Mark

enjoyable

Revisado: 03-17-23

For hockey fans, reliving this classic series is a lot of fun. It took place when I was a young child so I do not remember it personally, But I was familiar with most of the NHL stars from later in my childhood. One deficiency of this book is the absence of the Soviet perspective. The author did a good job interviewing many of the Canadians who are now older men, and their wives, as well as poring through interviews of some of those who have passed away, but the author does not appear to have tried to interview the Soviet players and/or officials. I think this would have taken this story to an awesome higher level. There might even be archives in Russia that could offer insight into the goals and 'playbook" of the Soviet officials who tried to mess with the Canadian players when they were in Moscow eg through playing loud noises in the hotel, making 2 am phone calls to their rooms, giving them crappy food, etc.) Understanding the inside story of these machinations would have been awesome!

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Well written story re Latina immigrant experience

Revisado: 09-04-20

Really well written with interesting characters. Well performed. A very relatable and realistic story about a young woman with a limited economic situation in D.R. that leads her to an unhappy marriage in America.

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good storyteller but barely connects the stories

Revisado: 11-25-19

Gladwell is a very good story teller so each individual story is interesting, but I don't think they really all fit together with a coherent theme. I feel like he struggled to connect all these different stories that he was interested in to create One theme.

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memoir of a complete shmuck

Revisado: 11-11-19

This is the loser who grew up a super rich son and grandson of 2 mega movie stars and managed to piss away all of his great opportunities by skateboarding, spraying graffiti, and shooting himself up with cocaine and heroin. Now the only reason he was able to publish a book was because he is the spoiled son of a movie star, as opposed to all of the other people who worked really hard and struggled to try to publish a book. I got a few hours in and I had to stop because this guy is such an incredible shmuck-- he is about 40 years old now and is bragging about the time he beat up 2 other boys in high school. Why do I want to read about such an incredible schmuck? I regret wasting my money on this rag.

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the most trite "lessons"

Revisado: 03-16-17

What disappointed you about Legacy?

A grabbag of all of the commonly used and well known clichés about sports performance. Many are culled from NFL American football and have nothing to do with rugby or the All blacks. I think the author just wanted to market his book to a NZ audience.

Has Legacy turned you off from other books in this genre?

yes

Would you be willing to try another one of Saul Reichlin’s performances?

no, the reader is annoying

Any additional comments?

One of the worst audiobooks I have gotten from audible.
I have no idea why there are so many positive reviews.

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The death rattle drags on forever

Revisado: 06-14-16

What could have made this a 4 or 5-star listening experience for you?

First part of book, describing the active portion of a mathematician's career was well-written and interesting. Unfortunately the later part, in which this alcoholic character is in his dying days, drags on FOREVER and is very boring.

Has A Doubter's Almanac turned you off from other books in this genre?

yes, done with Ethan Canin.
I liked some of his short stories years ago, but this one will make it impossible for me to read anything more of his.

How did the narrator detract from the book?

Falsetto for female characters sounds like a drag queen.

What reaction did this book spark in you? Anger, sadness, disappointment?

Disappointment that Canin is unable to carry an interesting story and keep up the interest level. There was just this endless bloody boring phase where everyone is grappling with this old dying alcoholic's legacy, and it just feels like, why the hell are you dragging me the reader through this crapola.

Any additional comments?

If you like alcoholics with liver failure and people sorting out their own emotions endlessly, this is the book for you. Otherwise find another book.

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If you are looking for Ballybucklebo it's not here

Revisado: 05-28-13

What could have made this a 4 or 5-star listening experience for you?

If the author had stuck with the characters and town that the other books in this series are about. This one is a boring long winded story, told to some kids by housekeeper Kinky Kincaid. Some demons or spirits didn't want her neighbor, when she was a young woman, to chop down a tree. So he chops down the tree and now ooooh scary, all these supernatural things are happening. I think Patrick Taylor had a left over short story in his files and thought he could make it part of this series by having good ol Kinky tell the story within the story. Its a huge disappointment!

What was most disappointing about Patrick Taylor’s story?

Boring, a story about a kid chopping down a tree drags on forever and ever. Get over it--it's a tree!

How could the performance have been better?

Narrator appears to be faking an Irish accent. I liked the male reader of the other books in this series much better.

You didn’t love this book... but did it have any redeeming qualities?

No, none that I can see.

Any additional comments?

skip this one and read the Irish Country Doctor, Dublin City Student, and Irish Country Village.

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interesting analysis but no real solutions

Revisado: 05-25-12

Would you consider the audio edition of What Money Can't Buy to be better than the print version?

One advantage of the audio version is it is read by the author who is a very popular and distinguished Harvard professor, so it is as though you are in his class.

What did you like best about this story?

Makes you consider where we should draw the line of what should and should not be bought.

Any additional comments?

The author says repeatedly that we have had no public discourse about this issue and we should start a national dialogue about it, etc, but it is unclear what exactly that means. Should we start writing editorials, talk about it on TV news stations, or what? Where would the solution to this problem lie?

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better even than the great movie

Revisado: 04-20-08

I really enjoyed this novel even more than I enjoyed the excellent movie. The accents I thought seemed fine (except a woman Israeli accent) and did not bother me at all, though I have spent little time with Scots. I did not notice any boring meandering as other reviewers have suggested. To me this seemed a well paced, fascinating story that helped me understand how Amin began as a somewhat charismatic and intelligent leader and gradually transformed into a monster as the main character gradually found himself trapped in Amin's sphere, unable to leave. My understanding is that the main character is fictional but based on several actual white expatriates who became close to Amin.

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annoying and boring

Revisado: 09-13-07

I really enjoyed Kite Runner but I found this one quite boring. I felt like, it is no surprise that women living in an oppressive, mysoginistic culture are going to have a terrible time. And yet the woman routinely has sexual relations (and has a child) with her disgusting older arranged-marriage husband, which seems to me like accepting serial rape in a way. Also I found the narrator's voice very annoying and did not want to return to this audiobook. I forced myself to for a while, then gave up when the monotony persisted.

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