Jeff Koeppen
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A Time of Changes
- De: Robert Silverberg
- Narrado por: Pete Bradbury
- Duración: 8 h y 15 m
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As Kinnall Darival writes "I" in his journal, he knows this pronoun is forbidden by his people of Manneran because it is too personal. But through the use of a powerful, mind-altering drug, he has learned to understand what people are really feeling and to speak for himself. Now he is compelled to share his message of liberation, regardless of the risk. This science fiction classic is a cult favorite from a Hugo and Nebula Award-winning author.
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One of the Better Silverberg Novels
- De Jeff Koeppen en 04-19-25
- A Time of Changes
- De: Robert Silverberg
- Narrado por: Pete Bradbury
One of the Better Silverberg Novels
Revisado: 04-19-25
A Time of Changes is told in first person in the form of an autobiography by Kinnall Darival, a prince of the province of Salla, who, when the novel opens, leaves his homeland of Salla to find his way after his brother becomes the leader. Salla is one of several nations on the planet Borthan which was settled by Earth people long ago and the civilization is familiar except that referring to oneself in the first person is forbidden and overall the culture is socially conservative.
In his travels Kinnall has a number of adventures and is ultimately meets a visiting Earthman who introduces him to a powerful but illegal drug which allows telepathic contact between two people if they take it simultaneously. Kinnall becomes a sort of drug pusher, persuading friends (some in high places) and acquaintances to try it and enter each others' minds. He knows this may ultimately get him in trouble in the lands he visits but believes in opening the minds of people in the socially restrictive society.
This novel was written in 1971 so it displays some of the tropes consistent in science fiction at the time which didn't age particularly well. Like most science fiction of the time, this novel felt like it was meant to appeal primarily to males.
Overall, I really liked this book. It did win the Nebula Award and was nominated for the Hugo. The world building wasn't great but the societal structure was intriguing and it was interesting navigating the various nations while in Kinnall's head. I was probably going to give this three stars up until the final few chapters but I really liked the ambiguous ending. At the end, Kinnall's writing stops so we have no idea what his future held or if he shaped society at all. I finished the audiobook on a long road-construction delayed commute home from work and batted the ending around in my head all the way home.
Actor Pete Bradbury narrated this one and made for a convincing Kinnall.
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Wild Dark Shore
- A Novel
- De: Charlotte McConaghy
- Narrado por: Cooper Mortlock, Katherine Littrell, Saskia Maarleveld, y otros
- Duración: 9 h y 35 m
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Dominic Salt and his three children are caretakers of Shearwater, a tiny island not far from Antarctica. Home to the world’s largest seed bank, Shearwater was once full of researchers, but with sea levels rising, the Salts are now its final inhabitants. Until, during the worst storm the island has ever seen, a woman mysteriously washes ashore.
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Please speak up!
- De Sarah en 03-12-25
- Wild Dark Shore
- A Novel
- De: Charlotte McConaghy
- Narrado por: Cooper Mortlock, Katherine Littrell, Saskia Maarleveld, Steve West
Good Mystery With Believability Issues
Revisado: 04-13-25
I was hooked on Wild Dark Shore right off the bat. The novel starts with a woman washing ashore on a tiny remote fictional island called Shearwater in the vicinity of Antarctica. The island is home to a seed vault and a research station which has been evacuated for the most part by the researchers due to the rising sea level. Only a man and his three children (the Salts) are left and are in charge of holding down the fort and monitoring the temperature of the seed vault until an soon-to-be-arriving ship comes to take them and the precious seeds back to civilization. The children range in age from pre-teen to late teens and like dad, have some sort of psychological damage they are battling but overall the Salts get along and are an effective team.
The secret of the mystery woman (Rowan) is gradually revealed through flashbacks and conversations with the Salts and she gradually forms positive relationships with each of the children and their dad even though the dad is suspicious of her. Why would a woman be on a boat in this remote part of the world to begin with?
The novel is told from the POV of all five of the characters through mostly short chapters so there is a lot of jumping around, but I found it interesting to read about what was going on in the many precarious and dramatic scenes from different points of view.
