatale, finds a love of her life for different stages of it: Francisco D'Anconia when she is young and idealistic, Hank Riordan when she is successful but frustrated with a world that despises achievment, and John Galt when she is ready to do something about it.

As a philosophical vehicle, it is a bit pretentious in that it tries to present itself as a closed system in which all its questions are answered. In the entire story of a dystopian society dying a slow death by central planning, in which its paralyzing worldview of passing no judgment has created an aimless leadership over mindless drones, there is not a single religious character. In a 63 hour storyy, was there not time? Although churches and preachers are eluded to, they are irrelevant to the story; that is, until John Galt's 3 hour speech. This Magnum Opus of Ayn Rand's belief's lays all the world's problems on the doorstep of people of faith.

For an atheist, Ayn Rand seems to have a difficult time coming up with a good religious straw man. If anything, the dim-witted, equivocating, pontificating leadership of her Declining America is suspiciously Liberal in the mold of our current band of politically correct leaders. Even the scientists, foreshadowing our own Global Warming movement, are political toadies pulling the levers of Washington to elevate their esteem in the world.

I found much to disagree with, but much more to like. It is a challenging book that will test your beliefs and work your mind. And it could change a world if enough minds were willing to do the work. It's much easier to believe in God.

I give it four stars.

Guilty, by Ann Coulter

This audiobook was obtained from Overdrive Audio through the Alachua County Public Library and was 10 hours and 27 minutes long. It was narrated by Barbra Streisand...JUST KIDDING!!! It was narrated by Margy Moore, an actress who obviously doesn't mind being blacklisted by Hollywood forever.

There isn't much middle ground where Ann Coulter is concerned. You either think she is an evil harpy who is a continual fountain of hate speech, or you see her a warrior princess on a mission to execute judgment upon egomaniacs in the media and the Democratic Party.

This book is about the victimology of political liberals and their willing accomplices in the press and popular culture. She builds a pretty solid case that there is a liberal media hegemony that has controlled most of the information we get about political and social issues. And now they are outraged as the Internet and cable TV and talk radio have created outlets for those voices who dare to disagree with them. Using many examples and quotes from those she mercilessly excoriates, Coulter examines the hypocrisy of a political establishment that attacks conservatives relentlessly for doing the very same things they themselves have perfected.

In my case, she is preaching to the choir, which is why I gave it 4 stars.

The Hunted, by Brian Haig

This audiobook was 18 hours and 13 minutes long, and was obtained from Overdrive Audio through the Alachua County Public Library. It was narrated by Scott Brick.

A better than average story with below average heroes and above average villains, this novel about a young Russian billionaire has enough bright spots to keep you engaged, but could have been a lot shorter.

Before the dissolution of the Soviet Union, capitalism is beginning to get a foothold, and young Alex Konevitch has made a fortune in arbitrage and banking. He has used his substantial fortune to back Boris Yeltsin, thus helping the fall of communism in a big way. Angry, vindictive KGB officers want to know who has been helping Yeltsin, and when they discover what Alex has done, they begin to use their connections and ruthlessness to ruin him.

After being kidnapped, tortured, and forced to sign over his holdings to a former KGB general, Alex and his wife, Elena, escape and spend months being hunted from Europe to the US, and then persecuted by the FBI, whose politically opportunistic director wants to trade them to Russia for a favorable working relationship.

There is a line between the plausible and the laughable, and this story crossed it just enough times to make it a disappointment. Still, some of it is really good, so that salvages 2 and 1/2 stars for it.

America Alone, by Mark Steyn

This audiobook was a free download from Overdrive Audio, made available through the Alachua County Public Library web site. It is in MP3 format, is 6 hours and 15 minutes long, and was read by Brian Emerson.

In Mark Steyn's opinion, radical Islam is taking over western nations that are too timid to stop them. He also has some numbers that are difficult to deal with, as that timidity manifests itself in the form of birth rates that are too low to replace these western nations. Meanwhile, the Islamic immigrants to Europe are having babies at double the rate of the native populations, and that is not an opinion.

Meanwhile, America has a birth rate that is barely at the replacement rate, which leaves it as the world's last best hope to keep Islam from overrunning what has been a progressive, liberating, democratic civilization.

If you are a non-Muslim, and you are the least bit concerned about your children and your children's children living under Sharia Law, This is definitely worth the read. It is a subject that our politicians are not willing to campaign on or to which they might apply their leadership. It's a demographic challenge to Europe that may very well leave America alone as the sole free society in the 21st century.

