MillenniumMike

Narrator made average story interesting

Revisado: 03-30-25

Mother and daughter faced with a traumatic change to their family and circumstances move from city life in Dublin to small village life in County Kerry. Looking forward to a trip to Kerry soon I was hoping this had a little more about that area than it did. It could be set almost anywhere where people rebuild their lives, but Irish charm of the characters does make it more appealing. After an interesting plot start I expected more from the trajectory of the story line, and only afterward did I notice that this is Book 1 apparently in a planned series. So, as a set-up for more to come it’s harmless and interesting enough, but didn’t interest me enough in continuing, and it probably has more appeal for one gender. Narration was excellent, and her Irish accent was enjoyable and very easy to follow by this somewhat hearing-impaired American.

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Informative insight into two 1964 baseball teams heading in different directions

Revisado: 04-18-24

I liked all the background on the ascendant St. Louis Cardinals and the declining perennial champion New York Yankees. Also of significant interest was the state of minority players during the first two decades of racial integration in Major League Baseball. Hard to believe that it took eight years after Jackie Robinson became the first black MLB player in modern baseball before the New York Yankees finally brought up a black player, Elston Howard, and the team did little to welcome and support him.

On the negative side, although the book’s title accurately summed up the focus of the book — the October 1964 World Series between the AL and NL pennant winners — I did expect a bit more background than I got on the overall baseball season and pennant races. Only a handful of teams even got a sentence or two of mention. I applaud the considerable attention paid to the obstacles put in front of black players following Jackie Robinson’s footsteps in the early years of MLB integration. The book’s tone overall was downbeat, chronicling in detail the decline of the Yankees dynasty, and delivered with the downbeat tone of the narrator who also mispronounced at least six players’ last names and spoke of shutout scores as “the Yankees won five to zero” when in baseball scores are typically reported as “five to nothing.” So, overall, it was an interesting listen and one I recommend, especially to Yankee and Cardinal fans, and to everyone for its serious and significant reporting on the long unfortunate struggle of black players for opportunity, integration, and acceptance.

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Entertaining light mystery

Revisado: 04-18-24

The fun here is in the witty writing, the incorporation of Senator Bernie Sanders trying to solve a murder mystery, and the outstanding narrator who does a wonderful job impersonating Sanders’ voice. Less interesting is the mystery and all the time spent describing the world of the main character, a fictional intern from Vermont working as an aide to Sanders. All the time spent focused on her is pleasant enough but seems to occupy much more space than the mystery story, and it seems obvious this book is setting the stage for a series. Still, it’s enjoyable and makes for pleasant listening, especially due to the witty writing and skillful narration, particularly the impersonated voice of Sen. Sanders.

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Ridiculous witless story nicely narrated.

Revisado: 02-04-24

Awful story devoid of wit. Opening chapters show promise but then the story line gets ridiculous in a witless way, And that’s before the story descends into a Chicago slaughterhouse, Author does a nice job reading it, but once I realized the story had no redeeming interest or value, i couldn’t get through it fast enough.

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Light and enjoyable holiday listening with outstanding reader.

Revisado: 12-22-23

Nice descriptive writing, great reader with superb clarity, a light and enjoyable confection for holiday listening.

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A book for juvenile readers

Revisado: 10-22-21

I mistakenly purchased this thinking it was a book for adults. After listening for most of an hour I had had enough. It’s a fiction story told through the experience of a 13-year-old and the narrator whispers her way through the story sounding like she’s reading a child’s bedtime story. I paid for this six months ago so maybe that’s beyond the statute of refund limitations and that’s why Audible is not allowing me to return it. If you’re interested in the story spend your money on the book instead.

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Excellent writing & narration, but otherwise ..

Revisado: 03-08-20

Dan Steven does a great job narrating, and the language of Ian Fleming's writing is excellent, but overall I didn't care for it very much. First half is good and intriguing but the story line just fizzles after that. I hadn't read a Bond for 50 years, but had seen and enjoyed some of the movies in the meantime, but I didn't find this one particularly interesting other than Fleming's language and Stevens' reading.

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Huge disappointment

Revisado: 03-08-20

I really enjoyed "The Tour", the predecessor book to "Safe at the Edge of the World." In that book, a quirky group of travelers on a guided van tour of Ireland, had interesting stories and dynamics together, with the group held together by a tour guide with interpersonal and leadership skills. In this sequel, 95% of the story line is about one couple traveling on a subsequent tour, full of lengthy, boring back stories about what brought them to this Irish tour, including detailed stories about their lives in the U.S. The story line was very uninteresting, it lacked all the charm and humor of the first book, and it is really a novel about just two people I had absolutely no interest in. I thought the narrator did a good job in the first book, but with this this clunker I found his reading cloying and overwrought. I wish I had gotten off this tour about 15 minutes into it.

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'Nancy Drew' Goes To Scotland

Revisado: 12-04-19

If you like "damsel in distress" books and Scotland and single malt whiskey this is right up your alley. Abigail Logan's back story is that she is a successful photo journalist with an impressive international resume. When she inherits a whisky distillery, though, her IQ seems to take a dive and much of the book has her reacting to threats and harmful actions directed at her, while the mystery sort of plays out along the way. The writing is okay, there is a full cast of suspects, and the dialogue-heavy writing moves along briskly, although detours into lectures about whisky-making slow down the narrative at times -- and a disadvantage with audio books is you really can't skim thru these pages and jump ahead to where the story moves forward again. With this apparently being the first in a series of mysteries, maybe some of the details of distilling could have been reserved for future volumes. And, at 10 hours, this book was about 4 hours longer than is my attention span for a mystery of this depth. Gemma Dawson does an excellent job reading: very clear voice, her characterizations were varied and good, and she should be easily understood by those who don't share her British accent. Overall, I enjoyed the setting as it took me back to my visits to Scotland and distilleries, but just wish the mystery held my interest more, was not quite so long, and that the central character was a more forceful and less passive presence.

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Dreadful. Lots of screaming and silly voices.

Revisado: 08-08-19

Silly voices, screaming, and occasional profanity are rarely a recipe for entertainment and wit. I've tries listening to this three times and all I got from it was a headache and increased blood pressure. Absolutely dreadful.

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