Mark

A bit of light reading

Revisado: 02-14-25

I agree with other readers that this must be ment for children and young teenagers. The charachters, world and plot did not engage me, they are all to shallow. I always have enjoyed other works for children even now at an old age, like the Harry Potters series and Le Guins Earthsea saga. Also Brooks parody on fantasy, the magic kingdom series, was fun, allthough it neither is «serious» litterature. A certain amount of complexity, charachters you can bond with in different ways, at least a little, and most importantly, at least some humour, is needed for a good book. A fantasy world should also want you to partly be there! I would not whish to be in this.
I don,t dislike this book. It does not irritate me, although the narrators voice is a bit on the sweet side. It can be listened to when you don,t want to concentrate to much on the story or be carried away while you are cleaning the house.

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Traditional style fairy tales

Revisado: 04-19-24

Good as a light listen. The tales are imaginative, but as you would expect. Some you easily drop out of, others keep you listening!

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Well written, but horrible!

Revisado: 02-16-23

Well written, but such a terrible story! Very Agatha Christie with a really bad lot.

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OK to refresh your Italian?

Revisado: 01-17-13

Any additional comments?

I found this useful to rather fast refresh the little Italian I know. Knowing some it is a bit slow here and there, but combining normal speech, slowly pronouncing an breaking down in syllables is very good for understanding and pronunciation. Explanations are mostly good and well distributed through the lessons, words, some grammar etc.

If you know some Italian, some breakdowns of the more simple words are repeated to often, and it's completely unnecessary to explain buena fortuna in every lesson! But one just uses these "pauses" to repeat the last sentences etc.

The English is rather amusing here and there both what is said and the pronunciation, but it's not an English course! And you learn well pronounced Italian.

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OK to refresh your Italian?

Revisado: 01-17-13

Would you be willing to try another book from Innovative Language Learning? Why or why not?

Yes, i will follow the rest and hopefully relearn and improve my Italian a lot.

Any additional comments?

I found this useful to rather fast refresh the little Italian I know. Knowing some it is a bit slow here and there, but combining normal speech, slowly pronouncing an breaking down in syllables is very good for understanding and pronunciation. Explanations are mostly good and well distributed through the lessons, words, some grammar etc.

If you know some Italian, some breakdowns of the more simple words are repeated to often, and it's completely unnecessary to explain buena fortuna in every lesson! But one just uses these "pauses" to repeat the last sentences etc.

The English is rather amusing here and there both what is said and the pronunciation, but it's not an English course! And you learn well pronounced Italian.

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To fast and questionable pedagogy

Revisado: 01-17-13

This book wasn’t for you, but who do you think might enjoy it more?

Maybe a quick repetition for someone more fluent in Italian? But then maybe to basic?

Would you recommend Rush Hour Italian to your friends? Why or why not?

It's cheap and you pick up some phrases, so maybe? But I'd rather recommend other courses available through Audible.

Would you listen to another book narrated by Howard Beckerman?

OK?

Any additional comments?

There is to much English dialog here. It is meant as a background, but is unnecessary and gives no Italian knowledge. Much of the Italian is presented to fast. Italian has a lot of small words, de, da, di del, della, chi, che, ch'e, mi, ti, il, le, lo etc, and in fast dialog it's easy to miss what you hear. This also is the case with longer words with more difficult pronunciation. Repetitions a bit slower with presentation of the words and meanings had been better than wasting time speaking English.
I'm unsure that hearing Italian sung, increases the speed of learning.

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Hopeless chauvenist basic story

Revisado: 01-13-13

Any additional comments?

I'm a bit surprised that nobody commented on what to me was the main story here. The love of the two young people that meet and are separated in the beginning.
While the female is captured an abused through the war and therefore a ruined wreck that feels no one can love her anymore, the male main character has an exciting varied experience, taking what he can get from any women that comes in his path (they often throw themselves after him). And all the time he supposedly is upholding the female heroine as the only and perfect love for him.....
And he rescues her and brings her back to life, heroically overlooking her years as a sexual plaything, while his sexual history is a complete non topic. Tragically outdated view of male an female sexuality and roles.
There is no excuse that this was as it was back then. It is presented as just how it should be, without a comment. I generally have problems with books that seem to be partly the male authors juvenile wet dreams. It just ruins any story however well written otherwise.
I only gave this two stars since history and Australia interest me, but if what the book covers on these topics is just as untrustworthy, there isn't much left and it only deserves one.
I listened through hoping for some ending where the main male character might grow a bit morally and otherwise. Since the book was well written, I hoped for an ending that could mend some of the hopeless parts. But it didn't and I threw the audio book out.

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A revenge?

Revisado: 06-29-12

What reaction did this book spark in you? Anger, sadness, disappointment?

As others have pointed out the clearly biased negative descriptions of MAO in this book are not believable and also illogical. Some people think that to convince others about a dictators terrible personality and life, you must only present negatives. The problem is that with any life experience most people know life is not black and white. And also to achieve something most often a person has to have some qualities to achieve it.
Hitler could not have come to power without any talents, if only a strange destructive charisma. Most agree he had other talents even an extraordinary strategic intelligence, which luckily was overridden by his megalomania as the war developed, so he lost.
In this book we are meant to believe, that a stupid, friendless, sadistic and destr5uctive person without any talents of organisation, leadership, military tactics and a total lack of economic understanding, whose every move turns into failures, tricked everybody else? And though everyone tried to oust him, and did several times, he lured himself back in and took power and control over the worlds largest country?
The odd thing is that this book makes most of the other communists leaders into heroes in comparison, like Deng who after Mao lead modern china to what it is to day: a despotic capitalist dictatorship that even beats the US in death sentences. No democracy, no freedom of speech, no respect for human rights, workers rights etc. etc.
And no documentation: Letter to a friend, in the report etc. no, names, no dates, no references. Still is a secret is often mentioned, but how the authors have uncovered them is not explained.
I was hoping to read how a struggle for freedom against poverty, etc. went wrong....
I just gave up, and warn others.

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Disapointed, but hangin in...

Revisado: 03-07-11

This series disappointed me. It was advertised as something better then Harry Potter, well, although HP is a bit childish for adults especially the first books, they grow up with the characters. Of course I did not expect something like HP, that would have been really bad, but I guess I expected some of the some humour and playing around with our world.
In HP the characters aren't really deep and get as personal as in other SF like Ursula Le Guin or The Hobbit etc., but here they are really flat... The story is pang and go. So if you just like action OK for you. But this books is here we go, then fight, then barely make it, run, fight again, wow the bad guy has potent weapons, barely get out of it etc. like a computer game.
Still there must be some qualities since I also bought the second book.....

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Tedious and the most interesteing character dies

Revisado: 10-28-10

Although I enjoyed parts of this book, as others point out, towards the end, I found it a compilation of fairy tales and role playing plots. The early death of one of the characters I hoped for an interesting development, was rather unbelievable, and I never really found the characters coming alive. Well read.
For now I won't listen to any more of the series.

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