Lanlady

Self-introspection at its finest: bravo!

Revisado: 10-12-22

Decades ago, in college, I dated a fellow student who was an ex-Moonie and who went on to devote his professional life to helping people to "deprogram" and escape various religious cults. I've been fascinated in cults and their followers ever since. This interest has led me to people like Rinder and Leah Remini and to the people behind the award-winning "Going Clear" documentary. Rinder's account of his life in Scientology is brutally honest, well written, and absolutely gripping. He doesn't try to psychoanalyze or excuse himself or his friends and family members who debased themselves in service to a loony science fiction writer (L. Ron Hubbard) and his successor, the sadistic David Miscavage. Nevertheless, he invites us to think about what humans are willing to do and to believe in their quest for immortality. He exposes the ultimate hypocrisy behind the cult, namely that Scientologists are taught to "clear" the planet to save mankind while being incapable of engaging in any activity that would materially help their fellow humans - quite the opposite, in fact. Scientology continually debases its members while emptying their bank accounts and destroying their families. Rinder is obviously a smart man; what a shame that he spent the better part of his life carrying out the dictates of Hubbard and Miscavage. I wish him a very long life to undo the damage to himself and to the members of his family still stuck in Scientology.

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

Absolutely gripping account of life in the DPRK

Revisado: 03-28-21

Barbara Demick does a masterful job of portraying the lives of ordinary people living inside the world’s most oppressed and criminal regime. As the book progressed I found myself growing attached to every one of the individuals whose stories are so beautifully told here. Favorite moments include the accounts of how “true believers” in the North Korean regime became disenchanted and started to dream of escape. The structure of the narrative was very effective at maintaining the reader’s interest in the fates of these people and their families. Really well done!

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

this book is a game-changer for me.

Revisado: 01-13-16

In early January 2016 I went to see an MD/nutritionist based out of my general physician's office (which has been absorbed into a huge corporate health care entity), for the purpose of getting my act together and losing about 30 lbs. I came away shocked by how lame it was - $200 later all I had to show for it was a couple of non-customized meal plans (starvation-level and calorie deficit) that I could have downloaded from the Internet, no guidance, no context, no firm goals or timeline, and a prescription for an appetite suppressant. Oh, and the doctor did manage to steer me past the part of the office where they conveniently sell diet supplements and powdered drinks. So, nothing but a $$$$ marketing exercise for them and a waste of time for me. I went home and started to do some research and, long story short, picked up BTF FTM on audible and started listening. BAM! Less than five minutes into the audiobook I knew I had made the right selection. Right off, Tom Venuto (who narrates) addresses the four pillars of weight control- mental, nutrition, cardio, strength training, and provides the roadmap to get there. He is direct, brutally honest, detailed, and powerfully motivating. I feel I'm back on track after my discouraging visit to the so-called nutritionist. THANK YOU TOM!

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

esto le resultó útil a 47 personas

I Am Pilgrim: A Failure

Revisado: 07-10-15

I Am Pilgrim is a pretentious mess - an ego trip for a main character who is not remotely intriguing or likeable. The whole premise is silly and wildly implausible: we're expected to believe that within the CIA there is a clique of super-secret hit men whose job is to whack, mafia-style, the supposedly limitless number of turncoat U.S. spies and diplomats who've gone on the Russian payroll. And that CIA spy planes are free to come and go at Moscow's main airport, Sheremetyevo. Also that Moscow allows the names of its most valuable U.S. assets to be stored in a Swiss bank with questionable security. Riiiight. I'll stop there, as there are too many examples of ridiculousness to catalog. Good spy novels are believable because - after all - the truth is every bit as compelling as fiction. I Am Pilgrim is not a good spy novel; it's another example of trash that these days manages to get published because suckers like me love the genre.

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

esto le resultó útil a 13 personas

really excellent book - highly recommended

Revisado: 07-10-15

Spy's Son is a very well-written and nicely structured work that explores numerous angles in the Nicholson case without being fraught with emotion or judgment. Denson just lets the facts speak for themselves, and my oh my, what a story they have to tell! Plus the book manages to be suspenseful even though, as non-fiction, the ending of the "story" is already a matter of historical record. Nicholson was the highest-ranking CIA officer ever to be convicted of espionage yet is far less well-known (notorious?) than Aldrich Ames. His treason does not appear to have resulted in any CIA assets being summarily executed (versus Ames, responsible for about 12 Russian deaths) but he did plenty of damage nevertheless - several entire classes of "Farm" graduates betrayed to Russia's Foreign Intelligence Service, or SVR. Kudos to the author for his dogged research, objectivity, and apparent journalistic integrity. Jason Culp does an excellent job of narration.

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

esto le resultó útil a 11 personas

Why did I waste a credit on this drivel?

