Kindle Customer

First disappointment from Agatha

Revisado: 03-06-25

I've read dozens of Agatha Christie novels and I can honestly say this is the first one to truly disappoint me. Strongest point for the book was the characters which were largely very enjoyable. Story was interesting throughout and I was really into it... until the ending which, for me, was awful in so many ways. Unfortunately, mysteries are dependent on the resolution and a terrible solution can largely ruin an otherwise good book.

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Would have turned me off to Buddhist thought...

Revisado: 06-09-23

I've long been interested in buddhism as a philosophy and have incorporated parts of it (along with stoicsm and taoism) into my own personal philosophy/spirituality. The name of this book intrigued me as I thought it would continue to expand my understanding even further, which it did. The core teachings that you tend to hear about are the "Four Noble Truths" and the "Eight Fold Path" but this book focused on the "Four Seals" which are the primary underlying tenants or beliefs of Buddhism (e.g., impermanence, the emptiness of existence, etc.) which the author says that, if you don't accept, you are NOT a Buddhist. The book was well written and kept me engaged but, for me, I felt that the author was making the points almost with the goal of making them too difficult for most people to grasp. I've read other books on buddhism (including the book that I'm reading right now) that do a MUCH better job at explaining them and making than not so confusing. In the end, I found the book (for me) too dogmatic, too negative, and too "exclusive" which seems to go against the spirt of buddhist teaching. On it's own it would have turned me off to pursuing buddhist ideas further but, fortunately, I've read other and, for me, more useful books which have given me many ideas, concepts and practices that I have found EXTREMELY helpful in making my life better and much, much happier. After reading this one, I quickly started to read another book on buddhism (which, for me, is excellent so far) so that I could get back to what I have found intriguing about this philosophy of life. For the record, I have at present no interest in being a "Buddhist" (or, for that matter, any "-ist," "-ic," or "-ian" system of belief); as such, in regards to me the author of this tome can rest easy. I practice a sort of "do it yourself" mode of personal philosophy/spirituality where nothing is dogmatic and it's always evolving and changing as I learn new things from different points of view.

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Not as good as its predecessor but still enjoyable

Revisado: 04-28-23

I really enjoyed the first book in this series (The Land That Time Forgot) and thought I would continue with the next book. While this was a good read I didn't enjoy it as much as much as the first one and it seemed to be rather rushed especially at the end. That being said it was a worthwhile read.

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A great combination of two excellent books!

Revisado: 04-28-23

"Mike" is actually the combination of two of Wodehouse's books: "Mike at Wrykyn" and "Mike and Psmith"... While the first half is not the uproariously laugh-fest that you get from Wodehouse, it's still an excellent story (especially for a lover of the sport, Cricket, which I am). The 2nd half has Mike moving (against his wishes) from Wrykyn to a smaller school and there he meets Psmith (the "P" is silent)... Psmith is one of Plum's great characters and this story is far more hilarious than the first one... I'm only sad that Wodehouse didn't write more of Mike and Psmith...

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Wodehouse's first published book

Revisado: 04-06-23

Wodehouse's first published book, this one is definitely NOT the place to start if you are wanting to get into Plum's writing; in fact, I would say this is more geared for Wodehouse completists (such as myself). It's a lighthearted short novel about the goings-on at an English public school (the fictional St. Austin's), particularly regarding the theft of two silver sports prizes (aka the "pots"). There are a number of smiles but no real solid laughs in this one (in sharp contrast to Plum's hilarious later works) but it's well written and you can see the development of a comic genius in the works here. The narrator is decent enough though he is no Jonathan Cecil.

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Excellent introduction to Wodehouse

Revisado: 04-04-23

An excellent introduction to the works of P.G. Wodehouse with 10 stories covering many of the major series in Plum's repertoire: Mr. Mulliner, Ukridge, the Drones Club, the Oldest Member, and Jeeves & Wooster. The only signicant series not covered are Blandings Castle (my favorite series), Psmith, and Uncle Fred (my favorite character). There are lots of laughs in this collection and I highly recommend it to those interested in discovering one of the greastest humorists of the 20th century. Plus Jonathan Cecil's reading is beyond wonderful and hilarious.

