Frank

Disappointing Offering with a Political Agenda instead of a Plot

Revisado: 12-10-24

Forsyth was once one of the best yarn spinners in the business. Unfortunately, this tale seems to be a political screed masquerading as a thriller. There are few thrills, a repugnant “protagonist,” lots and lots of setup, and few payoffs.

Most stories like this involve some risk for the main character and some twists to add interest. This one reads like a dry nonfiction account of an alternate universe where the U.S. and Britain were willing to cast off their legal principles for short-term gains would play out. A regrettable, rather pointless exercise.

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

Despite Some Reviews, it's NOT Read by the Author!

Revisado: 03-27-19

When I selected this book, I mistakenly relied on what some of the other reviewers breathlessly claimed -- namely, that this was "read by Tim himself!" It's not. There are four people listed as narrators -- Tim Conway, Jane Scovell, Carol Burnett, and Dick Hill. Of the four, Conway himself reads the least -- perhaps a minute or two. Even the short introductions by Burnett, his former cohort on CBS, and Scovell, who assisted in writing the book, dwarf the amount of time that Conway himself devotes to his "narration." Conway states that authors are usually asked to read their own books, then says that he has read the book (i.e., to himself) and concludes, "I don't want to read it again."

That "joke" is typical of the not-exactly-laugh-out-loud-humor that one finds in the book, but the joke is really on someone (like myself) who bought the book expecting Conway to narrate the whole thing himself. After those three introductions, the rest is read by Dick Hill, who though a competent narrator, and despite what some reviewers claim, is NOT Tim Conway. Listing Conway's name first among the four "narrators," therefore, borders on false advertising by whoever listed those names -- abetted by several "useful idiots" who claimed that Conway read the whole book, but instead simply weren't paying attention.

So I'm torn. I've always loved Conway as a performer, and some of the book (especially once you get past his reminiscences of growing up in Chagrin Falls, Ohio -- coincidentally, Ensign Charles Parker's hometown on "McHale's Navy") is a lot of fun, mainly his reminiscences of his time as a performer on that show, on "The Carol Burnett Show," and his life as an actor since then. But even those few sentences actually spoken by Conway, when compared to Dick Hill's somewhat stentorian narration, show how different the book would have been had Conway read it himself.

I was actually motivated to buy the book because of the single "extra" on the first DVD set of the "McHale" show, which featured a 2007 reunion of Ernest Borgnine, Conway, Carl Ballantine, Edson Stroll, and Bob Hastings sharing their reminiscences of the show. The funniest story was related by Conway -- he said that unlike his co-star, the late Joe Flynn, who was always active in politics, he (Conway) was known as the "dumbest man in Hollywood" because he took no interest in such topics. One night, when filming the show ran late into the evening, they brought in catered food, and as Conway was getting an earful from Flynn about some topic or another, he noticed that Flynn had cut through the paper plate on which the food was served -- apparently eating it along with his meat. Conway responded to Flynn with something to the effect of, "Well, I may not know much [about whatever topic Flynn was discussing], but I know enough not to eat the plate along with my food."

Conway tells the same story in "What's So Funny?" -- except that this time the person who eats part of his paper plate is his Carol Burnett compadre Harvey Korman. It's not clear whether Conway got confused when telling the version during the 2007 reunion, or if he simply shaped the story to fit being with his former "McHale" actors.

The best part of "What's So Funny?" is when you get to those kinds of stories later in the book. The folks who say that they gave up on the book early missed out on the best part of Conway's story. It's easy to see why they bailed early, because while the stories about Conway's odd parents have some interest, they're not why anyone buys a celebrity autobiography. While all such books have to have some personal background, of course, the stories about his parents, and those stories about the rest of his pre-acting years, do begin to drag. So, anyone without the patience for those tales should either wait for -- or skip to -- the later parts with Conway's "war stories" about his television and movie career.

Just remember that you're listening to Dick Hill, not Tim Conway!