This is very provocative, and difficult to talk to your friends about. But you might want to buy them this book. It's a four star page turner.

Speech-Less, by Matthew Latimer

This audiobook was 7 hours and 20 minutes long and was read by Lincoln Hoppe. It was obtained from Overdrive Audio for free through the Alachua County Library.

A young speech writer in the Bush White House details his early years as a Reagan Republican, through his work life as a staffer for congressmen and for Donald Rumsfeld, until his ultimate goal of writing speeches for the President. This book is a kind of tell-all by a disillusioned young man, yet it is not the kind of exposé that a closet liberal would have written.

Matthew Latimer is a young conservative who saw the disaffection of conservatism from the inside. He and the other speech writers were sometimes ordered to write things they thought were ridiculous. They were often the last check before mistakes were made. It was disheartening to read, yet it was good to know that the failures of the last administration were not the failures of conservatism, but of the people who merely used conservatives.

This one gets 4 stars.

The Fall of Che Guevara, by Henry Butterfield Ryan

This audiobook was 7 hours and 19 minutes long, and was narrated by George McGonagle.

Before I got this audiobook, I knew almost nothing about Che Guevara, although I could pick his image out of a lineup thanks to the iconic image that has appeared on a million or so T-shirts. So, this book was a voyage of discovery for me.

The author tells Che's story as a reporter would gie you the background on the subject, but then just get straight to the facts. He uses a lot of documents from the CIA and other government sources, going as far as to get them declassified himself. What emerges is the recounting of a frustrated revolutionary who was pushing the envelope on revolutionary theory to a point that it got him killed.

Che blundered when he thought he could get a revolution started in Bolivia by inserting a little over 50 commandos out in the jungles to stir up the peasants. The peasants were not particularly unhappy with their government, being far removed from it, and did not like the armed iealists who came to stir them up. They ended up ratting him out to the government forces who were looking for him.

To Che's admirers, this is a controversial subject. Some think Castro had him killed. Some think the CIA did him in. The evidence in this book has enough holes to leave your prejudices intact, but it all seems like a bad judgment call to me. I give it four stars for being informative, clear, and not taking unnecessary time.

Charlie Wilson's War, by George Crile

This audiobook was 20 hours and 27 minutes long, and was narrated by Christopher Lane.

I never saw the movie, so I have no idea how the book and the movie are different. I always trust the book.

This is the story of how a Democrat Congressman from Texas took up the cause of the Afghan people after discovering how the army of the Soviet Union was wiping out all resistance to their invasion. As a member of the Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense, he was able to move millions, and eventually, billions of dollars to aid the Afghan insurgents who were still fighting with WW1 Enfield Rifles against helicopter gunships and tanks.

Charlie Wilson was a liberal who voted for civil rights, abortion rights, and all manner of liberal causes, but who was also a rabid anti-communist who wanted America avenged for the Viet Nam War. The Soviets had helped the Vietnamese insurgents bleed America dry, and he wanted to give it right back to them through proxies in Afghanistan.

This is a very instructive tale about how politics actually works at the Federal level, showing how unholy alliances really work. Relationships really do seem to trump ideologies, as Charlie Wilson becomes friends with Fundamentalist Muslim leaders who look the other way at his womanizing, boozing lifestyle while he bankroles their Jihads. In Congress, those who want to fight communists in Central America with Iranian money are prosecuted while American taxpayer dollars are matched by Saudi contibutions to fight communists on the other side of the world with the blessing of the same Congress. It seems that if a liberal want so run a secret war, it's OK. But if conservatives want to do it, it's unconscienable.

Political skill transcends morality even as American politicians convince themselves that they are doing the right thing to fund a primiative militia that has no limits on the atrocities they are willing to perform on captured Soviet soldiers. Eventually, these same Afghan militias will come back to haunt us in ways the Latin American Contras never did.

This is a must read for anyone who cannot understand the holes in the news. 4 stars!

The Coldest Winter: America and the Korean War, by David Halberstam

This audiobook was 33 hours and 42 minutes long, and was narrated by Scott Brick.

This was David Halberstam's last completed work before he died in 2007. It is the usual top notch piece of 20th century history for which he was famous.

