A Libras

Narration detracts and distracts

Revisado: 09-16-24

Whatever you might think about the veracity of this narrative—and I’m thinking it over myself—it certainly piques the curiosity. It reads much like a sci-fi/fantasy novel, but purports to be biographical. I was so curious about it’s subject, I persevered through the whole thing, and will likely listen again at some point, but, it was difficult because the author/narrator tends to scream in a high pitched tone all the passages attributed to Dolly Safran, the subject of this biographical narrative. I guess he thought that sounded like a woman? It’s not just the weird, high pitch (which is totally unnecessary; we know he’s quoting a woman); it’s the over-excited, yelling tone he chose to use, for nearly every passage in which she is quoted. And that’s about 50% of the book. Only a few of those passages even came close to requiring that level of activation on the narrator’s part.

I wanted to hear the tale. I found myself exclaiming, “please stop shouting”, at numerous points in the book, before I would shut it off to get a break from the annoyance.

I’ve heard several interviews with Dolly Safran and the author of this book now. She doesn’t sound anything like the hyper-active, screaming third-grader that she sounds like in this audiobook. She’s calm, collected, modulated. I do not understand why he thought he needed to scream all her words. Wish he wouldn’t have.

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Cheesy performance is annoying

Revisado: 11-08-22

The melodramatic performance overshadows the writing. This book is written a bit more dramatically than the usual NDE account tends to be. The narrator seems to have drawn from that the idea that his reading needed to drip with emphases, emoting conspicuously at every phrase. He delivers his reading as though competing for a “cheesiest overacting” award. It’s so over the top that it distracts from what’s actually being said. It takes an effort to register the sense of the words; the tones they’re packaged in are so annoyingly loaded. Probably going to just read it, instead.

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Lacks heart and soul

Revisado: 08-06-22

Interesting how evenly divided the reviews of “The Untethered Soul” seem to be.

For me, the primary problem with this audiobook, the one that will probably stop me from finishing it, is the narrator. He sounds like a gangster from an old B&W film, but I could get around that. His tonality and inflections ruin the message of the book for me. He sounds harsh, lacking in empathy (and therefore relatability), and a bit sarcastic. His tone sounds like, “look, stupid, you’re doing it wrong”. I guess for a book whose thrust is to persuade people to stop caring about their own feelings, it’s unsurprising that the narrator sounds as if he doesn’t care about any readers’ namby-pamby feelings!


The writing itself also seems ignorantly simplistic (as opposed to simple). As others have pointed out, the examples given tend toward white-male, first-world issues. There is absolutely no acknowledgment of the legitimate pain endured by real people in the real world. Singer may believe that his method can help relieve this kind of real-world pain, but without empathy or compassion expressed for, or even awareness of, the reality of violence and cruelty visited upon children on planet Earth (for starters), how does he expect anyone else to believe his methods have anything to do with their lived experiences.

In addition, I found his advice cringe-worthy at times, unable not to imagine how it might affect a person trying on their own to heal profound, complex developmental trauma, for instance. He seems pretty ignorant of the subtle, complexities of actual life. Unsurprisingly, I guess, since, according to his first book, “The Surrender Experiment”, he’s lived as much outside the stream of human life and experience, as he could get.

I would have liked for this book to explain more in-depth, how he found his way into surrender, through his own inner and outer experiences. I was hoping he was going to take us on an intimate, honest, vulnerable journey with him, so we might see for ourselves just how he found what he calls “surrender to the flow of Life”, with all the effects it seems to have created in his personal life (based on the story he tells in “The Surrender Experiment”).

I think I kind of get what Singer is trying to explain with this book. Like other reviewers, though, I think other authors have expressed it much more succinctly and illuminatingly. Maybe in person, he’s more adept at sharing what he’s learned through his years of dedication to his practice.

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Substance over form?

Revisado: 07-20-22

The barrage of negative reviews here, while technically not untrue, seem to be almost a cosmic wink, given the subject matter of this book and how it’s expressed by the author. I came to look up the reviews, because I, too, was struggling to listen to what is a very distracting narration by the author. I wondered if others were also similarly put off and struggling to listen to this book.

Having found that, indeed, nearly all reviewers here are expressing frustration, anger even, at this less-than-polished audible narration, the metaphor this chorus of discontent offers for quantum jumping sort of elbowed me in the ribs, as it were.

Here is this lovely message about living life joyfully and purposefully, and we’re mostly focused on how it’s being delivered. It’s precisely the opposite of the book’s message. You gotta admit, it’s kinda funny!

I’m going to try out the book’s premise and see if I don’t jump to a reality where the read is flawless, or one where I simply value the message, and the human being offering it, over focusing on the oddity of its delivery. Who knows what might develop? Cheers!