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

Ideological Screed Masquerading as History

Revisado: 01-16-17

I bought this thinking that I was going to get a history of money and banking in the United States (which is what the book is titled). Instead, one gets a long attack on government "interference" in the markets (markets, of course, never make mistakes -- of if they do, it comes back to some kind of governmental interference). While there is history doled out here, it is all in the service of the author's peculiar ideological perspective. Paper money is bad. "Specie" (i.e., gold or silver) is good -- especially gold, assuming that silver is not overvalued, or that only one form of metal currency is put into circulation and acceptable as legal tender. (If I had to hear about Gresham's law one more time I would have screamed.)

While the author does point up some early problems that developed because the eighteenth and later nineteenth century politicians and bankers had a less than ideal understanding of economics, as another reviewer put it, every fact that doesn't fit is discarded or ignored, or shaped to fit the author's political point of view. The bed of Procrustes is a good image for this.

Of course, every historical text is shaped in part by choices that the author makes -- the topics that are selected, the facts that are emphasized or discarded -- but I have never read any purported historical text that puts the author's ideology so front-and-center, without background or context. The facts are simply the handmaiden's of the author's point of view. I should have read the reviews and studied the other books that this author has written before wasting my time on this -- although happily I can return it to Audible.

A quick mention about the narrator -- he was competent if not particularly interesting to listen to, and occasionally muffed a word (pronouncing "commissary" as if it had the same general pronunciation as "commiserate"). If the book had actually been history and not a political tract, I wouldn't have minded listening to him. But this . . . .

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

esto le resultó útil a 2 personas

Potentially Good Thriller Ruined by Goofy Gimmicks

Revisado: 10-02-14

"Truman's Spy" could be a good thriller -- it starts out with an interesting Cold War backdrop and a diverse storyline involving an ex-FBI agent now serving as a small-town sheriff in Oregon, another FBI agent assigned to investigate his ex-fiancee's father, and J. Edgar Hoover himself hovering in the background as an FBI director not held in high esteem by his subordinates.

Unfortunately, this audio recording was utterly ruined by unnecessary, hokey gimmicks, such as musical cues that started each chapter (and even played in the background as the narrator read), having each line of dialogue modified by some kind of acoustic effect to make the voices sound slightly different, especially when someone was supposed to be speaking over the telephone -- and even dubbing in sound effects!

The manipulation of each character's dialogue was particularly annoying. I'm assuming it was Mr. Alan reading each line because no one else is listed as a narrator, but the gimmicky acoustic effects made it sound like he was delivering them from the other end of a piece of sewer pipe or a deep hole in the ground. The effect of having these line readings alternate with "he said," or "he commented," or "Mark said" etc. etc. was like trying to watch a play while someone read the stage directions out loud.

The audio manipulation also rendered a lot of the spoken dialogue almost unintelligible, with the words getting lost in the hollowed out soup can (or whatever echo chamber they used to record the dialogue) -- and then reverting back to the narrator's normal, booming voice for the "he said" cues. And when one character gets shot, we actually have to hear the sound of the bullets being fired! I don't know what clown of an editor thought that this would "enhance" the listening experience, but it certainly had the opposite effect for me.

After a few chapters of this I could no longer take it, and deleted the story from my device. If I had wanted to listen to an old-time radio show complete with sound effects and different people playing each part, I would have chosen to listen to that instead.

Ironically, Mr. Alan seems like a capable narrator -- if he weren't dragging a safe behind him in the form of these goofy audio gimmicks. All of the best narrators -- such as Michael Page, John Lee, Simon Vance, or Edward Herrmann -- can modify their voices when reading dialogue so that this kind of nonsense is unnecessary. And as noted at the outset, the story itself could have been an enjoyable thriller if it had been read by any of those or a host of other narrators -- or even Mr. Alan -- without the hair-pulling-inducing audio manipulation. My advice is to skip this version and choose a book with a narrator giving a straight reading without any "enhancements."

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

esto le resultó útil a 5 personas

Good General History of Jefferson's Life

Revisado: 04-07-13

Jon Meacham has penned an enjoyable biography of the third president, who also (save, possibly, for Benjamin Franklin) was the most talented man of his day -- and perhaps who ever lived. It starts with Jefferson's birth in Shadwell, Virginia, and ends 83 years later not far away at Monticello, which among all of the homes of the Founders most completely reflects its occupant. Of course, Jefferson also designed the structure, and as Meacham notes, spent most of the years until his retirement tinkering with it -- at one point demolishing much of the original building to (eventually) more than double its size.