America and its military leaders thought that the atomic bomb was the end of conventional warfare. President Truman was looking to trim the defense budget to under $10 Billion, the American people just wanted their boys to come home, and the rest of the world was still at the brink of war. The US had gone from victory in Europe and the Pacific to total military unpreparedness in only 5 years. It set the stage for a deadly learning curve in Korea.

Much of this book concerns the mishandling of military intelligence by General Douglas MacArthur and his staff. MacArthur's best days were behind him and he didn't know it. He also had a lot of help from President Truman's domestic adversaries, mostly Republicans who made up the China Lobby. They were as hot for a confrontation with China as MacArthur was, and this desire for turning back the Communists in China nearly brought us into World War 3.

There are lots of stories from the actual conflict as well as the inside dirt on American politics during the McCarthy era. A fascinating book, even if it ran a bit long. I give it 3 stars.

Boom, by Tom Brokaw

This audiobook was obtained for free from Overdrive Audio through the Alachua County Public Library. It was narrated by Robertson Dean and was 18 hours and 16 minutes long.

I was quite taken with Tom Brokaw's last best seller, "The Greatest Generation". This book is about the baby boomer generation and it's journey through the 60s. Of course, the 60s is defined not by the numerical dates, but by the events that were a part of the 60s narrative. So, it begins with the assassination of JFK and ends with the resignation of Richard Nixon. It is also about people who were pretty much adults at the time. I was only 9 years old during the 1968 Summer of Love, so my own memories of that tumultuous year are undiluted by hormones or hallucinogens. Memories like mine are not represented here.

This is very much a reporter's collection of interviews, which means his subjects do most of the editorializing. And although Tom Brokaw weighs in with his opinions, you also get the recollections and reconsiderations of Gloria Steinem, Arlo Guthrie, Hillary Clinton, Karl Rove, James Taylor, Pat Buchanan, Carla Hills, Tom Hayden, and a lot of people you may have never heard of, but who played a role in the Viet Nam War, the Civil Rights Movement, the Women's Movement, or did a lot of dope.

Whether you miss the 60s or wish they had never happened, there is something here for you. Some of its most famous participants have their criticisms and regrets on both sides of every question. So there really are no definitive answers here, which is appropriate for a book about the generation that made moral relativism and ambivalence our national mood.

It's 4 star entertainment.

Shadow Account, by Stephen Frey

This audiobook was gotten from the Alachua County Public Library, was on 10 CDs and was read by Ken Kliban.

Connor Ashby is a young investment banker, lounging in his apartment with his hot girlfriend when he checks his email. It appears to have been sent to him by mistake. It's from someone named "Rusty" who is panicking and telling his boss that their book-cooking plot is about to be uncovered. As he is contemplating the origin of this missive, hot girlfriend asks him to go out and get her something. When he comes back, his apartment has been trashed, the girl is dead, and there is an armed man with bad aim still inside. Connor escapes with only a minor wound, but when he gets back with the police, the apartment is in good order, the girlfriend is gone, and now it's about to get complicated.

This promising start loses its way when it becomes tangled with yet another complicated story that is populated with less interesting characters. This book was needlessly complex and the story too improbable. It's like the mad scientist who is leaving the hero to die as soon as the rats chew through the cheese-encrusted rope that holds back the net full of hungry fiddler crabs that are lusting for human flesh. There has to be a simpler way to get things done.

I give it 2 stars for at least keeping me from moving on to the next book.

Marwan, by Aram Schefrin

This audiobook came in 32 episodes from Podiobooks.com, was in mp3 format, and is narrated by several unidentified persons.

This is a novel about Marwan al Shehhi, one of the September 11 hijackers. It is a chilling story based on the documented investigation into the terror attacks. I was curious to see how the author, Aram Schefrin, managed to humanize such a monster. Could a complex individual full of misgivings have flown into the 2nd tower of the World Trade Center? Or would he have to be a complete sociopath?

This book was hard to put aside, and the time flew by. "Marwan" was both sad and riveting. Schefrin succeeds at keeping your pity for Marwan separated from your horror of what he has done. And you need to do that to see the next terror attack coming. Marwan was not a "bad seed", but he had many of them sown in his brain. Ideas matter, and you cannot fight them with mere law enforcement.

Adams Vs. Jefferson: (The Tumultuous Election of 1800), by John E. Ferling

This audiobook was obtained for free from NetLibrary.com, was 11 hours and 33 minutes long, and narrated by Jack Garrett.

