A colossal Failure of Common Sense, by Lawrence G. McDonald

This audio book was obtained from Overdrive Audio through the Alachua County Public Library. It is subtitled, "The Inside Story of the Collapse of Lehman Brothers". It was 16 hours and 38 minutes long, and was narrated by Erik Davies.

If you want to be better informed about last year's economic collapse, this is a good place to start. Lawrence MacDonald tells his story of how he became a Wall Street trader, about his successes at Lehman Brothers, and about the people who worked there.

If you just want to know who to blame, there is plenty of it to go around. During the Clinton Administration the seeds of this collapse were sown by ideologues on the left who pushed the mortgage industry to give loans to poor people, and free marketeers on the right, who repealed the Glass-Steagal Act that allowed these bad mortgages to tie up money throughout the economy.

As a story, this is suspenseful and well-told. There are heroes, villains, and bystanders with feet of clay. And I have to admit that I think the author is one of the latter. I know that traders are not supposed to create panics because it is a form of market manipulation. But their inside knowledge of the disaster to come should have been at least leaked to the press, especially the sale of sub-prime loans to people who were encouraged to lie about their incomes.

This was a 4 star page turner.

The Spire, by Richard North Patterson

This audiobook was obtained from Overdrive Audio, through the Alachua County Public Library web site. It was 11 hours and 3 minutes long, and was narrated by Holter Graham.

Mark Darrow was a star quarterback at his high school, but going nowhere, when he is offered a scholarship by the Provost at a local college that probably plays at division 3. It's a great opportunity for this orphan who lives with the family of his best friend, Steve Tillman. Mark accepts on the grounds that a place can be found for his Steve, and the Provost, ex-military Lionel Farr.

At the end of Mark's time at Caldwell College, he stumbles across the body of a young black woman, a student he knew fairly well, who was strangled at left at the foot of The Spire, a major landmark at the college. He is quickly cleared, but his friend, Steve, was the last person seen with her. He is arrested, tried and convicted.

Sixteen years later, Mark is a very successful attorney, and very recently widowed. The Provost calls him to come back and be the college President after the past President was investigated for embezzlement. Mark agrees, but he quickly finds himself at odds with a board that has its mind made up about how to pursue the investigation. And he just cannot let go of the unlikely conviction of Steve Tillman for murder.

Although it's hard to get past a 38 year old college President, the character is superbly written. And although figuring out the villain was not overly challenging, it was still a good story apart from that. I give it 3 stars.

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.

The Anglo Files, by Sarah Lyall

This audio book was obtained from Overdrive Audio through the Alachua County Public Library. It was 9 hours and 53 minutes long, and was narrated by Cassandra Campbell.

Subtitled "A Field Guide to the British", this could have been a lot funnier, but it is instead a very thoughtful, revealing, and even alarming look at Her Majesty's subjects. Ms. Lyall is American-born, but married to one of the natives. She uses her inside knowledge and an overview of recent British history to explain the self-deprecating humor and low expectations of those who are descendants of a world empire. For instance, the devastating effects of WW2 left a lot of wartime rationing in effect for a decade after peace finally came. There was no "Peace Dividend" for the British, who did not really join post-war prosperity until late in the Thatcher government.

She manages to shed some light on the inscrutability of cricket without helping us to understand it, and reveals a nation's rampant alcoholism that is famous all over Europe as Brits go on drinking tours of Eastern Europe. This book has many light moments, but I found it mostly sad. I didn't want to live there, and was less inclined to visit it, although I may watch BBC programming in a new light. I give it 2 and 1/2 stars.

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.