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Indiana Jones has nothing on these explorers!

Revisado: 02-13-16

This history of Western expeditions to find the source of the Nile is gripping and very exciting. The explorers face all kinds of terror: famine, disease, war, death in general. The story is briskly told and makes for a good listen.

The narrator– ah the narration! Yes, his voice is very monotone. This would have been a much better listen with someone who could bring the excitement to life. However, in the spirit of credit where credit is due— he fluidly pronounces lots of very difficult to pronounce names and place names. In the rare instances of dialogue he also does a good job with various accents. But yes, the monotone is tough to get through.

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A Wonderful Read with Vibrant Characters

Revisado: 11-11-15

What a fantastic book! I chose this after reading Justin Martin's biography of Frederick Law Olmsted. That book was a little on the slow side, but this one moves like a freight train. It's filled with zany characters and the portrait of Walt Whitman that arises is so tender and moving. I was sad when the book was over. Simply superb.

The reader is fairly average. He reads ponderously and worse, there are a lot of French words and phrases in the book and he butchers them.

Still that doesn't detract too much from this great read.

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A good story...poorly told

Revisado: 08-13-15

Glenn McGrath certainly has a great story to tell. He was arguably the world's best fast bowler, part of a storied, record-breaking cricket team and has lived through personal heartache and tragedy. More than enough for a great book. This particular book falls short because it tells this story so poorly. The chapters don't see to connect or have been written in consecutive order. The same anecdote is repeated in several chapters. The chapter that focuses on McGrath's relationships with his famous teammates- Gilchrist, Warne et al consists of tiny blurbs that say little more than: "he's a great guy". Finally, there is a lot of what the Aussies call "whinging" and score-settling. A whole early chapter that tries to explain and contextualize McGrath's love of hunting big game. A chapter devoted to McGrath's famous sledges and how he was "misunderstood." This is very much a celebrity biography- extremely one-sided

McGrath is undoubtedly a champion and deserves to have his story with depth and balance. This isn't really it. This book is only worth reading until a better one comes along.

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A wonderful history of the "bible of cricket"

Revisado: 07-27-15

This is a terrific listen. The history of Wisden is also the history of cricket and the social history of the nation that gave birth to the sport. This retelling is wonderfully readable, spry and arch when necessary. Chock full of the doings of the game's greats- Grace, Hobbs et al.

The reader's performance is warm and lively.

Overall a great book!

NB: in searching Audible for 'cricket' this book does not show up. It is very much about cricket. I only found it by chance, searching for 'Wisden'.

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A great listen for any cricket fan!

Revisado: 06-17-15

This is a delightful book. It's a wonderful portrait of international cricket in its early days. We see the way the noble game was played in the 19th century. Lazenby does a great job of bringing the people, places and events alive. There's plenty of color for the non-cricket fan as well and I think this book would appeal to anyone interested in Victorian England. The charm of this book is greatly enhanced by the fantastic narration of Jonathan Coote. He does a wonderful job and does a separate distinct accent for each of the characters.

I hope US Audible will have more of this type of social history dealing with cricket.

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Wonderful book and listening experience!

Revisado: 03-19-15

The title might make this seem boring- how interesting can a book about lists be? But it's great! Gawande provides varied anecdotes and portraits of the success of checklists from a plethora of fields: flight, medicine, construction and even fine dining. Finding out why Van Halen insisted that the brown M&M's be removed was very insightful.

A great book!

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Great book, Awful narrator

Revisado: 02-08-15

The Good: This is a terrific book. Kanigel's biography of both Ramanujan and his friend and patron GH Hardy is filled with wonderful detail. He does an admirable job of conveying a sense of the complex mathematics Ramanujan worked on. He seems to do a pretty good job in conveying the complex life and death of this amazing mathematician.

The bad: The narration is awful. Humphrey Bower is Australian(!!!!!) This means he mispronounces all the Indian names and words *and* the British names as well. This was a staggeringly poor choice and it makes this great book difficult to listen to. An Indian reader would have been way better- or even a British one.

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Fantastic Book! Great science history

Revisado: 01-26-15

I loved learning about all the amazing scientific figures especially William Herschel and Humphry Davy. Also the section on the advent of balloon flight. The book features mini-biographies that are woven together seamlessly. It's sprinkled with fun anecdotes and details throughout.

The one suggestion would be to get through the first section on Joseph Banks. It's more about geographic exploration and less about science- it's the least interesting part of the book- which gets much better afterwards.

The narration by Gildart Jackson is sublime. He handles all the French, German, Latin, scientific terms and even gives distinct accents to all spoken characters. He gives Davy what I assume is a Cornish accent. His American accent is charming if not perfectly accurate. He's a terrific reader.

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Decent interviews on design, horrible reading

Revisado: 08-05-14

Where does How to Think Like a Great Graphic Designer rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

Somewhere in the middle- these are fairly superficial interviews

How could the performance have been better?

The reader constantly mispronounces words- she butchers genre, milieu and segue. She mispronounces almost all pronouns- James Victore comes in for a beating.

If you were to make a film of this book, what would the tag line be?

Brief interviews with Designers

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Fantastic Listen!

Revisado: 05-05-14

Would you listen to Language A to Z again? Why?

Yes, it was an informative and fun listen.

What was the most compelling aspect of this narrative?

The sections are compact and you know which letter is coming next!

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