Robin H.

Deeply Inspiring

Revisado: 01-13-24

I had hoped this book would be an instructive text on how to write contemporary flash fiction, and for just a moment I was disappointed. But it drew me in. For some reason, I kept listening. Hitting the button. Now I'm bursting to write flash. I don't need to know how. Please don't tell me. I don't care. I am free.

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A Miracle

Revisado: 11-21-23

This is so good it boggles my brain. It makes me want to weep. Humans may f**k everything up and destroy the planet and die out, but we will still have succeeded because this book was written. If you're interested in good prose, this is as good as it gets. Not pretty or flowery. More like magnificent. Transcendent. Devastating. If you don't like that, I don't know how to help you.

Narrator Richard Poe is FANTASTIC. Oh my lord, he does McCarthy justice—which is another miracle. Thank you Richard. You done good.

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As Good As It Gets!

Revisado: 04-27-23

Angela Carter is possibly my favorite writer, and to my mind some of the stories in this book are as good as written stories get. The narration too is spot-on. Especially Emilia Fox (Armitage is excellent as well, but I prefer a female narrator for Carter's work). I just listened to "the Tiger's Bride" twice in a row, and Fox is simply ASTONISHING in her ability to capture the humor, the intelligence, the mischief and pure witchery of Carter's voice. The combination of Carter's writing and Fox's narration brings me to a level of delight and glee that is nearly unbearable! I will be listening to this audiobook over and over.

If you are reading this Emilia: Thank you! And bravissima!

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Beyond Words

Revisado: 11-22-22

This is possibly the most astonishingly beautiful novel I’ve ever read. For those who enjoy a profound psychological and philosophical read about life, love and art, I can’t recommend this more highly.

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Great Text, Horribly Inappropriate Narration

Revisado: 04-21-21

I appear to be one of the only people who hate this narration. I agree that this woman has a nice voice and is perfectly professional, but she also sounds like the epitome of the traditional disempowered female ideal. Pretty, graceful, weak and soft, this voice is completely at odds with the energy of the goddess. For someone like me who is more the Durga or Kali type, this delicate, male-pleasing energy is just worthless. The text itself is awesome, but the narration threatens to transform it into superficial new-age fluff. I have to try very hard to separate the words from the voice and still get value from it. I would much prefer to read this in book form, but I already spend too much time sitting at my computer for work. I think i might have to buy a treadmill so i can hold a book and read while i walk without risking getting hit by a car.

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Mixed Feelings

Revisado: 06-24-20

This is overall ok. If you’re a logically minded person you’ll have to overlook a bunch of clumsy reasoning, and the section about wine is totally off the mark. As someone who has spent considerable time with small wine makers in Tuscany and who generally only drinks wine as a part of dinner, her arguments come across as naive and sloppy. Please don’t tell me wine doesn’t actually taste good just because you have only drank crappy fake wine made by huge US wine conglomerates. The author clearly doesn’t have much experience or knowledge in this area, and I find her judgy attitude to be totally alienating. It’s sort of along the lines of vegans saying “milk is puss.” It doesn’t make me not want to drink milk, it just makes me hate vegans. That said, a lot of the message here is useful and well intended, and I’m happy that this is helping a lot of people. The wine thing just really rubbed me the wrong way, along with the generally sloppiness of her arguments—arguments that the reader must completely buy into in order for the method to “work.” Critical thinkers beware.

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Excellent

Revisado: 01-29-20

Another beautiful, strange, profound and hilarious work by the great Angela Carter. I first picked up a book by her when I was probably 12 or 13. I can’t imagine recommending her to someone that age, but I remember being extremely intrigued (as was my sister). It was like a whole secret side of life had began to open up in my brain. I forgot about her in my 20s and 30s, as I was too busy to do much reading, but I picked her up again in my 40s and appreciated her even more. Now in my 50s, I consider her among my top three authors.

I would not recommend Carter to those who do not enjoy poetry or who prefer simple masculine action narratives with minimal adverbs, etc (Hemingway, etc.). This book (and all of her work) will probably irritate you. You have to have a pretty strong vocabulary and enjoy reveling in all the strange little details and subversive entendres. If you have not read Carter before, I recommend her short stories. It’s been argued that her style is best suited to short stories, because it can be overwhelming in large doses (I believe it was Salmon Rushdie who said this). I would have to agree, although if you love Carter as much as I do, you will also love her novels. I get bored easily with long works, but Carter’s language and thought process are so intensely stimulating, that I keep moving along, even if I’m a little confused as to what’s happening in the story. In this sense she reminds me of David Foster Wallace, although their voices are quite different. Both have an ironic quality, but Carter’s voice is more lush and hyper-creative. Wallace is more disjointed and a little funnier. Carter can be pretty funny too, but it’s more subtle.

Piers Hampton, by the way, did an astounding job on the narration. I was blown away by how well he captured the tone of Carter’s style with its delicately baroque airs and subtle ridiculousness. One of my 2 favorite narrations of all time. Bravo!

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Excellent, even with the Bible stuff

Revisado: 01-08-20

This is an excellent, in-depth, and highly useful book for those with boundary issues. I was worried about the Biblical references but was surprised that they didn't bother me much. I just thought of them as allegories for some of the boundary situations being discussed. And for "God" I just substituted "Nature" in my mind, and it worked out great.

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Creativity 101

Revisado: 07-10-19

This is probably a good book for those who are still trying to take their first steps in the creative journey. But long-time artists have inner critic issues as well. They are just a little different. Like questions about how to keep technical and industry knowledge from drowning the raw creative urge. What to do when your inner voice (or is it the critic?) tells you to abandon the style you've been working toward for decades. I was hoping to get some help with issues like this, but I guess I should have known from the light-hearted vibe of the cover that this was the wrong book. I was just desperate, because it's hard to find good literature about this, and especially in audio format.

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Thank you for this!

Revisado: 07-07-19

Well, that was pretty damn wonderful if I say so myself. And frankly it was a lot more enjoyable to hear Brené speaking naturally than reading from a book. I started crying totally unexpectedly when she was talking about laughing, singing and dancing. I was all by myself and still felt really embarrassed and dorky. I guess that kind of proved her point. Thank you Brené. You're doing something very important and healing in this world at a time when it is so badly needed.

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