You don't know how little you have really been taught about American History until you start reading books on the Founding Fathers. I got the same names and dates drilled into my head year after year with precious little light ever entering that would have helped me understand my country and its system of government.

The Election of 1800 was the first contested election in American history. The Election of 2000 has nothing on this. And the opposing forces come right out of the same molds that popped out our current leaders. The Federalists were the party of law and order and a strong military. They fought to enact the "Alien and Sedition Acts". These were the Patriot Act on steroids. The Republicans (not the same party we know today) was anti-military and in love with the French Revolution, although a bit queasy about the acts of terror. It's funny how little really changes; only the names and places.

This was a gripping and vivid story of the men who guided our nation in its formative years, their feet of clay, and a lot of surprises for people who thought they knew their American History. Well written and well ready by the narrator, Jack Garret; this book is a 4 star champ.

Freakonomics, by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner

This audio book came from the Alachua County Public Library on 6 CDs, was 7 hours long, and was narrated by Stephen J. Dubner.

I was on a long waiting list to get this book from the library. I have been hearing about it for a long time.

It's Steven Levitt's research that is the basis of this book. The sub-title refers to him as a rogue economist, but I think that only means he talks about everyday things instead of the consumer price index and gross domestic product. This book seems to be a mesh of psychology and economics: a study of incentives and how they motivate people in the real world. It seeks to answer questions like: How has legalized abortion affected crime rates? And, If there is so much money in dealing drugs, why do so many drug dealers live at home with their moms?

This book's completely rational, utilitarian approach to human behavior in the marketplace delivers a lot of surprises. It is completely amoral, so it will unsettle people who have the strongest moral compass. But it will be fair in that it disturbs people on both sides of a moral issue. After all, if you just go by the numbers, you can come to some pretty dehumanizing conclusions.

It wasn't a long book, so that means it got to the point. It waded into geek speak only long enough to establish its credentials. It was highly entertaining and thought-provoking, and worth 4 stars any day.

Waiting `Til the Midnight Hour, by Peniel E. Joseph

This audio book was a free download from NetLibrary.com, was 13 hours long, and was narrated by Beresford Bennett.

As a white kid growing up in Upstate NY during the 60s, that names of Stokely Carmichael, Eldridge Cleaver, "Rap" Brown, and Angela Davis were not familiar to me. Even Malcolm X would have drawn a blank in a neighborhood with no unrest and few blacks. And those who did live among us were fully integrated into the neighborhood. I even had an African American history class in the 6th grade, but the aforementioned pioneers of the Black Power movement were not yet history. They were the news. At least they were in other parts of America.

This book was fascinating, enlightening, and disheartening. It was fascinating because it fleshed out the players in America's Civil Rights movement. It was enlightening because it was a very human story anyone could identify with. It was disheartening because every problem is viewed through the lens of the black/white struggle. And not every problem in the black community is the fault of white people.

One of the things that sticks out here is that all the leaders were so incredibly young. By the time he was 29, Stokely Carmichael had met Ho Chi Mihn and Fidel Castro. He had been all over the world, including China, and was a world famous icon of revolutionary struggle. What do you really know by the time you are 29? Consequently, some of the players no longer believe what they did when they were getting everyone else on board.

This is a terrific story of people insisting on being heard. It worked, warts and all. There are characters who will surprise you and impress you and annoy you. This was an engrossing story and worth every one of 4 stars.

Travels of a T-shirt in the Global Economy, by Pietra Rivoli

This audio book came free from NetLibrary.com, was 9 hours and 35 minutes long, and was narrated by Eliza Foss.

An economist is both annoyed and inspired by a protest against globalization by impassioned college students. After hearing one of the open-air speakers demand to know if we know were our t-shirts come from, economist and professor Pietra Rivoli goes to a souvenir shop, buys a t-shirt, and begins tracing its origins...and its destiny.

This is one of the most readable and interesting stories of the economic food chain you are likely to come across. It was a real page-turner with a stunning conclusion, that we all should be able to come to on our own: both the sweat shops and the protesters are important ingredients in the global ecosystem.

If you are a rabid free-trader, you must read this! It will alter your view of those naiive kids and their signs. If you are one of those capitalist-hating anti-globalists, you also should read this. If you have an open mind, it will temper your outrage and help you focus your efforts.

From the heavily protected and subsidized cotton fields of West Texas to the wide open, unregulated global recycling market in Africa, your t-shirt and been places and one things. And then it may come back again as it is broken down and respun into new thread!

