DEC 2014
AUDIO BOOK REVIEWS
by Jonathan Lowe
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Former
Lt. Col. John A. Nagl has written
a memoir titled KNIFE FIGHTS: Modern
War in Theory and Practice. Narrated by Brian Hutchison,
it details the shift toward counterinsurgency within
the military after the Gulf War, in which Nagl saw
action as a tank commander after leaving West Point.
Nagl’s path led him to study and write about
this shift in “Learning to Eat Soup with a Knife.”
He next became an operations officer, then worked
for Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, eventually
writing a new field manual on doctrine. “When
it comes to modern war, there are only bad choices,”
he says. “The question is which are better and
which worse.” He details this new reality on
the battlefield, showing that the old shock-and-awe
way doesn’t work, and only creates more enemies.
Iraq? “It’s a war that did not need to
be fought,” he says. Serious mistakes were made
by Rumsfeld and others, with a slow and bureaucratic
Pentagon needing a reboot on policy so as not to repeat
those mistakes. It’s a sobering book that in
some ways parallels another new book, not on audio
yet, titled “Why We Lost,” by
former Gen. Daniel P. Bolger, who said that if we
go in and fight ISIS for Iraq with full on-the-ground
operations, “It would be like four times biting
that poison apple: Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq and
then Iraq again.” What’s needed is to
fight smarter, not harder. Enlist the locals, and
force them to defend themselves, too. Otherwise it’s
no different than warfare welfare. It is very ably
narrated by Hutchison, who brings both theory and
personal history to life with an engaging and nimble
tone. |
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SPAM
NATION by Brian Krebs follows “The
Inside Story of Organized Cybercrime—From Global
Epidemic to Your Front Door.” Krebs is editor
of a security blog and former Washington Post reporter.
It’s a must-listen deftly and intelligently
narrated by Christopher Lane, tracking
the methods used by the “digital mafia,”
those growing legions of spammers who phish and snare
unsuspecting computer users, since criminals find
it easier to steal your identify or credit card numbers
than to get a real job where you have to punch a clock
and count on working for thirty years before retirement
on a meager pension. Criminals always look for shortcuts,
and in ways they are no different than players at
singles bars wanting to score with naive young women.
Their “lines” come in the form of code
or enticing promises. Their viruses, similar to VD,
here troll for access to your computer and data. When
“private parts” are invaded, privacy is
no more, and piracy occurs. These digital mobsters
can be individual hackers in Russia, or American spammers
who use Yahoo accounts for a hit-and-run attack, with
the goal of harvesting passwords and usernames and
selling them to the black market. Cyber crime is up,
especially during the holiday season, and home invasion
is down. Why? It’s easier. There’s less
risk. And you can come away with more money (or credit
to buy stuff) before the victim even knows what happened.
This is a book the Postal Service should want to promote,
since it just might send more people back to mailing
letters for business payments (and even personal letters)
rather than to risk being hacked and bankrupted. A
postage stamp, after all, beats an email if your personal
account numbers falling into the wrong hands in calculated
into the cost.
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Bartow
J. Elmore delivers another sucker punch to
the world's more ubiquitous brand. CITIZEN
COKE: The Making of Coca-Cola Capitalism is
read by William Hughes, and continues
on the theme of the books The Coke Machine and Salt
Sugar Fat to examine the strategies employed by Coke
to succeed on the backs of suppliers, franchisees,
and duped consumers. By spending a billion dollars
per year on ads that link it to everything from happiness
to patriotism to (believe it or not) a memorable funeral,
the world's favorite soft drink is, instead, linked
to diabetes, cancer, and environmental degradation.
In Colombia and India people have rioted in protest
of crimes committed by Coca-Cola bottlers, only to
meet resistance by police, hired thugs, and denials
by company honchos. Now a history teacher at the University
of Alabama, Elmore grew up in Atlanta drinking Coke,
and uncovered disturbing truths about the shift in
American business practices while researching the
history of the company...which led him to outline
it all using the ingredients which Coke uses---from
water and sugar and high fructose corn syrup to aluminum,
plastic, and glass. |
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Going
from tiny bubbles to those who today manufacture news
bubbles in order to sell you more junk, ALL
THE TRUTH IS OUT: The Week Politics
Went Tabloid by Matt Bai is about how the Gary
Hart affair changed the way the media reports political
campaigns. More than this, it's the turning point for
when even network news became entertainment, and scandals
(both on and off the field) became the target of TMZ,
BuzzFeed, and competing mud-slinging advertising. It's
all a sport now, actually...and it all started when
someone snapped that photo of Hart and his mistress
next to a yacht called Monkey Business. Rob
Shapiro reads, and with a more sober tone than
those you hear on Yahoo, telling you the latest “trends.”
What does “trend” mean, anyway? It’s
like a big mirror, a mass Selfie saying, “this
is you and what you’re watching.” Bai seems
to be saying that most people don’t realize that
to get to the truth, you need to read the fine print,
and to break the mirror and look behind it in order
to see who’s holding the mirror (and why.) Otherwise,
we’re all just monkeying around instead of solving
problems. |
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Finally, the classic film THE
THIRD MAN Was written by Graham Greene,
and is available as a full cast play from L.A. Theater
Works on audio as well. Called the greatest British
film of all time (and on many top ten lists of best
films ever filmed from any country), the movie is
a classic mystery that starred Orson Welles and Joseph
Cotton, about a western writer who attends a friend’s
funeral in Vienna after the war, only to discover
that he may not be dead after all…which leads
to an investigation of who “the third man”
seen at the supposed accident may have been. The dialogue
is given talented new voices in this production,
including the voices of Rosalind Ayers, Barry Phillips,
Kelsey Grammer, Ian Abercrombie, Ethan Glazer, and
others. Other Greene titles on audio are
The Quiet American (made in a movie as well),
The Power and the Glory, The Heart of the Matter,
Brighton Rock, The Living Room, The Comedians,
and The Little Fire Engine. |
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My
new audiobook, The Umpire Has No Clothes, is
out Dec. 1 at Amazon and Audible. It’s like a
sports comedy album, but over two hours long, and the
perfect Christmas gift download for anyone taking sports
way too seriously. Narrated by ESPN producer Barry Abrams,
who does a great job animating the text! |
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If
you’re a Costco member, you’ll see my brief
piece on the enjoyment of audiobooks in their December
issue, which goes to all 8 million members. I got a
quote from actress and narrator Rosalyn Landor, who
has narrated dozens of titles between movies and TV
series. For ten more reasons why you should try audiobooks,
go to TowerReview.com/audiobooks.html |
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(Check
out Jonathan’s robo-tech blog at: FamilyDie.wordpress.com)
For
free sample downloads of Jonathan’s novels,
Click
here.
Jonathan”s latest is TRANSCENDENCE
2: The Nexus Ultimatum, an SF novella available at
Amazon
and Audible.) |
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