Jonathan

Worth a listen

Revisado: 11-16-21

I’d liked more background for the “sex addict” ( I don’t believe there is such a thing) in episode 4. Who were these women he was sleeping with? Was he paying for sex? Did he and his wife have sex? All these were very relevant issues. I for one want buying his contrition fit a second, he was upset because he’d been caught as well
the fact he’s getting older so doesn’t feel so inclined to cheat.

Many of the couples I find irritating and self involved. The only couple I haven’t disliked so far have been the Christian couple who sounded sincere and weren’t lying to themselves.

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Fairly mediocre

Revisado: 10-07-21

Two and. half stars maybe. I don’t know why I bothered. If you’re looking for Trump scandals there isn’t much more than what was reported in the press. It’s the usual story arc of Trump Whitehouse workers. People who thought they could help navigate the craziness of Trump world but then end up getting chewed up and spat out and feel bitter about it. Grisham owns up to the sense of power and ego from being in the Whitehouse but she’s not an especially reflective person and this limits her insights. I was expecting a lot more detail aout the Jan 6th insurrection.

This is - I think - my 73rd Trimp book and the stories of Trumps arrogance and lack of concern for ordinary human niceties never ceases to amaze. For example his asking Grisham’s boyfriend if she was “good in bed”. Trumps total lack of a filter, the gross sexism and superhuman selfishness, it’s grimly humorous at times, he’s like a giant self obsessed, sex-obsessed lizard brained overgrown 14 year old boy. The way his subordinates and staff treat him like a child is really amazing.

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Really outstanding

Revisado: 09-01-21

Lots of original reporting and terrific investigation into the poisonous phenomenon of the QAnon conspiracy theory that has done so much damage to the US and spread to the rest of the world (thanks America). Very entertaining and with a stunning and highly convincing conclusion. One of the best - and most important - podcasts ever yet produced by anybody.

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Diasppointing and too much detail

Revisado: 09-09-20

Stephanie Winston Wolkoff is at great pains in this book to explain exactly why she is not the Trumpian grifter she was portrayed in the press after the scandal of the financial side of the inaugeration was exposed, instead she was in fact made the scapegoat. So this is the goal of her book: to regain her reputation. When I'd first heard of her I assumed she was just a another shady oddball associated with the Trumps, but in fact she was a high level event planner - The Met ball multiple times and NY Fashion week, so a serious player - who just happened to know Melania Trump. I read this book because I was intrigued to get an insiders perspective on MT, and you do get that incidentally, but there is simply too much detail and the book is so repetitive that I found myself becoming as exasperated as some of the authors colleagues seemd to be have become with her at the WH.

SWW does have a gap in her self awareness: her job at Vogue came becasue she was at a dinner party hosted by other senior Vogue Bigwigs who provided the intro to Anna Wintour - oh and she is the step daughter of NY society royalty Harry Winston jr, hmmm maybe those things helped her land her big break.....eye roll. Sure she was good at her job and worked hard but she was there because of connections from the start, she addresses this to a degree but not fully. In her role as a society maven in Vogue-world she met Melania and became friends. The insights into Melania's cool and calm demeanour and how she and DJT are actally well suited was probably the big takeaway from the book. Good to know how much MT dislikes "Princess" Ivanka. SWW is not self ware enough - or perhaps, more accurately, so busy trying to salvage her reputation that she is not clear-eyed about her and Melania's friendship. It's maybe more a reflection of the shallow image and media obsessed fashion and society world in which her relationship with MT flourished. It was okay but could've been better, I'll look out for an articel in a few years reflecting on her experiences in a few years time. MT emerges as a typical foreigner on the make who has little understanding of democratic American multi-culturalism, she is an old-fashioned, old-Europe, post-Soviet girl just out for herself (in reaction to the stultifying life of Soviet-bloc Slovenia) so the cynical deal she has made with DJT makes sense in this context.

It was utterly weird to hear all the emojis read out in an audio book!

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The reader is mispronouncing words!