Warning: there is lots of history in this book about the folly of working too hard to prevent trade. The English woolens industry kept cotton out of its markets for centuries. But regulations got weaker and weaker in the face of the eager public adoption of cooler cotton clothes. The last regulation to die was the one that required that the dead had to be buried in a wool suit!

Great stuff. Four stars. Oughta be a text book in our schools...

The New Golden Age, by Ravi Batra

This unabridged audio book came from the Alachua County Public Library on 9 CDs, and was read by Brian Emerson.

If you make enough predictions, you are bound to get some right. Both psychics and economists count on this, and Professor Batra is no different. In fact, Batra was the winner of an Ig Nobel prize in 1993. He was described as a, "shrewd economist and best-selling author of "The Great Depression of 1990" ($17.95) and
"Surviving the Great Depression of 1990" ($18.95), for selling enough copies of his books to single-handedly prevent worldwide economic collapse."

When Batra is not delivering an anti-Bush and Cheney rant, this idealistic Hindu slant on history is actually quite provocative and entertaining. It is mostly an expansion on P.R. Sarkar's theories of social evolution. These theories propose that societies are comprised of 4 social classes: laborers, intellectuals, warriors, and acquisitors (capitalists). The intellectuals, warriors and acquisitors take turns dominating and ruling society as the laborers cast their lots with each group in a predictable progression. The domination of the rich acquisitors always ends in massive corruption, immorality and poverty. The warriors and labor take their country back, establish order, fairness and traditional family. Eventually, they give way to the intellectuals, who are better at governing than conquering. Then they give way to the business people, who are better at expanding opportunity. When not enough people are taking advantage of opportunity, and those who are live like kings, the warriors again ascend to restore justice. At least, that is theme of this book.

It is easy to get caught up in Batra's worldview because he draws on so much history to demonstrate his thesis. And much of that history comes from beyond Western Civilization, which raises the level of fascination. He tells us that there are frequent examples of Golden Ages, which he always assigns to the time after the evil rich are dethroned. Of course, these Golden Ages come on two-edged swords. It is not uncommon for them to have rather puritanical backlashes against pornography, prostitution, and homosexuality. The poor are not just sick of the injustices of the rich. The perversion and vulgarity of the age usually suffers as well. The recent squeeze on talk radio hosts Don Imus and Opie & Anthony were not led by the Religious Right, but by civil libertarians devouring their own kind. Apparently, a lot of people have limits after all.

Like a good economist, who has been burned by his own lack of judgment in the past, Batra demonstrates that there are also escape clauses for the social cycle and all that comes with it. After venting his spleen on Bush and the Iraq War, he actually dares to say that the rest of the world needs to pitch in and help because America has saved the world's bacon before, and that failing to do so could be a big mistake! He even intimates that history may vindicate Bush in the end.

In the last chapter, he also does a little back-pedaling on the meaning of the Golden Age. But I can forgive him because I always grade economists on a curve. In spite of its sometimes puzzling contradictions and omissions, I gave this book 3 stars for having much to offer any discussion on national and international affairs. There is something to offend everyone, and to enlighten as well.

The Summer We Got Saved, by Pat Cunningham Devoto

This audiobook was free from NetLibrary.com, was 12 hours and 53 minutes long, and was narrated by Katie Firth.

Tina and her younger sister, Tab, are part of a southern family in the 1960's that is collectively ambivalent about its connection with the founding of the Ku Klux Klan. The older members are proud and defensive of their heritage. Tab and Tina are more concerned about makeup and the pecking order at the malt shop. The girls' father, Charles, is hoping the coming changes will happen smoothly and gradually. The girls' aunt Eugenia is a flaming civil rights activist, and she is here on her annual, excruciating family visit.

Eugenia proposes to take the girls to visit some other distant relative for a week, and the other adults are relieved to let her go. What no one realizes is that Eugenia actually plans on taking the girls to the Highlander Folk School, a training camp for union and civil rights activists since 1932.

A parallel story involves Maudie, a childhood friend of the girls who went to Tuskegee Institute for polio rehabilitation, and is now running a voter education program at a black Missionary Baptist Church. She is not entirely welcome there. Blacks in the community don't all get it, and see this activism as a nuisance that will only draw fire from the local rednecks. It's an uphill struggle for Maudie, who fits in with no group. She is the "crippled girl" and is treated with derision by the young "cotton girls" who live to drink and carouse.