The novel takes place in the near future in which climate change has caused the sea levels to rise (faster than current predictions) and wild fires even more of a threat than we now face. The island seems to be sinking fairly fast and this is causing the seed vault to be in danger of flooding and ruination. This is the third book I've read from this author and she has a talent of writing about nature. In this novel she makes the island come to life as if it is a character and describes the flora and fauna (seals, penguins, albatrosses) as well as their mutual battle with the human caretakers against the harsh cold, winds, and precipitation.
As the novel reached the two-thirds point I felt is gradually started losing its believability related to the Salt family. Despite their acceptance of and affection towards Rowan they all seemed to have a nefarious secret they were withholding from her. The plot became more and more convoluted and the novel tried to be everything - romance, mystery, climate change lecture - and the characters were thrust in to some extremely dangerous situations some of which felt far-fetched and unrealistic to me.
As the novel reached its climactic conclusion I was wondering to myself how each of the seemingly earnest Salt family members keep their secrets and I found myself thinking back to situations earlier in the book and thinking "Huh? Wait a minute!".
The ending was fine, very dramatic and satisfying albeit a bit over-the-top.
There is a neat afterword in which the author describes what inspired the fictional island setting - Macquarie Island which is located between Australia and Antarctica, which she herself visited. She modeled the seed vault after the Svalbard Global Seed Vault in Norway.
I listened to this in Audible and it was narrated by an ensemble consisting of Cooper Mortlock,
Katherine Littrell, Saskia Maarleveld, and Steve West. Maarleveld also narrated the author's Once There Were Wolves which I read before this book. You just can't beat a good ensemble and I thought the narration was just fantastic and the dedicated voices brought each character to life.
Overall I enjoyed this novel but I had issues with it. My opinion is in the minority based on the Goodreads rating. 2.5 stars.
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Once There Were Wolves
- A Novel
- De: Charlotte McConaghy
- Narrado por: Saskia Maarleveld
- Duración: 8 h y 27 m
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Inti Flynn arrives in Scotland with her twin sister, Aggie, to lead a team of biologists tasked with reintroducing fourteen gray wolves into the remote Highlands. She hopes to heal not only the dying landscape, but Aggie, too, unmade by the terrible secrets that drove the sisters out of Alaska. Inti is not the woman she once was, either, changed by the harm she’s witnessed—inflicted by humans on both the wild and each other. Yet as the wolves surprise everyone by thriving, Inti begins to let her guard down, even opening herself up to the possibility of love.
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Takes a dive into dark
- De Linda Ottey en 08-10-21
- Once There Were Wolves
- A Novel
- De: Charlotte McConaghy
- Narrado por: Saskia Maarleveld
A Gritty Eco-Fiction Novel With a Side of Murder
Revisado: 04-05-25
Having enjoyed Charlotte McConaghy's Migrations I was looking forward to her follow-up novel Once There Were Wolves. I knew little about it going in except that it was about a woman re-introducing wolves in to the Scottish Highlands, much like they have been in other parts of the world, notably Yellowstone.
The story is told in the first person by main character Inti Flynn, the woman leading a team responsible for the wolves' re-introduction. There are two other major characters, her non-verbal twin sister Aggie and a Scottish police constable Duncan. Aggie became non-verbal in her 20s due to a horrific episode of physical abuse which is thoroughly detailed.
Early on in the novel Inti addresses the residents of the area where the wolves will be released, many of whom farm sheep and cattle. As you can imagine the farmers fear for their livestock and are incensed, and there is immediate animosity towards Inti. It is up to Duncan to control the citizens and keep things peaceful between the Highlands residents, the scientists introducing the wolves, and the wolves themselves who are immediately in the crosshairs of outraged, fearful and disgruntled citizens. The wolves are ultimately released, and each one of them has a tracking collar which alerts Inti of their location and gives off a mortality signal if they die.