Revisado: 08-05-14

This book is nothing but a string of worn-out cliches, none of which make for an interesting story. There is even a Forrest Gump moment, complete with a Southern-speaking Bubba (for shrimp, substitute oil) - it's so blatant , I don't know how the author is not ashamed of himself. Not a single character is interesting -- it's all pretty much plug-and-play machismo. Our main character rescues the damsel in distress (from a German concentration camp, but somehow she still looks like a million bucks) and whisks her off to Paris, while making time to have drinks with Ernest Hemingway. That is about as sophisticated as things get. I had to stop listening or else succumb to an irresistible urge to hang myself.

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

esto le resultó útil a 2 personas

Beautifully plotted and narrated

Revisado: 07-27-14

This book was an absolute joy--strong and very likeable characters (even the minor ones shine), a complex but interesting construction that gave it more depth than your average "linear" plot, punctuated with writing of sheer poetry. There are no stereotypes in the book, and it is never preachy: Germans and French are depicted as individual human beings, sometimes brave, sometimes treacherous, but each of them unique. Something crucial to my enjoyment of a book is not being able to predict how it will end -- and All the Night passed that "test" with flying colors. Zach Appelman's gentle narration was perfect.

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

fantastic book -- and disturbing

Revisado: 06-08-13

THANK YOU JEREMY SCAHILL for bringing us Dirty Wars -- this is a book that had to be written, and in my view it should be read by everyone who is concerned about where our country is headed in its relations with the rest of the world. Succeeds brilliantly in describing how, and why, our most secretive, clandestine defense and national security assets (JSCO, drones) have evolved into the weapons of choice of our political and military leaders, and the shattering implications of this trend. Throughout Dirty Wars we follow the saga of US citizen Anwar Awlaki, targeted for "elimination" by the Oval Office without a shred of due process. Scahill very skillfully puts his story into its global context, but at the same time brings us back again and again to the heart-breakening, human story behind the so-called "signature strike" -- assassination by any other name -- that ultimately killed Awlaki, Samir Khan (another young American), and, soon thereafter, Awlaki's teenaged son and other family members.

Dirty Wars is not a hatchet job against Obama or Bush or any political group in particular. It's about how we as a nation have ceded basic constitutional rights and responsibilities in the name of fighting terrorism, even as, unwittingly, more terrorists and America-haters are created in consequence of our actions.

Scahill's book appears amid a flood of recent stories about NSA etc. harvesting all of our email and phone calls. But one question I haven't heard the media ask is: what the heck are they doing with all that information, what is its practical purpose? But having read Dirty Wars, the answer is pretty clear: they're using it to detect patterns of behavior and build out profiles and "signatures" for the list of kill targets that goes to the president's desk. All of this is going on extra-judicially, beyond any attempt at oversight, much less within legal structures. It is frightening.

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

esto le resultó útil a 24 personas

complete waste of time

Revisado: 06-08-13

There are a lot of legal thrillers out there. Many of them are good, gripping reads. Case of Redemption is not one of them. There is not a single intriguing character; the main character, Dan Sorenson, is so devoid of personality that the author is reduced to ascribing a personal tragedy to him in order to try to wring sympathy for him on the part of the reader. His professional partner, Nina, is equally blank and uninteresting; we find out more about the cut of her suits than what goes on inside her head. The lesser characters constitute a parade of annoying stereotypes that each seem to scream out, "I'm sorry for being so unoriginal, but the person who created me has no imagination."

The dialogue is banal in the extreme. Adam Mitzner seems quite taken with his creation in the form of Judge Perlmeyer (who's narrated with a Southern accent--why? this is New York), and gives her way too much real estate in the book to harangue Dan over his behavior in court. This, too, is an artificial way to generate sympathy for the thoroughly unremarkable main character, and does nothing to advance the plot.

The portrayal of the relationship between Dan and Nina is shockingly inept and cheesy. And as for the story itself -- there is not a single element of suspense or surprise, and the whole thing smacks of implausibility. Just two examples: this is a high-profile case involving a celebrity, there is no murder weapon, and the judge gives the defense only two weeks to prepare for trial? During their meetings with the defendant, L.D., in jail, our two legal eagles, Dan & Nina, never get round to asking him about his alibi on the night of the murder. I'm no lawyer, but isn't that pretty fundamental to a murder case? Yeah, I know, this is fiction, but to my mind, a story loses luster if it becomes too unmoored from reality and it's impossible to relate to anyone or anything in the book.

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

esto le resultó útil a 2 personas

runs out of steam, recycled characters

Revisado: 04-01-13

I didn't enjoy T & H nearly as much as I did the Potato Factory. Too much gratuitous violence for my taste (were the whale ship lashings really necessary?) and a number of characters from volume 1 of the series either drop out of sight for no reason or else get recycled. Found myself irritated and somewhat offended that with few exceptions, the women in this series are all prostitutes, either current or former. Maybe that was the reality of this time and place, I don't know. Even so, there was no need to pepper the dialogue with comments like "she is only a whore," "all women are whores" etc. Ugh.

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

esto le resultó útil a 1 persona