Penelopatty

The most perfect Jane Eyre EVER.

Revisado: 07-27-23

AT LAST! A brilliant actress does justice to Brontë’s immortal tale. Newton delivers perfectly for every single character, rendering each scene with intelligence and clarity. Astounding. The author has found her perfect interpreter. Thank you, Thandiwe Newton!

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Why is Ngaio Marsh written Nagio Marsh over the top of several of these audiobooks? I am mystified

Revisado: 07-21-22

Odd. Can someone explain? Although I understand that Ngaio is pronounced “nigh-oh,” I don’t see how Nagio is an improvement.

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Awful recording makes this book impossible to listen to.

Revisado: 10-30-21

I really hate to have to say it, but this recording is THE proof of why authors should NOT read their own work. I love Barbara Kingsolver, but she reads this book in an awful, toneless singsong that is so aggravating I could barely concentrate. Her men all sound the same: she lowers her voice and speaks as though each male character were a big, stupid lunk, which she cannot have intended. Her foreign accents are awful, too. There are lovely parts, I think, but it was hard to tell. I have now bought the book to read it in print, but I am sorry I used a credit on this audiobook.

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Good book for Vietnam buffs

Revisado: 03-27-21

This is an interesting book if you’re interested in the history of the American involvement in Vietnam and Cambodia.

Lisa Flanagans’s performance, however, while generally smooth and intelligent and easy to listen to, is marred by frequent mispronunciations such as “Pyoo-litzer” rather than “Pull-it-Sir” (as the Pulitzer family pronounced it), and a bevy of phrases in french. Since french comes up a lot in a story mostly situated in Vietnam, Ms Flanagan might take some time learning proper french pronunciation. Typical errors are pronouncing “de” as “day” rather than “duh,” or really any word that contains the e vowel, in its various forms, which she seems to guess at. It’s pretty grating since it comes up every other page. She might do well to take a little course in french pronunciation because she’s such a good reader, it’s a shame.

I also found Becker’s need to reassure us that her heroines were very attractive women was in itself sexist. If she were describing men, she wouldn’t keep telling readers what they were wearing and how great their figures were. I found it instrusive and grating.

All in all it’s an interesting book, adding a layer of detail to the general knowledge those of us who lived through that period already probably possess. These extraordinary women set an example for female, indeed all, journalists to follow.

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Great book

Revisado: 03-13-21

Reader sounds like a zombie which made it very hard to listen to. Has a vocal habit or speaking slowly and clearly with a pleasant vocal tone, but tends to drop inflection at the end of every sentence which reared a sort of droning quality which made it hard to take after a while. If you’re sensitive to performances be aware of this, and try just to concentrate on the book itself.

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Harriet Walter reading brings mystery to life

Revisado: 01-19-14

Would you listen to Asta's Book again? Why?

Absolutely. Harriet Walter's reading is so extraordinarily good, so convincing, I would listen to the book again just to appreciate it all over again.

What did you like best about this story?

The story is generational, and told from the points of view of three women in the same family over the course of a century. All the characters are compelling, and Walter makes them all distinct so that they all draw you in.

What does Harriet Walter bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?

First of all, since Asta's character is originally from Denmark, it's important that the reader be able to do a convincing Danish accent for large segments of the book, because her background is so much a part of Asta's character, and the themes of immigrants, changing identities and self-definition and re-definition are at the core of the novel. Walter produces these different voices, accents and characters with seeming ease, and this is saying quite a lot, because there are sections here and there in which she must actually speak a few lines in Danish. I don't know whether Walter actually speaks the language, but even if she was only well coached to be able to deliver the requisite lines, it was very convincing. But more generally speaking, the quality that Walter brings to her reading is a sort of unhurried thoughtfulness that pervades every line. You never feel her either rushing or pushing or bringing herself forward in the performance. Rather, she uses her beautiful, soft-spoken voice to give the characters life. Except, of course, when a character is brusque, or tough or some other quality that requires vocal strength or harshness, which Walter then also delivers. One of her funnier characterizations (among many fine ones) is that of Lisa, a rather vulgar young American girl. Often British actors over-simplify American accents, over-emphasizing "r"s and flat "a"s and not really getting the vowels sounds right, or being specific enough about our regional accents. Walter does NOT fall into this trap. Her Lisa was, again, utterly convincing, and I could not even recognize Walter's own voice in her portrayal.

Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?

Rather than make me laugh or cry, the book kept me enthralled and I couldn't put it down; I just had to listen to it over the better part of two days straight. None of the characters are particularly sentimental; this is Barbara Vine, after all.

Any additional comments?

Well, obviously, I think if anyone who likes psychological mystery is really going to enjoy this book. In Asta's Book, Barbara Vine finds a perfect interpreter in Harriet Walter.

