New audio books: 'Battle of the Crater'; 'Midnight Rising'; 'Gabby'; 'Destiny of the Republic.'
New audio books: 'Battle of the Crater'; 'Midnight Rising'; 'Gabby'; 'Destiny of the Republic.'
Gabby: A Story of Courage and HopeWritten and read by Gabrielle Giffords and Mark Kelly. Simon & Schuster Audio, $39.99, unabridged, 11.5 hours. Rating: * * * out of four.This audio will put any irritation caused by holiday traffic jams in perspective. Effectively read by U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords' husband, astronaut Mark Kelly, Gabby is a powerful story about Jan. 8, 2011, the day the vivacious Arizona politician was shot in the head. Six people died, including a little girl.The listener learns quite a bit about politics, the Southwest and the space program, as well as the couple's backgrounds, careers and marriage, but the audio's real impact is the way it never soft-soaps the damage a bullet to the brain does. In harrowing detail, Gabby captures Giffords' injuries and her struggle to regain her life and health.In a halting but clear voice, Giffords reads the final chapter.
Destiny of the RepublicWritten by Candice Millard; read by Paul Michael. Random House Audio, $40, unabridged, 10 hours. Rating: * * * out of four.
Candice Millard's The River of Doubt, about Theodore Roosevelt's voyage down a South American river, ranks as one of the most haunting and insightful works of history in recent years. The material in her new book — about the 1881 shooting of President James A. Garfield by a madman named Charles Guiteau and Garfield's prolonged death resulting from medical ineptitude — lacks River of Doubt's drama.
Nonetheless, Destiny of the Republic displays Millard's energetic writing and rare ability to effortlessly educate the listener. And the narration by Paul Michael is appropriately zesty, living up to the subtitle: "A Tale of Madness, Medicine and the Murder of a President."Millard weaves together a fractured nation still recovering from the Civil War, the bitter machinations between the two parties, and the efforts of inventor Alexander Graham Bell to discover a non-invasive method to find the bullet inside the dying president, who had been fatally infected by the germs of his doctors as they probed.Midnight RisingWritten by Tony Horwitz; read by Daniel Oreskes. Macmillan Audio, $39.95, unabridged, 11 hours.
Rating: * * * ½ out of fourHow to explain our ceaseless obsession with the Civil War? Is it that we find solace by reflecting on past crises that the nation survived? Or is it more simple: The Civil War remains the most compelling period in American history?Here Tony Horwitz, author of Confederates in the Attic, takes on the fiery and complicated John Brown who led the Oct. 17, 1859, raid on Harpers Ferry. (Union officer Robert E. Lee would capture Brown and his fiery allies.) Horwitz does a particularly good job in depicting the profound divisions between North and South, while Daniel Oreskes gives his full measure of drama to the narration.The Battle of the Crater
Written by Newt Gingrich and William R. Forstchen; read by William Dufris. Macmillan Audio, $44.99, unabridged, 12 hours. Rating: * * * out of four.Whether you agree with Newt Gingrich's political views or not, the former speaker of the House and current Republican presidential candidate is passionate about American history. Witness the novels about Gettysburg, Pearl Harbor and Valley Forge he and Montreat College history professor William Forstschen have penned.Now they return to the Civil War and the catastrophic 1864 Battle of the Crater. Trying to seize Petersburg, Va., Gen. Ambrose Burnside attempted to tunnel his way to victory. The result was the brutal slaughter of new Union African-American troops. William Dufris provides a lively narration and handles a variety of accents.For more information about reprints & permissions, visit our FAQ's. To report corrections and clarifications, contact Standards Editor Brent Jones. For publication consideration in the newspaper, send comments to letters@usatoday.com. Include name, phone number, city and state for verification. To view our corrections, go to corrections.usatoday.com.