The novel also flashes back occasionally to Inti and Aggie's childhood. They were close from a young age and their bond never weakened. They have never really been apart. Their relationship with their parents was strained due to their parents divorce and her mother's moving away from them to pursue a career.
I though this novel was really dark, much darker than I expected. Migrations had some grittiness to it but nothing like this book. There were scenes of all kinds of human and animal abuse, some murdering, plenty of fisticuffs, knife wielding, and rifle shooting. Some killing and a lot of maiming. It felt a bit over the top at times. I felt that the detailed descriptions of some of the bloodletting was unsettling.
The main plot was a human murder mystery, and there were several subplots involving a wolf murder mystery, a budding romance, and, in flashbacks, the story of the twins' parents and what caused Aggie's mental damage.
I was cruising right along rather enjoying the novel when an illogical incident towards the end took me right out of the story. This is also what happened with me when I read The God of the Woods if you remember what I wrote in that rambling review. I won't spoil and reveal details of what happened in Once There Were Wolves but basically wolf expert Inti misidentifies an attack scene after identifying the same type of way-less-obvious attack scene earlier in the novel. I understand this was key to the plot and set up the climax but I felt there was no way she would've missed this given her extensive experience and knowledge in her field of study.
The ending was excellent, though, and I did like the novel overall. 3.5 stars.
I listened in Audible and the narration by Saskia Maarleveld was excellent. She performed a number of Scottish accents and brought the characters to life. And ironically she also narrated The God of the Woods. I used my April Audible credit to purchase McConaghy's new novel Wild Dark Shore which I'm starting next.
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The Satanic Verses
- De: Salman Rushdie
- Narrado por: Sam Dastor
- Duración: 21 h y 36 m
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Inextricably linked with the fatwa called against its author in the wake of the novel’s publication, The Satanic Verses is, beyond that, a rich showcase for Salman Rushdie’s comic sensibilities, cultural observations, and unparalleled mastery of language. The book begins with two Indians plummeting from the sky after the explosion of their airliner, and proceeds through a series of metamorphoses, dreams and revelations.
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Use an audiobook to really enjoy Satanic Verses
- De David Edelberg en 11-24-12
- The Satanic Verses
- De: Salman Rushdie
- Narrado por: Sam Dastor
Highly Entertaining Novel by Master Storyteller
Revisado: 03-14-25
I knew very little of this book going in to it. I knew of the fatwa issued against Rushdie by Iranian Khomeini due to the perceived blasphemy of Islam and the subsequent attacks against Rushdie but that was the extent of my knowledge. I heard an interview with Rushdie on the NYT Book Review Podcast last fall and decided to add to my TBD. I listened to it on Audible and the narrator Sam Dastor, and Indian actor, was fantastic and added a lot to my enjoyment of this book.
The title of the book refers to Quaranic verses and one of the characters, Mahound, is a stand-in for Muhammad hence the blasphemy accusations.
Where do I even start with this book? I had no idea most of it would be very funny and witty, although as it nears its conclusion and storylines wrap up the tone of the novel grows more serious. Rushdie’s writing and command of the English language, particularly the dialogue throughout, was impressive. What a storyteller! I listened to his primarily on my commutes to/from work and laughed out loud in my car often.
While there are two primary main characters, Gibreel Farishta and Saladin Chamcha, there is an overwhelming number of important secondary characters, and I had to regularly consult with a spoiler-free cast listing of this book. Some of the characters disappear for a long time only to have their storylines pick up much later on. My old brain struggled with this. I think reading a paper copy would’ve helped me with this as I think I would’ve remembered them easier experiencing them visually.
The narrative is all over the place, too. While most of the plot focuses on Gibreel and Saladin, it veers off regularly to explore the lives of peripheral characters. Most of which are memorable in their own quirky way. There were no standard “normal” characters. There were times I had no idea what was going on. The novel never dragged though, the goings-on were always entertaining and never boring. And often hilarious like I noted before. The sheer number of characters and the scope of this novel made it a bit overwhelming to digest.