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Rengency tale not up to scratch.

Revisado: 09-10-13

Is there anything you would change about this book?

As for the book itself, if you are looking for Georgette Heyer, well, this is not the worst. But it's not great, either. Beaton uses the requisite amount of Regency vocabulary, imitates many of the features of Heyer's heros and heroines and surrounding characters, but the book just never quite feels genuine. Minerva isn't really all that sympathetic (most of the plot turns upon the fact that she is a prig, which makes her the target of the malevolent machinations of a pack of evil dandies), and Sylvester borrows the pallid, distant charm of one of Heyer's aristocratic heroes but lacks the humor and warmth that might redeem him, in spite of an overbaked sex scene that seemed really out of place for the period. Finally, seeming to have run out of options, Beaton paints herself in to a corner by nonsensically separating her lovers but then has to resort to a plot trick to get them back together.

But the writing was workmanlike, at least, and I might have found it amusing had not the reading been marred, at least initially, by peculiarities in the reading by Charlotte Anne Dore. Making use of a nice, throaty voice and a pleasant, almost intimate tone, Dore does a very nice job of creating different voices for her characters (and is particularly adept whenever a child speaks in the story), but I do so wish that she had better breath control and had done a spot more homework on the correct pronunciation of words with which she seems to have been unfamiliar.

Dore often put annoying pauses in between words in illogical places, breathing sometimes several times in one sentence, rather than with the punctuation, so that the sense of what she was saying was often interrupted, a habit that became really grating. Many times, she pronounced "a" as "ay" rather than "uh" before common nouns ( in, for example, "there was ay cook, ay housekeeper..."), put a "k" on the end of "anything" and "something" ( and not when a lower class person was speaking, which would perhaps make sense, but when the narrator was speaking, who presumably ought to know better), and didn't know how to pronounce many words at all, for example (among many): curricle (cuh-ricle as in curry, NOT kyoo-ricle as in curate or cuticle); marquess (markwess NOT markess); parental (pah-rental NOT pair-ental); portrait NOT portrayt; and more egregiously, parsiMONIous NOT parSIMonous (I suppose Dore just read this one wrong, skipping over a syllable, but that begs the question, where were her editors? Was there no one in the sound booth listening in?)

A little more planning, dictionary work, and practice before the recording would be well worth the time of this otherwise very appealing and often charming performer. As it was, I really don't think I could do it again and would avoid her readings in the future. Just too distracting!

Alas, taken altogether, not quite worth the price of admission, and I doubt I will spring for the rest of series.

Would you ever listen to anything by M. C. Beaton again?

Not in this series.

What three words best describe Charlotte Anne Dore’s voice?

Throaty and sympathetic, but under-rehearsed.

Did Minerva inspire you to do anything?

Nope. Not to be a prig?

Any additional comments?

I think I've said more than enough.

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Nuland's vision: a new approach to dying

Revisado: 11-05-12

Would you say that listening to this book was time well-spent? Why or why not?

This is a modest book, but one in which Dr. Nuland, reading his own work, expresses a clear viewpoint as a physician familiar with every aspect of How We Die. Using various professional anecdotes and personal stories to illustrate the need for change in our approach to dying, Nuland posits that doctors and families need to be honest with their patients and loved ones about the approach of death. Only by offering the dying patient honesty, rather than false hope, Nuland believes, can we spare them unnecessary and ultimately futile treatments, and allow them to prepare themselves properly for death, surrounded by their loved ones, "so that our last moments will be guided not by the bioengineers, but by those who know WHO WE ARE (emphasis Nuland) ."

Nuland repositions death as more than just the final moment marking the demise of a particular individual; he urges acceptance of death as a natural and ever-repeated stage in the eternal cycle of life, as a gift the dying person can give to the new generation, without which new life cannot thrive. He sends out an urgent call for revision of our attitudes towards death, for funding for new facilities and education for professionals who thus will have better expertise in this area, and for what we might now call hospice care, so that, rather than "sequestering the dying", "no man will be left to die alone." How We Die is compelling, timely, and, in spite of its daunting title, uplifting. It's worth a listen.

What three words best describe Sherwin B. Nuland’s voice?

Familiar, kind, emphatic

Did How We Die inspire you to do anything?

Rethink my own attitudes towards death and dying.

Any additional comments?

At first, I found Dr. Nuland's reading style a little over the top. His writing at times is a little fulsome (for e.g. I found it a little fussy to refer to a dying person as a "groundling" at the metaphoric 'performance' of his own death, in which he ought to be the 'principal player.'), but overall Nuland seems very sincere and I grew to like him more and more as he went on. In the end he won me over with his thoughtfulness and sincerity.

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