Arthur Dent

Fascinating story, unfortunate narration.

Revisado: 02-09-22

I'm a huge Pogues fan, so this was a must have. I read James Fearnley's "Here Comes Everybody" several years ago and just recently finished listening to the audiobook version. That was great because James narrated his own book. (Though some might be turned off by his deliberate, unemotional style, I quickly got into it and enjoyed hearing Fearnley's low-key Mancunian-accented delivery. I'm American, btw.) This story is just as riveting--and offers a different angle on the band and the perspective of many others in Shane's orbit. And, of course, it goes into far more detail about Shane's life outside the Pogues. Unfortunately, the narration of A Furious Devotion is very off-putting. The narrator reads every sentence in the same odd cadence--a series of declarations with an uptick/emphasis on the final word. The best way I can indicate it on the page is "da-da-da-da-da-da DA [pause] da-da-da-da-da-da DA [pause] da-da-da-da-da-da DA..." Over and over and over again. The only time he breaks out of it is when he is quoting someone--and in those passages he comes to life and is quite good at making it sound like a real person is sitting there relating an event or giving an honest opinion. But then, when he's back to describing events in the third person, the droning cadence continues. But worst of all is that HE MISPRONOUNCES A BAND MEMBER'S NAME. He pronounces Cait O'Riordan's name as "Kate." It's supposed to sound more like "cot" (rhymes with "hot"... at least to my American ears). Now I must confess that I long thought it was pronounced "Kate" too. But if you are going to be the professional narrator of an audiobook heavily focused on a particular band, I'd think the least you could do is make sure you are pronouncing the names of the band members right. Every time he says "Kate" I want to turn off the narration and reach for the print version (which I also own). I read later that this narrator--who is quite in demand in certain genres--doesn't like to read books in print before he narrates, preferring to dive right in cold. In this case, a little more prep would have been appreciated.

Amusing but inconsequential error near the end: The author refers to Martin O'Malley as the former governor of Baltimore. Obviously, none of the proofreaders were American... O'Malley was former mayor of Baltimore (a city) then governor of Maryland (a state).

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A bit dense in places, but utterly fascinating

Revisado: 04-07-12

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Nick Lane offers a brilliant synopsis of the inner workings of evolution. Yes, there are irritants: He often leads you down dead end streets in discussing historical theories in some detail, only to reveal at the end that the theory you were trying to absorb is utterly wrong. And I had to pick up a hard copy of the book to read over a few passages that I could not follow easily in the audio. But the content and overall presentation is breathtaking.

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