The novel begins with our two protagonists, Gibreel and Chamcha, falling 30,000 feet in to the English Channel from an exploding 747 which had been hijacked by terrorists. They are the only two survivors of the plane crash. Gibreel is a well-known Bollywood actor and Chamcha is a successful voice actor who had moved from India to England. Their friends and families believe they perished in the plane crash. After surviving the plunge both of them are transformed – Gibreel in to the archangel Gabriel and Chamcha in to a devil, complete with hairy goat legs and horns. The rest of the book tells of their life experiences re-connecting with their circle and influencing others. Life becomes complicated for them to say the least. Not much else can be revealed without adding spoilers but the rest of the novel is a crazy fantastical journey.
Despite the fact I typically shy away from fantasy, even the science fiction I read is “hard” science fiction, I thoroughly enjoyed this book despite its often bizarre and surreal storylines due to the its humor and entertaining characters. One of my favorite minor characters was Eugene Dumsday who was also a passenger on the flight with Gabriel and Chamcha. Eugune was an evangelical Christian from the Southern United States and was flying from India to England after warning the Indian people of the evils of Darwinism. He might have been the most believable character in the book!
I'm glad I finally tackled this one. Four stars.
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Trouble with Lichen
- De: John Wyndham
- Narrado por: Vanessa Kirby
- Duración: 7 h y 6 m
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Francis Saxover and Diana Brackley, two scientists investigating a rare lichen, discover it has a remarkable property: it retards the aging process. Francis, realising the implications for the world of an ever-youthful, wealthy elite, wants to keep it secret, but Diana sees an opportunity to overturn the male status quo by using the lichen to inspire a feminist revolution. As each scientist wrestles with the implications and practicalities of exploiting the discovery, the world comes ever closer to learning the truth.
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Lichen
- De Dr. Joe de Beauchamp en 02-14-22
- Trouble with Lichen
- De: John Wyndham
- Narrado por: Vanessa Kirby
Another Wyndham Gem
Revisado: 02-23-25
This is the sixth Wyndham novel I've read and it had a different feel than the others, most of which I would say could be classified as his usual "soft apocalypse" science fiction. I thought Trouble with Lichen was slower than some of his other novels but overall I enjoyed it very much and thought the ending was satisfying. Plus, Wyndham showed again how ahead of his time he was - this science fiction novel written in 1960 had a female protagonist which was unusual at the time.
In Trouble with Lichen, Diana Brackley a biochemist, discovers that a certain Chinese lichen had strange anti-aging effects on milk while working at in a lab. She and another biochemist Francis Saxover, run separate experiments in private and discover independently that the lichen was able to slow the cellular metabolic rate and extend the lifespan of living creatures injected with it.
Both biochemists initially keep the news to themselves and use their discovery in different ways: Francis keeps it to his family and Diana opens a beauty salon to treat primarily wealthy women in London. But secrets are hard to keep and what happens to Francis and Diana and their lichen once knowledge of it gets out?
The novel spends more time focused on Diana's storyline and the end of the novel has some surprising twists and turns.
I listened to the audiobook which was superbly narrated by English actress Vanessa Kirby. It was a short novel, only about seven hours in audio, and not my favorite Wyndham work but the strong ending sold me.
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Going Zero
- A Novel
- De: Anthony McCarten
- Narrado por: Marin Ireland
- Duración: 9 h y 43 m
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Ten Americans have been carefully selected to Beta test a ground-breaking piece of spyware. FUSION can track anyone on earth. But does it work? For one contestant, an unassuming Boston librarian named Kaitlyn Day, the stakes are far higher than money, and her reasons for entering the test more personal than anyone imagines. When the timer hits zero, there will only be one winner…
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Good Summer Quick Read
- De KS.Bainbridge en 05-10-23
- Going Zero
- A Novel
- De: Anthony McCarten
- Narrado por: Marin Ireland
Great Start - Less Great Finish
Revisado: 02-16-25
Going Zero had me completely hooked for the first 50%-60% but at about that time a major plot twist was introduced and I felt the novel went in a new direction and it lost some of its appeal.