In between, we have Jefferson the young student; the young lawyer; the delegate to the Continental Congress where he became the primary author of the Declaration of Independence; the Governor of Virginia during the Revolutionary War (one of his least noteworthy roles); a representative to the Confederation Congress; minister to France in the 1780s; Secretary of State during Washington's first term; then leader of the opposition to the Federalists, including his old friend John Adams; and, finally, President. And then he became the Sage of Monticello for his last two decades, managing to found (and design many of the buildings for) the University of Virginia.

Just listing those posts that Jefferson held is itself somewhat exhausting . . . and in addition to his vibrant political contributions to his country, Jefferson was a lawyer, surveyor, naturalist, author, inventor, and architect. Yet his reputation has diminished somewhat in recent years, as popular biographies have exalted his rival John Adams at Jefferson's expense -- and as revelations about his relationship with his slave, Sally Hemings, have become newsworthy, with DNA tests confirming that he indeed fathered many of her children. Meacham does not gloss over this relationship, and instead presents a kind of warts-and-all portrait: a man who thought slavery should be abolished, yet owned as many as 600 slaves himself; who thought there was nothing wrong with evicting Native tribes to make way for white settlement; who served one Federalist president yet came to resist him and his successor; and who opposed the concentration of power in the national government, yet was sanguine about its use when he became chief executive himself.

The Jefferson that emerges here, then, is a complex and contradictory figure -- very much a man of his time, with prejudices that would make him politically incorrect today. Yet he was also one of the most pivotal of the Founders, probably their most eloquent writer, and a man who learned how to use power to achieve what he thought best for his nation -- perpetuating his views through four of the next five presidential administrations.

He is also perhaps the most accessible of the Founders. As Meacham says, while it's hard to imagine having a glass of wine and dinner conversation at Mount Vernon with George Washington, it's easy to imagine doing so at Monticello with Jefferson. Meacham's biography reminds us that, for all his flaws, Jefferson's extraordinary talents, his political contributions to the young republic, and his unceasing opposition to monarchy, lift Jefferson far above his human failings. The book is brought enjoyably to life by Edward Herrmann, who though nearly 70 has a voice that is still strong and clear, and one of the best narrators working today.

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

Bizarre Approach Trivializes an Important Story

Revisado: 02-18-13

Imagine, if you will, picking up Tolstoy's "War and Peace" and being confronted with passages like, "And so Napoleon decided to invade Russia. Or at least, that's what I think he decided. I wasn't there, so I can't exactly read his mind. All I can do is tell you that he did invade Russia, which is the story I'm going to write about. But it's hard to concentrate on that story just now, because I'm equally fascinated with the lovely, blonde, 20 year-old stenographer I just hired, and she's a tremendous distraction."

That is more or less what one really finds upon commencing this story of how two expatriates parachuted into Nazi-held Czechoslovakia and managed to assassinate Reinhard Heydrich, one of the most vital -- and evil -- men in the Reich. It's a worthwhile story, but sadly Laurent Binet's history -- or novel about someone trying to write this history -- or very long diary entry about himself (it's a little hard to say which) only occasionally wanders over to tell that tale.

Binet begins by giving an account of why he decided to tell the story -- he was, he says, captivated by the notion of Jozef Gabcik, one of the two men, lying on his bed and listening to the trolleys outside, as the moment approached when he and his partner would strike at the man known as "the Hangman," "the Butcher of Prague," and "the Blond Beast." And it seems like this is a forward, giving the author's motivations for writing this book before it begins.

Unfortunately, the ENTIRE BOOK reads like this, and it becomes hard to tell after a while if this is supposed to be a serious history of the Heydrich assassination or a first-person account of an author struggling with his muse. In a strange way, it's vaguely reminiscent of a 1976 documentary, "All This and World War II," possibly the only "historical" account stranger than Binet's, which presented World War II newsreels, one after another, set to Beatles music!

