Lanna S. Seuret

Beautiful and Classy Way to Showcase

Revisado: 09-14-22

I've been a fan since the cassette version of these delicious and clever, seaside mysteries; so tasty for West Coasters who love seafood, especially with the wind blowing, the smells wafting, the architecture we can only guess at, and the nightime creepy things with which we guess.

I hope the whole work is presented in this form.

There were maybe three only out of more than over 100 which were just too scary for me; it's just me, you may pass over alright.
In this set, "The Whereabouts of Heidi McKnown" did not play for me. Too bad. Maybe next time through. The quality and
workmanship of these stories is really special!

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Humor, Humility (the right kind), and simple Honor

Revisado: 01-15-21

A definite late bloomer politically , I do remember many of Mr. Rather's stories, but have been slow to. catch up on the import and real affect of them. For example, the Vietnam War always seemed false to me on a heart/gut level, even without many facts, but what was closed then to my understanding was the scene Mr. Rather described emotionally of the many soldiers secured in the darkest bowels of an hospital ship, none of whom was whole in body, many with more than 1 or 2 missing parts,
who were quietly, painfully whispering or moaning their soul deep proximity to death, and despair. (Listen for the touching word
he said was the only one heard.)

I cried, laughed and remained utterly interested throughout the entire presentation, and was surprised when it was over.

Thank goodness for him; he gave me heart again.

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A DEFINITIVE CULTURAL DEEP DIVE FOR ME

Revisado: 12-18-20

This story worked on two levels : the warm reception of a friendly family who "make strangers friends, and friends family" and observing how learning to fall in love, with one's loyalty and personal honor and purposes intact, even if done a bit messily.

Coming from a rather distant family which was either uncommunicative or meanly "I'm right, you're wrong" argumentative, it
amazed me how quickly the male protagonist "Oz", a new and successful young man from the West Coast, was welcomed into three stable friendships, and extensionally, made part of a community by meeting the extended families of those three friends. "Friendly, caring, sharing, safe and consistent" are adjectives that popped out for me, a miracle experience.

More: being Scandinavian, and an Air Force Brat covers two layers of insularity and pinch nose close minded cultural awareness (perhaps you were lucky enough to listen to "Prairie Home Companion" with Garrison Keillor (may God give him justice again); if so, you will understand Lutheranism where Jesus had blue eyes and soft shiny light brown hair, and uptight attitudes toward lovingness and sexuality coupled with a thin sense of humor. So this was growing up.

My first experience with Judaism or Jewishness was eating my first unbelievable chicken liver pate and/or my first incredible
blintz at either "David's" or "Solomon's" Deli and Restaurant downtown San Francisco. It was my first semester at SF State.
It took me years to realize Jesus was a Jew, and a Rabbi, and even more to learn enough about his teachings to understand he
was possibly the first feminist. There was a Jewish friend who was a song writer and musician (what a cool profession!), where I was exposed to his extended family and got my first, deep impression of the level of comfortable acceptance and even lovingness enjoyed by the whole group. The cap on the inherent humanity in this cultural phenomonen (sp) was when I heard
The Surfing Rabbi say "It is Christians who believe they have to be saved; Jewish people know the are already OK."

Now after this munificent background, we are up to this delightful book Eight Winter Nights. After my introduction, you can see how utterly wonderful was the"natural" absorption and acceptance of the new cute guy from the West Coast into the several New York families and holiday celebration. Of course rapacious Jewish mothers were instantly alert to wrap him warmly up for their daughters, but it was less out of self agrandizement and more out of a preordained sense of picking excellence to enhance the whole group. This is what I loved.

So, the action in the foreground was the close friendship of Tamara the scintillating beauty, and Rachel the also beautiful and
skilled unless she is standing next to Tamara in that first impressionable moment and (SPOILER?) how Tam after a year's absolute fun dating Oz, plotted cleverly to get Rachel and Oz in such close proximity, how could they NOT fall in love?? The fun of the story is how Rachel , afraid she might be misunderstood as stealing Tam's boyfriend, and Oz, a veteran game player, convinced he had to play to WIN, thus failing to heed his own feelings and delight (with Rache) managed to stay true to their
worries and games until the last minute, when Tamara zoomed in like a sparkling angel of justice and overweening righteousness, gently lettin their eyes see and minds know what they were actually feeling.