The premise is fascinating and believable. Ten people are chosen to "go zero": basically go offline and disappear / hide for thirty days. If a person can succeed in not being captured by the sponsoring / searching organization FUSION they will receive three million dollars.
FUSION is led by a tech genius named Cy Baxter. He created ways of using AI, drones, the plethora of cameras already in public, and even other crazy secret tech innovations to track and locate any person. Baxter hopes to show the US government the robustness and effectiveness of his program in locating and tracking dangerous criminals and enemies of the State with the goal to sell it for big dollars.
The novel spends time with each of the ten participants but the primary protagonist is Kaitlyn Day, a librarian who Cy initially believes will be an easy catch but turns out to have some tricks up her sleeve. It was interesting to think about what I would do to hide for thirty days, and the contestants each had their own interesting plans. Even disconnecting ones phone and seemingly being off the grid, there is plenty of information about a person, their friends, and their families floating around in the internet which would allow a highly advanced information-gathering entity to create a profile and predict what a person might do or where they would go.
Despite being almost ten hours this book flew right by because of the short, tension-filled chapters and jumping around between characters. It never dragged. The narration by Marin Ireland was fantastic.
I liked this novel. It was probably four/five stars for the first two-thirds but after the plot twist and redirection it felt like a different book and was less fun for me. 3.5 stars.
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Moon of the Turning Leaves
- De: Waubgeshig Rice
- Narrado por: Billy Merasty
- Duración: 9 h y 58 m
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For the past twelve years, a community of Anishinaabe people have made the Northern Ontario bush their home in the wake of the power failure that brought about societal collapse. Since then they have survived and thrived the way their ancestors once did, but their natural food resources are dwindling, and the time has come to find a new home.
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wonderful sequel
- De Payton Marshall en 05-31-24
- Moon of the Turning Leaves
- De: Waubgeshig Rice
- Narrado por: Billy Merasty
Well Done Sequel to Moon of the Crusted Snow
Revisado: 01-31-25
Moon of the Turning Leaves is the sequel to the excellent Moon of the Crusted Snow which I rated five stars back in January 2022. I thought Moon of the Turning Leaves was a little slower and situation a little less desperate for most of the book, and the first half seemed rather uneventful except for a tension-filled opening scene. The plot gradually picked up steam as the end approached though and the climax was quite good I thought. I'm giving this novel 3.5 stars.
Both novels are set in northern Ontario, the first mainly in a Anishinaabe First Nation village community. In the first novel, the village wakes up one day to find that the power is out and all methods of communication to the rest of society is cut off. Two tribe members who happened to be in a city to the south return to the tribe with tales of societal collapse. Winter is approaching and the tribe's council has to decide how to take care of its citizens and manage food reserves and fuel supplies over the impending long Canadian winter. And what happens if people arrive from the south?
The second novel is set twelve years in the future. Main character (in both books) Evan Whitesky leads a scouting party south to find a new home for their community as the lakes and land are not as bountiful as they once were and the group is curious of what became of other Anishinaabe to the south. A group of seven set off and hike through their former home land and through the ruined and ransacked city of Gibson on their way south to the area in the northern shore of Lake Huron. Nature has reclaimed much of Canada. Rice has a knack for describing nature and wonderfully paints pictures of the settings along the journey. They group avoid the roads and highways in fear of encountering other people but like any fan of dystopian / end-of the-world fiction knows there are always going to be gun-toting pumpkin-toothed yahoos roaming around stealing and pillaging. And the good guys are going to run in to some.
Rice manages to weave a lot of Anishinaabe language (Anishinaabemowin) into his story, and describes the Anishinaabe traditions as well and hunting and fishing ways which made the novel especially interesting to me.
Towards the end I was wondering if there would be a third novel but Rice added a nice epilogue set eleven years after the conclusion of the events of this novel which wrapped things up nicely.
There is a earnest five-minute heartfelt acknowledgement after the conclusion of the novel which Rice talks about how this sequel came about and describes the contributions of the many people that helped him, and he thanks them individually. He even enlisted the help of Dr. Mary Ann Corbiere from University of Sudbury to review the structure and grammar of Anishinaabemowin he wrote as he is not fully fluent and wanted to make sure it was authentic.
