Your Heart Belongs to Me, by Dean Koontz

This audio book was read by Malcolm Hillgartner, and was 8 hours and 33 minutes long.

As a long time Dean Koontz fan, I will read anything he produces. But that doesn't mean I will always like it. This one had its problems, but it was still a page turner.

This is the story of a 34 year old dot com millionaire who discovers that he has an incurable heart condition and needs a transplant. He finds a good surgeon, gets on the transplant list, and is encouraged by his perfect girlfriend to just let this happen. She knows he will try to manipulate his place in line for a new heart, and he agrees to trust his current doctor.

This would be a fairly simple story if the girlfriend did not have a disturbing back story that causes our protagonist some discomfort. Her twin sister was taken off life support by her own mother after getting counsel from a right to die advocate who collects mummified remains. The mother is now romantically involved with this ghoul, and this feeds the paranoia of a heart patient with enough money to manage his fears and the people around him.

This is a Koontz morality tale with a twist. I wish the characters had been a little more compelling, and that the villain had more substance. I give it 2 stars

Against All Enemies, by Richard A. Clarke

This audio book was 11 hours and 54 minutes long, and was narrated by Alan Nebelthau.

I had heard all the detractors, my fellow conservatives, pick this book apart and speak of Richard Clarke as if he were the worst traitor. But I wanted to read this book for myself and draw my own conclusions. Now that I have done that, I will share with you my assessment of this book.

It is pretty fast moving and engrossing reading. Clarke begins with the horror of September 11, 2001, and then retraces his steps as he worked for 3 US Presidents before George W. Bush. He had a ringside seat to many decisions made about US policy on terrorism, and was a major player in some of the counter-terrorism efforts made under Bill Clinton's administration.

If I didn't pay any attention to the news at all since the early 1990s, I would have to believe that George W. Bush and his administration made every conceivable error leading up to 9-11, and that the justification of the Iraq War was a total fabrication by Bush, Cheney, and Condi Rice, who just wanted an excuse to go back and in and finish what George H.W. Bush did not. This book is a pretty tight argument for scorning both Bush Administrations for all time as a collection of bunglers unequaled in American history.

I truly did enjoy this book because I do believe that it will be instructive for generations to come, and because it shows us enough of the workings of counter-terrorism to actually give us hope that there is rhyme and reason to how terrorism is fought. However, there is just enough missing, and just enough that smells wrong to cost Clarke some credibility points. For instance, he makes a great deal of his information that demonstrates there was absolutely no reason for invading Iraq. Yet, it is completely ignored that Iraq's leader, Saddam Hussein, was in violation of the UN's orders to comply with the dismantling of his nuclear and biological weapons program for 12 years. This was worth mentioning, even if he just wanted to discount it for some reason.

Read with a healthy dose of skepticism, but with the sobering realization that mistakes were made that led to 9-11, and that mistakes were certainly made afterward, this is a four star book.

Saving Graces, by Elizabeth Edwards

This audio book was 13 hours and 42 minutes long and was narrated by Bernadette Dunne.

This is not the Elizabeth Edwards book in which she tells about her husband's affair. Senator John Edwards is a kind and idealistic husband and politician with a noble and intelligent wife in this book. I am not yet aware of how she portrays her relationship with John the philandering weasel, but he contrasted poorly with the hard luck missus he has in this one.

This is her story, from her upbringing in post-war Japan as the daughter of a Naval officer to the tragic death of her teenage son and her discovery of a cancerous lump just a few weeks out from the 2004 election, when her husband was the Vice-Presidential candidate. She is a smart and thoughtful woman who was devastated by the loss of her son, Wade, in a car accident that had nothing to do with alcohol. She deals with the day to day coping that goes on for years and never leaves her consciousness. This could have been a dreary book, but she is such a good writer that it never bores you. This is a solid 3 star book thtat rises to 4 if youu identify personally with either of her losses.

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!

Indignation, by Phillip Roth

This audiobook was 5 hours and 31 minutes long, and was narrated by Dick Hill. It's is Roth's 29th book, and was published in 2008.

I've read a few other Roth novels, and I run hot and cold on them. They usually have some witty, funny dialog, and have recurring themes of anti-semitism and youthful debauchery. This one is not much different.

This is the story of Marcus Messner, the son of Kosher butchers in New Jersey. He is a gifted student, and is bent on getting good enough grades to escape being drafted and sent into combat in Korea in 1951. He works in the family business while in high school, and goes to a local college for his freshman year. During this time, Marcus' father becomes increasingly paranoid that his son will get into some kind of trouble. His constant suspicions and smothering behavior gradually drives Marcus away, and he decides to go to school farther away.

At the new school, Marcus finds something to annoy him in each of his room mates, which leads him to change dorms twice in just a short time. He also has a sexual encounter with a girl who had once tried to commit suicide, and has issues with alcohol, with whom he becomes obsessed. He is also indignant that one of the graduation requirements is to attend chapel forty times during your time at the school, and has a major face-off with the dean over Bertrand Russell and atheism. All these things come to a head after his parents are on the brink of divorce, and Marcus seems to start sliding into his own form of madness. Eventually, he is expelled from school and gets sent to Korea.

It is entertaining enough to be worth the time, but it would have been a disaster to make it longer. Marcus goes to war right on time, because by then I was sick of him already. Maybe it's because he became an insufferable jerk too soon for me to get to like him. I give it 2 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.