Revisado: 07-20-20

I have never heard the GRU, Russian military intelligence pronounced as "grew" before. It's always spelt out as G-R-U like KGB. The producer should have picked this up. Just as annoying is the pronunciation of Robert Mueller's surname. It may look like "Mewler" but Robert Mueller says is "Mull-er" so this fanciful pronunciation is incredibly irritating - it's not like we haven't all heard it said correctly thousands of times for three years. Also many of the Russian names are incorrect and told in a slapdash way. That this could happen with an important book by a major author is truly head-scratching. Very unprofessional, this book should be rerecorded properly. These details are incredibly important to get right, it's really setting my teeth on edge and I've only just started.....
Halfway through and the "Grew" for GRU is just as irritatiing. Does Nicholas Guy Smith the reader just make up whimsical pronunciations for fun? He actually refers to FIFA as "fyffer". He's English, he knows this is not how you prounce FIFA, he's a quite experienced reader as well so he has no excuse PLUS the producer should have said something, it's real amateur hour. Perhaps he is being held hostage and is trying to tell us something with his bizarre proununciations.

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Top marks

Revisado: 07-20-20

I’ve revisited this book two years later and you have to hand it to Harding for creating a coherent narrative of the Trump-Russia-mafia-Deutsche Bank connections. The story he lays out has become the accepted narrative although the answers to the mysteries of Trumps Russian connections have not yet fully come out. You have to hand it to Trump for suppressing his taxes and the truth about his finances for so long.

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Martin Jarvis is as perfect as ever

Revisado: 07-07-19

Not up there with the Inimitable Jeeves - my measure for all Wodehouse - this story has so many classic Wodehouse tropes I felt like I'd heard it before but it doesn't matter. For me absolutely nobody compares to Martin Jarvis as a Wodehouse reader, he wrings more out of the words on the page than anyone else by a mile. His Jeeves is the absolute Gold Standard for Jeeves's. I started listening to another version of this book read by somebody else that I withdrew from my local library but I gave up and bought this version because I just kept imagining how much better Mr Jarvises rendition of the text would be. It wasn't Frederick Davidson but it's a good opportunity to put in a dig at one of the worst audio book readers of all time, I can never get past his phoney ridiculous accent that gets in the way of the text. All FD books should come with a caution: "Warning this book is read by Frederick Davidson". I'm only bitter because my local library contains many Wodehouse books but they are read by FD and therefore to me they are unlistenable.

PS Audible when on earth are you giving us the 1.15 and 1.35 speed options? It's completely absurd you haven't done so. I think I had this option when I was using the Android version of the app. I mean what on earth is the problem?

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Disappointing.

Revisado: 06-28-18

Too much boring gossip gleaned from Trump-kid associates and research that appears to be the result of simply googling old interviews and studying high school year books. Lots of information and not much insight. Repetitive anecdotes and references that shouldn’t have made it through the editing process. Obviously hastily put together and not that well written for a Vanity Fair writer.

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Very thorough.

Revisado: 03-26-18

A meticulously researched book that soberly ties all the strands of the complex story together in a highly readable narrative. It’s a good companion piece to the other essential Trump Russia titles Malcolm Nances Plot To Hack America which focuses on the hacking itself and it’s implications (and miraculously was published even before the election) and Luke Hardings Collusion which covers more territory, especially the ties with dodgy banking. Recommended.

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Wonderful. Le Carre fans rejoice.

Revisado: 09-09-17

Listening to this book was like finding an old early undiscovered Beatles album. All the old characters that we love are there, they're either integral to the story like Peter Guillam or referred to only glancingly like Connie Sachs, and they're all woven throughout in a complex plot that revisits LeCarre's first great book The Spy Who Came in from the Cold. LeCarre's best book in years in my view. A good length and he is at his best in the Cold War years.

Tom Hollander was perfection. Seldom have I heard such a good reader. He does not get in the way of the story, especially when doing accents, but is not dull and enhances the material. He sounds a bit like the marvellous Michael Jayston as well who presumably was judged too old or was unavailable (?). My only small quibble is that Hollander pronounces the end of Toby Esterhase's differently to Jayston by not emphasising the "e" at the end.

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