Like Moon of the Crusted Snow, I listened to this on Audible, and it was also narrated by Billy Merasty, an aboriginal Canadian himself. I think his voice added a lot to both of the novels.
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Main Street
- De: Sinclair Lewis
- Narrado por: Lloyd James
- Duración: 18 h y 48 m
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This famous satire of life on Main Street, Gopher Prairie, mirrors with devastating honesty life on Main Streets from Albany to San Diego.
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Lost on me
- De Ray en 03-23-13
- Main Street
- De: Sinclair Lewis
- Narrado por: Lloyd James
Classic About Small Town Minnesota
Revisado: 01-31-25
I'm late to the party on this excellent novel which is set in the fictional small town of Gopher Prairie based on Sauk Centre MN where Sinclair Lewis grew up, and not far from where I live.
Our heroine and protagonist, Carol Milford, was born in Mankato MN goes to college in Minneapolis and then to library school in Chicago before getting hired as a librarian in St. Paul. She is introduced to her future spouse by a mutual friend at a party in St. Paul (just like I was!). Will Kennicott is a doctor in Gopher Prairie and the whole rest of the novel consists of progressive, liberal-leaning Carol trying to fit in in Gopher Prairie with its more conservative, set-in-their-ways folks. (Ironically, I also packed up and moved to the small town of Monticello MN from Minneapolis as my future spouse was a college student at St. Cloud State (MN) and Monticello was half-way between where we both lived.) Anywho.....
Set in the early 1900s from just before WWI to about the start of Prohibition, Main Street is a fascinating glimpse in to small-town Midwestern life of the time. The lives of the Kennicotts are told of in great detail as are the workings of the town through experiences of the citizens Carol interacts with throughout the novel. There are numerous memorable characters, which I think is amazing given that this novel isn't *that* long. You feel like you are there and you know everyone. And if you yourself live or lived in a small town you will feel right at home as human nature doesn't change much. I think a lot of urbanites who grew up in small towns will also find this novel especially relatable. Sinclair Lewis was a great writer and storyteller, and once I was roped in to Carol's narrative I was fascinated and kind of anxious to learn how this was going to turn out for her. This is primary a serious novel that touches on and addresses an array of subjects of the times - economics, immigrants, labor unions, politics, religion, gender roles and inequities, social standings, etc. - but I was surprised how much humor Lewis weaved in to this novel, too. And I loved the shout-out to the greatest American nobody knows of: Robert Ingersoll.
This currently FREE in Audible and I must say that the narration by Lloyd James was fantastic. The number of voices and accents he performed for the wide range of range of characters was incredible - from the calm and gentle Dr. Kennicott, to the hysterical gossip Mrs. Bogart, to the opinionated atheist Swede Miles Bjornstam and everyone in between. Wow. He made this novel a great listen!
I give this novel 4.5 stars.
Fun facts:
Sinclair Lewis was friends with John Steinbeck and in Steinbeck's Travels With Charley he describes how he drove from Minneapolis to Sauk Centre to visit Lewis. This was before Interstate 94 so Steinbeck no doubt drove through Monticello past my back yard on his way north.
On our dogcation tour of Minnesota with our late beloved Keenan last spring we had planned on heading to Sauk Centre after visiting the Charles Lindbergh home and farm grounds in Little Falls MN but spent too much time there so missed out on seeing Sauk Centre Main Street and the historical marker on their Main Street, and Sinclair Lewis's house and museum. I hope to get there this summer. Can't wait to see Main Street.
The Sauk Centre high school team name is the "Main Streeters", shortened to "Streeters" on their uniforms / jerseys. Some locals did not like Lewis's portrayal of small-town MN, though. The book was banned from the library in nearby Alexandria MN at the time!