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The narrator...ugh!

Revisado: 01-07-23

I'm a pretty big fan of Ed McBain novels and have read many of his books... I decided to read this book via audiobook but literally made it through one chapter before I had to switch to the Kindle version of it. The narrator is TERRIBLE... All three of the characters that he did were WAY over the top and utterly annoying and distracting... the two cops in the opening chapter both sounded like drunk carnival barkers and it was ruining the experience for me... I couldn't take it any longer. While there is humor in McBain novels, they are usually dark and gritty which is what I like about them. I don't need a bloated, comical narration to completely destroy the tone and feel of these books. Unfortunately it looks like most of McBain's novels are read by this guy so I'll be sticking to the printed word.

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Poe is Overrated

Revisado: 10-12-22

I had to give up on this book about a third of the way in... I just couldn't take his stories any longer. Yes, the classic Poe stories that we all know and love are wonderful but that is only about a fifth of his output based upon the portion of this book that I largely struggled through. The rest of his work is largely stories that just dully ramble on and on and on and on and on and on with exposition on every minute detail. I thought maybe this would only be just in the beginning of the collection but once I got to the Domain of Arnheim, and it once again just started pontificating endlessly (and NOT in an engaging manner) about the nature of art and landscape gardening, I was done. Ugh... when Poe is good, he's good... but when he's not good he's (for me) just awful. "The Mystery of Marie Roget" (a "sequel" to the excellent "Murders in the Rue Morgue) may be the worst short story that I have ever read. Poe is often paired with Lovecraft as one of the early masters of horror story telling. I've read every single story that Lovecraft penned (some of them multiple times) as well as all but a handful of the available collaborations and, even at his worst, his stories were always at least engaging and readable. Most of his stories, though, were good to excellent and I look forward to some day working my way through HPL's entire output again. For Poe, I will continue to revisit his classics but I will NOT be re-attempting a complete reading of his works.

Regarding the narration, I thought the reader's voice was fine but he read the stories in a very flat tone and very quickly. When I first started listening to this, I actually wondered if this was a "text to speech" auto reading.

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Great book!! Not so great narration

Revisado: 04-12-22

First of all, Dune is one of the greatest books that I have ever read and I look forward to reading it again as well as its sequels. So why only four stars? Well this is a review of the audio book and not just the text so I have to take that into consideration too. The reading by Simon Vance and the "cast" was very well done but there were two significant problems: First, it kept jumping back and forth between only Simon Vance reading (and doing all the voices) and Simon reading the narration and the cast doing the voices; I found that VERY distracting especially since the voices (including accents) done by Vance were often significantly at odds with the voices the cast were doing. Second, and more concerning, was that during the cast sections, significant portions of text were eliminated from the reading. I had no problem removing words like "Paul said" or "...she whispered" and so forth as that made perfect sense. However, important sentences and phrases were often removed (no doubt to maintain dramatic effect) which often described visual responses of the characters which speaking could not convey. Many of these shed subtle insights which were lost during the cast sections. I would have strongly preferred this had simply been read by Simon Vance alone; if that had been done, I would have given this audio book a solid five stars. Either do a straightforward reading or do a dramatization; don't try to merge the two into this very weird rendering.

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A GREAT Way To Sample Joyce's Masterpiece

Revisado: 03-15-21

A fantastic way to "dip your foot" into the monumental novel that is Joyce's "Ulysses"... It says it's "dramatized" but it's a literal reading by multiple actors of an abridged version of the full novel; all of the text comes directly from the book itself. It's often said that "Ulysses" should be read aloud to more fully capture the puns and so forth and this audiobook proves that. The actors do a fantastic job in every way and really bring the "sound" of the book to life. I've long wanted to read the full novel but have always found it's length and complexity daunting (only having read about a quarter of it prior to this). With having the overall story and flow of the text (which changes from section to section) now under my belt, I feel much more ready to dive into the full novel (which I will be reading soon with a couple of guides at the same time). Highly recommended even if this is as far as you go with "Ulysses"... It'll be nice to have this to play again after I've tackled the full novel when I want to revisit "Bloomsday" and Joyce's amazing writing but don't have the time to commit for the full book.

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