These characters were very real and special to me. I hope the author, Liz Maverick, rides again.

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Exactly What I Needed on This Day

Revisado: 12-11-20

After struggling with too many Christmas movie repeats, and trying to understand a culturally challenging Dave Robicheaux murder mystery (amazing but I missed too many cultural references), the beautiful original light infused little snapshot illustration and the short time investment of the story made me dive in.

Instantly I was taken back to my first trip to Europe - and yes, on a train - and felt like a fellow passenger. The light coming through the huge window was effervescent and luminous, the background language a gentle cacophany, and the immediate
politeness and concern of Martijn, the Finnish gentleman made me breathe, relax, and remember there are many people everywhere who are kind.

The story was bounded by its shortness, so we knew at the first, things would develop at a faster pace, but still the author, to me, had all the right steps there. The author met my basic need in a good story, which is, do the characters convince me of their humanity; can I feel what they are feeling; can I see how we are alike? In this case, I felt like both of them - Amy and Martijn. Amy needed trust in her work and job life, her purpose had to be a stable known; Martijn had to have beauty, new experiences, the freedom to explore, and trust his instincts toward adventures and new things. He also had a tremendous
capacity to see others profoundly human, and knew whom to trust or not.

So these different approaches were what was the basic conflict to be worked out between the two of them, and bit by bit, encounter by encounter, and decision by decision, they found themselves with new viewpoints and understanding.

This process was not in isolation of the train compartment, but included a busy , extraordinary background of new friends, ancient history, architecture, loving people and the unpredictability of winter, snow, a surprise sauna in the middle of a frozen lake, and a heavenly male chorus caught briefly and a last minute uncharacteristic change of mind!

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Surprised at How Entertained and Inthralled Was I

Revisado: 08-14-20

I've always loved children's books, but this novel was so excellent in story, characters, interesting setting (the Bijoux, swamp in Louisiana, and the economy & culture of post WW II survival, close interdependence, attractive balance of good and evil) delightful, sometimes laugh out loud humor (as when Bowser waits for Birdie ,his human companion, to get a dog biscuit, because someone told her to "Sit" ) seems to be best for open-hearted adults.

It would be difficult to convince me to read the book, because the narrator, James Frangione, must be a close observer and lover of dogs, as he gave me (credit also to author!) insight and understanding of how and even why dogs think and act they way they do. I'll leave it to you to make all your own observations, but one of my favorite was that Bowser's teeth started feeling a certain way (I'll call it "sparky and energetic") when he was sensing impending or possible threat, especially toward
his now beloved 11 year old Birdie girl. Somehow, it seemed so exactly right! Can you recall how tight your jaw - and maybe the teeth - get when you start to get really angry? Yeah...it seems so accurate.

On top of the amazing narration, the rolling out of the story is really adult in it's interweaving of the lives of all the characters, without having too many to keep remember, and the characters are so humanely full.

It is the present time. Birdie lives in what I think is a duplex connected by a breezeway, her grandmother living in the other side, as her strong and loving mother works on a drill rig in the bay, on extended job time. Birdie's dad was a cop, whose death
in pursuit of a mystery and criminal, is still only given a headline, not a complete explanation. The mom promises, upon Birdie's demand that she deserves more than the baby version; she's 11 years old now, making it sound as if she's an adult. I think she does have an adult's comprehension, too, and her dad's ability to "leave no loose ends" and figure out the real meaning of clues, and put them together.

The mystery of this story heart is that someone stole a prize preserved marlin in "Grammy"'s bait shop, which has many rumors, suggestions, and curiosities wrapped up in it's existence when Birdie (and Bowser, a reluctantly given birthday present to Birdie from Grammy) starts to put together clues. This search seems to have a lot of stones to turn over, but Quinn
seems to me to be masterful in mixing up how friends and foes alike reveal clues as understanding rises like morning mist warming over the gentle slop of the waves.