Binet's approach is hardly less bizarre, though, than that "battles and Beatles" account. And were that not strange enough, consider annoyances like this: at one point, we're told that the head of British Intelligence was referred to as "M," "just like in the James Bond novels." And that, somewhat in homage to that, Heydrich liked to be referred to as "H." But then a little later, Binet admits that he's been "talking rubbish," and that the head of British Intelligence was actually referred to as "C." And that Heydrich actually liked to refer to himself as "C," too, not "H." How does an author (let alone his editor) justify wasting his reader's time with nonsense like that? And after a time, how can the reader trust anything that Binet says?

It really is unfortunate, because the story of Gabcik, his compatriot Jan Kubis, and the rest of the people who bravely stood up to the Nazi state to help rid the world of a truly evil man is fascinating, and worthy of a serious examination. But Binet's endless asides trivialize these heroes and the many martyrs he supposedly wants to honor, as his narrative gives them more or less the same prominence as his tempestuous relationship with his girlfriend, or his fretting over whether to spend the money to buy the book written by Heydrich's widow.

What a shame to waste the talents of John Lee, one of the best narrators in the business, on this endless series of distractions. Rubbish, indeed.

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

esto le resultó útil a 1 persona

Disappointing Story Despite Good Narration

Revisado: 10-28-12

This looked like it would be an intriguing story with some scientific and thriller elements, but it was mostly a disappointment. The story unevenly moves back and forth between events in France and Southeast Asia -- usually just as the story is getting interesting in one place or the other. But over time, it seems harder and harder to care about the main characters, and the narrative moves so s-l-o-w-l-y for what is supposed to be a thriller that it eventually becomes more boring than anything else. It became harder and harder to care about the characters, and the "startling revelations" at the end are practically telegraphed almost from page one . . . kind of a thrill-less thriller, really.

The story also used some contrived means of getting the characters to go from place to place, usually because it appeared that the author needed to move them around in service of the plot -- the "deus ex machina" quotient was fairly high. The author likewise had an unfortunate tendency to repeat certain passages and references over and over and over . . . if I'd heard the term "smoke baby" one more time, I was ready to scream. The novel also has a fairly high "ick" factor, with several characters having to consume disgusting food from time to time, which, along with some gruesome passages, don't exactly make you want to keep listening.

The one bright spot was narrator Christopher Evan Welch -- despite apparently being an American himself (at least, that was the accent used for most of the book), he moved effortlessly between American and British accents and made the latter (the nationality of one of the main characters) sound authentic. He was also able to make each character sound different from one another, including the females, so that it was easy to tell them apart. It's a shame that these efforts were in service of a story that wasn't particularly worth the journey.

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

esto le resultó útil a 1 persona

Enjoyable Book Spoiled by Poor Editing and Reading

Revisado: 09-21-11

The description that most encapsulates this book is "kaleidoscopic" -- a breezy stroll through the first decade and-a-half of American life in the 20th century, focusing on one significant event of just about each year, and taking the reader to the brink of the Great War. Lord has an easy, accessible style, made most famous in his "A Night to Remember" about the sinking of the Titanic. That event makes an appearance here, too, although just in passing -- the focus is on other events and personalities.

Those events have been done elsewhere in far greater detail, of course -- whether it's McKinley's assassination, the trust-busting of Theodore Roosevelt, the Wright Brothers' first tentative success flight, or the San Francisco earthquake. (Early in his presidency, for instance, Roosevelt was nearly killed in a train crash; "Theodore Rex," a detailed biography of Roosevelt, spent pages on it; Lord disposes of that event here in a couple of sentences.)

Lord clearly didn't intend this to be a mural that captured all the events of those years -- it's more like a series of miniature portraits of the events depicted. Because he was writing while people from those years were still alive, however, he was able to interview many of them, relying on their recollections along with diaries, newspaper entries, and letters to create this account. But despite the book's title, it isn't just a nostalgic look back -- alongside some accounts of the glittering lives of the wealthy, the book recounts child labor, the lack of women's rights, and the nearly open warfare that grew out of the awful working conditions in many industries, especially mining.