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The Castle
- De: Franz Kafka
- Narrado por: George Guidall
- Duración: 11 h y 49 m
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On his deathbed, Franz Kafka asked that all his unpublished manuscripts be burned. Fortunately, his request was ignored, allowing such works as The Trial to earn recognition among the literary masterpieces of the 20th century. This brilliant new translation of The Castle captures comedic elements and visual imagery that earlier interpretations missed.
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Obscure, enigmatic, and not for everyone
- De John en 02-08-06
- The Castle
- De: Franz Kafka
- Narrado por: George Guidall
Over My Head
Revisado: 12-24-24
Like The Trial, I found The Castle to be an odd tale, but I felt the latter to be unsatisfying and more work to follow. It felt pointless to me. While The Trial kept me entertained right up until the abrupt and shocking ending, The Castle bored me, it just seemed to me to a bunch of roundabout conversations involving the status of protagonist "K" (again) who shows up in a village with a large castle to do surveying but no one in the village recalls calling for him. The characters were interesting, K's predicament was odd and mysterious, but the novel just didn't hold my attention. I didn't pick up on the significance of this work.
Whereas in The Trial K was trapped in a seemingly unresolvable legal mess, in The Castle the K character was stuck in a bureaucracy housed in the actual castle and his status amongst the villagers and employment situation were never very clear. The ending was very abrupt as Kafka never finished it so I'm not even sure what to think happened to K.
The Trial and The Castle are currently both freebies on Audible and I'm glad I gave them a try. Like I said in my last Kafka review: the themes in his writings appeal to me - understanding what is going on is what I need to work on I guess.
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The God of the Woods
- A Novel
- De: Liz Moore
- Narrado por: Saskia Maarleveld
- Duración: 14 h y 35 m
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Early morning, August 1975: a camp counselor discovers an empty bunk. Its occupant, Barbara Van Laar, has gone missing. Barbara isn’t just any thirteen-year-old: she’s the daughter of the family that owns the summer camp and employs most of the region’s residents. And this isn’t the first time a Van Laar child has disappeared. Barbara’s older brother similarly vanished fourteen years ago, never to be found.
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Tangled Mystery Overloaded with Characters and Confusing Time Jumps
- De unknown en 08-09-24
- The God of the Woods
- A Novel
- De: Liz Moore
- Narrado por: Saskia Maarleveld
Intriguing mystery with some nits
Revisado: 12-23-24
I found The God of the Woods to be hard to put down and a good read but there were some aspects of the novel that lessened my overall enjoyment.
I think reading the actual paper novel would've worked better for me. There are so many time jumps between 1961 and 1975 (when the two stories which make up the novel take place) and a number of jumps between nine characters (some major, some minor) that I often spent the initial parts of each chapter trying to remember what was going on in when we left off during that particular year. Adding to this was the rapid-fire nature of some of the chapters, there were a number of them which were only two or three minutes long in Audible.
The book came with a pdf of a map of the camp and surroundings, which are the novel's primary settings. I didn't consult it once. I would've rather had a pdf of the family trees of the of the nine aforementioned characters in the book as initially with all the jumping around I was wondering how people were connected or if they were related to each other. It all gradually sunk in but for a while I my old brain felt like a punching bag.
Another nitpick: there was a key scene towards the end involving an early morning drive to and from a lake, portaging a canoe a half-mile twice, and paddling a canoe to the middle of a lake and back which I thought was completely implausible given the time it supposedly took in the novel. I've done my share of all of the above and it had me shaking my head.
There are many things I really liked about the novel. The primary characters are really fleshed out and right up until the end I didn't know who the good ones were or bad ones were (except for one obviously bad fellow). I also liked how we experienced the two mysteries (one in each time line) from so many POVs. The mysteries were unraveled slowly and deliberately and I didn't see the reveals of either one coming at all (I'm usually not quick to pick up on mysteries) and both were very surprising. There were many twists and turns as the end drew near, it was really hard to hit the stop button.
I'll give it 3.5 stars - excellent character development and story telling coupled with some issues which bugged me personally which took me out of the story or confused my old brain. It just won the Goodreads Choice Award for Best Mystery.
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