Jessica Smith

Fascinating, and Robin Miles is a great reader

Revisado: 12-01-24

Sometimes with more academic nonfiction like this, it’s hard to listen to because the reader reads it as if it’s boring nonfiction. But the reader here has a calm, inviting voice that seems curious, like she’s discovering along with us.

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I wish I had bought the unabridged version

Revisado: 02-29-24

This is the abridged version of Empire of the Sun, and I can tell that the book is probably really good. The performer is wonderful. But, I wish I had bought the entire thing and not the abridged version because I feel like I missed stuff.

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Excellent recording

Revisado: 07-10-23

I feel like this 3rd book is the best one so far (of 1-3) but what I really admire is the commitment of Hillary Huber to delivering the content with compassion, passion, tone changes, the correct amount of drama, and care, so that the narrative is propelled forward. It’s astounding to think of her recording thousands of pages of these books and I’m really grateful for her work.

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Not the best Ondaatje

Revisado: 06-20-21

This is probably my least favorite Ondaatje novel (sorry!) but one of them has to be the least favorite, right? If you've read The English Patient and want more Ondaatje, I would recommend The Skin of a Lion and Running in the Family rather than this one.

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Reminds me of Marguerite Duras

Revisado: 06-05-21

I read a lot of Marguerite Duras when I was younger, and this book reminded me of what kind of book would be written if a Vietnamese woman in Duras's colonizer literature (I say that with a kind of awareness and affection, because I love Duras, but she writes about French colonial Southeast Asia from the perspective of a white French woman) were to tell her own story. There is the shock of sudden romantic love that brings transgressive freedom, but this time it's not cross-cultural love, it's the coming-home of intracultural love *in contrast to* a cross-cultural love where the two people don't really understand each other. The main character sometimes seems "weak," "compliant," but at the same time, she is very successful, strong-willed, independent, and passionate. It's a short book but there's a lot going on: cross-cultural and intracultural tensions, tensions between languages (reminding me of Theresa Hak Kyung Cha), Vietnamese history, the history of Vietnamese and Chinese immigrants in Montreal, gender expectations and relations, etc. A very rich book.

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How much do you like trees?

Revisado: 06-03-21

This book came highly recommended to me by multiple people, perhaps because I *really* like trees. Because I really like trees, I've read a lot of nonfiction books about them, so the information contained in this story wasn't as new and exciting to me as it was to the people who thought I should read the book. The interlocking narratives also weren't that interesting to me-- one book that I like that does that is "Let the Great World Spin" by Colum McCann-- it's not really a groundbreaking technique, so I guess i was hoping for something more experimental in form. (Some contemporary novels I like on audiobook that are more experimental in form are "Lincoln in the Bardo" and "The Small Backs of Children.") The book also has a long "speech" section where Powers seems to want to lay out everything he knows about trees through the voice of the Suzanne Simard character, Patricia Westerford, and this section reminded me of the end of Ayn Rand's "Atlas Shrugged" where John Galt just goes off for 60 pages (Powers, I'm really sorry about this comparison to Ayn Rand). I think what this book most needed was an editor who knew more about trees. The thing is, if you *really* like trees, this book won't impress you, and if you don't *really* like trees, you might not want to sit through the whole thing, because it's really long.

I also own the paper version of this book, and I don't think I would have gotten through it; this says a lot for the narrator. The performance of this book is really engaging. If you feel like you have to read this book, because of its critical reception or your friends telling you that you HAVE to read it, then I think the audiobook is the way to go.

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Good performance; insights dated

Revisado: 05-18-21

I have read or listened to almost all of Sacks's work and consider myself a fan. In this collection, he has some interesting insights about memory. But the collection was published in 1995 and there has been major progress in the way we understand and treat autism (it's 2021). The last couple of chapters feel really dated and even offensive in their lack of understanding/empathy toward the subjects-- even if this was perhaps groundbreaking at the time.

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Very moving tale of a Chinese family in Vancouver

Revisado: 04-03-21

There are a number of things going on in this book. On the surface, it's narrated by three very spirited children who will make you love them like great childrens' literature characters-- Ramona Quimby, for example. Beneath the surface is a history of decades of brutality against Asian Canadians. The surface is mostly light and entertaining, but it is constantly studded with intergenerational and gender-based violence. I found it very moving and cried at the end.

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Reading all the Shirley Jackson

Revisado: 10-13-20

As masterful as Shirley Jackson is, this might be her scariest book. It’s really disturbing.

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<shakes Clare>

Revisado: 09-09-20

Except for the consistent mispronunciation of "und so weiter" (which occurs multiple times, so it was annoying) this multi-actor reading was wonderful, and the female voice's insistence on Clare's voice being kind of innocent/twee was appropriate to her character. I thought Henry's character was sinister, creepy, pedophiliac, manipulative, dishonest, controlling, etc. and I am surprised by how many people find this book romantic, when he is more of a Byronic Hero kind of Romantic than a partner someone should want to be with. It bothers me that Clare's life is totally overtaken by this dude and I wanted to shake her basically the whole time. I hope there is a sequel where she snaps the eff out of it and moves on with her life.

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