As enjoyable as this book is, however, this edition is sadly wanting. The narrator will periodically repeat a line verbatim -- obviously a cue to the editor where to overlap two pieces of tape. Why those lines weren't subsequently edited out is a mystery, and the audio quality changes dramatically at some of these junctures, too. Mr. Waterman, moreover, has his limitations as a narrator -- the book is punctuated throughout by the loudest, most rattling inhalations this side of Raymond Burr. Most narrators learn enough breath control to avoid this, but it's quite noticeable -- and hence distracting -- here. So what should have been a 5-star book gets (at least) a one-star demotion as a result.

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

esto le resultó útil a 1 persona

Just Awful . . .

Revisado: 05-28-11

Thor displays embarrassing prejudices against Muslims, and gives the book an annoying political slant (especially the female senator from the northeast with initials HRC -- gee, who could that be? -- subtlety certainly isn't his style). He also has some serious limits as a writer -- many of the characters' thoughts and decisions are rendered not through their actions or dialogue (even inner dialogue), but by the reader just being told what a character has done, and thinks, and believes, and why. Even though this is the unabridged version, a lot of these passages read like the "bridge" narration in the shorter versions to fill in the stuff that's been left out. A lot of the dialogue, sadly, also reads like narrative -- long passages that will engender a lot of eye-rolling. Conversely, he lovingly describes every gun with more detail than he describes the characters, and he has an annoying habit of repeating the full names of each firearm, down to the caliber, over and over and over . . . .

Moreover, despite Thor's political biases, a lot of the political narrative ironically reads as if it were taken from a "how to" manual read by someone with no first-hand knowledge of American politics. For instance, no one -- no one -- "runs" for the vice-presidency. At least for the past century or so, the vice-president has always been a personal choice made by the presidential candidate, often from among the runners-up for the presidential nomination. (It's how we ended up with dark horses like Dan Quayle or Sarah Palin.) Yet here we're supposed to believe the V.P. can be "awarded" by the party chair, in an off-election year -- before there's even a nominee!

It's too bad, because the plot has some promise -- the tie-in to Hannibal's cross-Alpine expedition and the ancient toxins-text is kind of an interesting notion. In the hands of a better writer, those elements could have formed part of a worthwhile narrative. But based on this experience, I've read my last Thor novel.

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

esto le resultó útil a 3 personas

Very Good Story, Read by an Extraordinary Narrator

Revisado: 05-27-11

This is my second David Liss novel -- the first was the equally impressive "The Coffee Trader," whose main character is also a Jew living among Gentiles -- in that case, a former Portuguese commodities broker living among the Dutch, while the protagonist here is Benjamin Weaver, a "thief taker" (someone who hires himself out to retrieve stolen property from the thief -- shades of Travis McGee in the John D. MacDonald series!) living in 1620s London, who finds himself first wrongfully accused and then wrongfully convicted of murder. (Weaver may be a distant relative of the protagonist in "The Coffee Trader," as Liss drops a hint that they both share the same family name from their Portuguese roots.)

Liss does an excellent job recreating the historical period in which this story is set, and weaves an engrossing story despite the somewhat obscure political hijinks that give rise to the main character's difficulties. Despite choosing such unfamiliar terrain -- a scheme involving "Whigs," "Jacobites," and "Tories" -- the book's introduction gives a helpful "road map" to the main historical intrigues, so that they become part of the background of the story, which can thereafter be followed with relative ease. Weaver himself is not the most admirable of main characters, but it's in keeping with the fairly rough profession he's in.

Still, the real prize here is the extraordinary talent of Michael Page, who's as good as having a full cast performance. Page is like the Mel Blanc of narrators, effortlessly sliding between patrician, plebian, Londoner, Irishman, Scotsman, and a host of other voices. Each character's voice is distinctive and memorable, which also helps you to keep your place in the complicated narrative. It's a shame this is the only one of Liss' novels that's he's read, because Page could make the phone book sound interesting. If you like historical fiction, this is a good bet, and you can never go wrong with this narrator.

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

esto le resultó útil a 2 personas