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Significantly adds to the picture of the real Donald Trump

Revisado: 09-11-20

It’s difficult to say how interesting this book might be if it’s subject were not currently president of the United States, but I suspect that is 90% of it’s appeal. It isn’t an objectively interesting book. Cohen does not deeply explore his topic, which, ultimately, is not Donald Trump’s personal (and to many of us inexplicable) magnetism and influence, but the author’s own psyche and response to the Trump “mystique”. The book is well written on the surface, and an easy listen.

Cohen freely declares the despicable nature of much of what he did under Donald Trump’s direction, which helps make it more palatable to read about, but I felt like I could almost hear a therapist or ghost writer/editor coaching him that it was essential to be as penitent and honest as possible, if he wanted to get a hearing and create an audience for his next career, because there is something frank, but not quite vulnerable about his many expressions of mea culpa.

For example, he describes a moment with his own family at one of Trump’s resorts, where Trump declares to Cohen how much he would like some of that “piece of ass” over on the tennis courts. Cohen, looking at what Trump is drooling at, realizes it is his (Cohen’s) 15 yr old daughter! He tells Trump who that is, and Trump, unrepentant, continues to admire the girl’s maturing body with completely creepy and inappropriate language. The girl comes over to her father to give him a kiss, and Trump (I’m throwing up a little just writing this) tells her to give him a kiss, too. Even as his daughter throws him an uncomfortable look and clearly uneasily complies with this “request” from Trump, Cohen does nothing but watch uncomfortably. This would be the right point in the narrative for him to apologize publicly to his daughter, and to all the women he did not defend from Trump. It would be the moment to point out how complicit he was in this small, but significant violation of his child by a predator. Nope. Not a word to that effect. All he has to say is a weak admission that he somehow couldn’t find the balls to tell Trump to f**k off and never look at his daughter again. He doesn’t even put it that strongly. Those are my words as a mother of daughters.

But that is the disturbing aspect of this book in a nutshell: Cohen exposes some very weak, shaming, despicable moments in his life, calling them just what they are, but somehow never fully owns it all. It feels like he wants absolution and is willing to wear the sackcloth to get it, but not to risk the utter vulnerability of fully owning his thoughts and deeds. There is a kind of holding back, of the macho sort that got him into this situation in the first place, and it makes his book of confession ring somewhat hollow. “Disloyal” does, however, add a significant layer of fullness to our understanding of who this man that currently holds the reins of power in the United States, really is. Definitely recommended reading for that reason alone.

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Engrossing material, bizarrely flat delivery

Revisado: 06-25-19

The actual text is unique and fascinating, but the narration is given in a flat monotone, like a computerized robo-message, with emphasis on random syllables. Very distracting, and detracts from the meaning. I'm going to have buy the book, just so i can make better sense of it. This is like having my old TomTom GPS read to me.

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A Few More Hours...

Revisado: 01-25-16

...With my favorite characters on the Discworld, the witches and the people of the Chalk. "The Shepherd's Crown" being a posthumous publication, I was prepared to forgive rough narrative and incomplete development. No need. This story is a lovely gift from Sir Terry Pratchett and his editorial friends. It deserves a place on the shelf of Pratchett classics. No part of the tale reads as underdeveloped. I'm not sentimental usually, but this story was so full of the best of Pratchett's characteristic humility and keen wisdom, it was as if he'd come back to tell one more good one. Now I've reached the end of the Feegle glossary, and there's not one word more,...well, the grief is as sharp as when he left us the first time. If you're a longtime fan of the Discworld and the witches in particular, The Shepherd's Crown is not to be missed, even with a tearful price tag attached to the ending.

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A Classic with Reason

Revisado: 07-08-15

If you could sum up The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy in three words, what would they be?

Hilarious, Sharp, Crooked

What was one of the most memorable moments of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy?

Every time Douglas says pretty much exactly what you were not expecting him to

What does Stephen Fry bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?

His native wit and Brit sensibilities

Was there a moment in the book that particularly moved you?

When Arthur realizes the Earth is just simply not there, any more, ever again.

Any additional comments?

I recommend this audio version over the lovely and biting radio adaptation for one reason; Adam's prose is so inseparable from his story. In the radio version, you lose much of that element. Here, the story is exactly as set down by Adams, one of humanity's rare intelligences.

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Hard to Listen to This

Revisado: 07-11-14

Would you try another book from Reginald A. Ray and/or the narrator?

I would try reading this book, because the concepts presented seem very useful and worth my time, but the recording is either recorded poorly or the speaker is just one of those people who is really unpleasant to listen to. I'm not sure which.

What didn’t you like about the narrator’s performance?

He speaks in a rushed, breathless tone of voice. It's so odd-sounding that I wonder if it's actually the recording speed.

Any additional comments?

I've had trouble with all my Audible Books when I try to listen with my Apple iPod device. I get unpleasant echoes, or high-speed playback issues, seemingly at random. I have to go reload them from my desktop onto my iPod to resolve the issue, but then it'll reoccur later. Very frustrating, especially since the information in the books is so potentially interesting and useful, to have to put up with a lot of irritation in listening to them.

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