Tab's clueless innocence isn't quite ruined by what she has learned by participating in a sit-in at a Woolworth's counter. After all, she gets to go home from all of this. But she will never simply parrot the family lore any more. It's not that she thinks it isn't real. She has simply encountered something more real.

I gravitate toward stories like these because I lived through the Civil Rights Era on television. It simply was not an issue in my town, and in my school. I never went to a segregated school. My Boy Scout troop was integrated, but we never thought about it as such. I had an African-American History class in the 6th grade (1969), and it was a real immersion into the incredible injustices that were perpetrated in the past. It made me wonder if people in the South were actually human. Now I live here, and sometimes feel like I am not in on the secrets. I think I may have gotten a few clues from this engaging story. It gets 4 stars from me.

The Takeover, by Stephen Frey

This is the author's first novel, was written in 1995, and was 12 hours and 47 minutes long. The narrator was Paul Hecht.

One of the first things I picked up on was the awkwardness of a book written just before momentous changes. This book was pre-September, 11, pre-Internet, and pre-cell phone. Yes, someone has a "car phone" (remember those??), and the main character has a "Bloomberg terminal" at his apartment so he can work at home, but it seems pretty clunky when so much has happened to alter our lives in the past 12 years.

Aside from the bad luck of timing, this was a pretty sorry book anyway. The politics is too preachy, the characters are not very compelling, and there are some holes in the story that are not resolved. And the obviously Clintonesque Democratic President is an innocent man beset by evil Republican villains out to frame him. More bad luck.

There was also a romantic interest too many. It divided any emotional power that should have been focussed on just one relationship. It was confusing at times, and never very interesting. There was nothing to pull for.

In defense of the author, (as I give him 1 star for this one), "The Day Trader" (2002) was much, much better. It was a 4 star book. "The Takeover" was worth missing.

The Amalgamation Polka, by Stephen Wright

This book came from NetLibrary, was 11 hours and 46 minutes long, and was narrated by Michael Emerson.

This book was much better than its title, which is a derivative of one of the derogatory names for Abolitionists of the mid-19th century: Amalgamators.

Set before and during the American Civil War, this is a coming of age tale of both Liberty Fish and his mother, Roxana Maury. She grew up on a plantation surrounded, and nourished by, the institution of slavery in all its brutality. He grew up in a fiercely abolitionist family in Upstate New York.

Roxana meets Thatcher Fish in Saratoga, New York, where the female Maury's have gone on holiday after a huge family blowout on the morality of their existence. She bolts from the family after a final argument with her mother the same way she came into the world, naked. Wrapped only in a bed sheet, she seeks out the young man she has just met at their hotel, who shares her political viewpoint.

Liberty Fish, their son, grows up as a kind of abolitionist Huck Finn. His family's home is a stop on the Underground Railroad, and his life is full of odd characters. When the Civil War begins, he enlists, and begins a journey to his mother's ancestral home in South Carolina, where he confronts his slaver grandfather, who has morphed grotesquely into the Joseph Mengele of the South; performing experiments on his black servants in efforts to make them white.

This novel was both funny and revolting, and never boring. The prose is delightful to listen to. It transports you to a time when people were more literate, long before we were only computer literate. This is a 4 star book.

Act of Treason, by Vince Flynn

This novel was published in 2006, was downloaded from NetLibrary.com, and is 11:06:34 long. It is narrated by George Guidall.

If you are a left-wing zealot who has issues with the US military, take a pass on this one. Or upgrade your Prozac. The hero of this anti-terrorism novel is Mitch Rapp, a CIA undercover-opps assassin who burns through red tape and legal procedure when that's the only way to achieve a just result.

Our story begins when a Democratic Presidential candidate's motorcade is attacked with a bomb blast that kills 19 people, but misses the Presidential and Vice-Presidential candidates. Although this was clearly the work of a professional, it seems like he got the wrong limo, the one that contained the wife of the Presidential candidate.

After the widowed Democrat is elected, Mitch Rapp manages to find the bomber, collect the evidence, get a confession (the hard way), and is then faced with new hurdles as the news leaks out and the new President-elect wants the man put on trial. Well, that's not gonna happen. But there is still another problem: finding out who really put this hit on the Liberal Democrat candidates.

I give it 3 stars for being fast-paced and well-written. I won't weigh in on the politics. :)