The last half an hour I was so in agony, expecting some awful , awful surprise. Well, yes, there it was, alright, but Birdie girl has a reserve of something that totally surprised me. See for yourself, when you get to that point, if it doesn't blow you away too.

Well, I'm off to start the next B & B book, even if it IS bedtime!!!

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Ill Keep Listening Till Theo Gets Thru College!

Revisado: 05-03-20

A friend really loves Mr. Grisham, but his adult stories are beyond me in tension , fear and the harsher realities, so when I saw the first tale of Theodore Boone: Kid Lawyer, that was instantly a sale. Working at a large law firm in LA, the sole client of which was Kaiser, back in the careless days, is my guess, gave me some introduction to the grind of our legal system. From a more experienced legal secretary I learned that law does not always produce justice - a real shock to my 20 plus something mind, wondering what was everyone doing, then? My escape was to occasionally haunt the law libraries on site, and found I really loved the ancient Anglo Saxon legal terms and agreements, and even bought a legal dictionary, which not only helps understand the terms, but gives some insight into the system's evolution, again, not always toward more democracy and fairness, such as when the English rich guys started encroaching on and illegalizing The Commons which allowed all the smaller landholders to graze their sheep, goats and cattle fairly. Interesting to me, these "small" fellows had a long history of working out agreements and practices for pretty much everyone's benefit. The working out of the law may have meant a lot of discussion and arguing, but with an ultimate view of sharing fairly.

In this one of the Series, Grisham was adept at making the young innocents seem frighteningly threatened, where my stomach tightened, and I had to stop and do some deep breathing. (You see why his adult stories are too much for my system.)
Two of Theo's friends, one a peer, 13 years of age, the other, his older brother of 16 years, have a mother who has to work
two to three jobs, so is not home for them as often as any of them would like, and with a divorced father who remains distant, and a step father whose job takes him often out of town, they are feeling somewhat strung out, needing not only the love, but
the interest, structure and guidance we all need when struggling to become our own adult with a strong moral and gut trusting compass.

They get invited for maybe pizza and a beer by an older car owning friend, and VOILA! the stage is set for a sticky little crime,
implicating the brothers.

What I love about Theo, is his sense of community and comradeship which is innate, and strong, so when the brothers are
tossed into jail, we can trust Theo's sense of justice, his taut reliability with certain adults in his life, and his ability to start to pull everyone together, though not always easily.

I'm of course leaving out the delicious details, because it is only about 4 1/2 hours, but it is a story that is happening every day
in families in many many cities and towns, and Grisham gracefully and with understatement shows how important the intelligent and active support persons in a community are to the stability of the present but to the future, for the generation coming up. This is starting to sound a little preachy, but you'll see what I mean, a good teacher, a willing and available uncle,
strict but loving, able parents, the Boy Scout leader, the Judge, and more. Oh, and of course, there is a funny scene in Animal
Court, which is becoming not only my favorite, but now an obligatory exercise of Theo's courtroom presence each time.

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MORE SCIENCE; CLIMAX INTERMINABLE TERROR

Revisado: 05-06-18

Having gone through my missing childhood Dinosaur period with my son when he was little, I've loved them since, avidly reading new theories, and loving all books with beautiful illustrations, wanting to see what it would have been like to be an eyewitness. When "Jurassic Park" movie came out, I was excited by most of the cast, and especially the gorgeous, wonderful CGI creations.

Now years later, deciding to read the novel, the initial pages revealed even more detail and science than the film, and more fully developed characters, a delight. But that soon enough passed into the setup for disaster, and a far too protracted climax of one disaster after another, without relief or hope. You could see Chrichton's thesis was "Messing with profound Nature is asking for Unintended and probably Highly Dangerous Consequences" early on. It made sense because life, of course, wants to survive, and the measure of it is that it tries to solve the problems its environment presents in order to keep living. However, what I expected was a little relief from the clash of human shortsightedness, and maybe a laugh or two, instead of steady, unrelenting tragedy. This formed a majority of the book, leaving very little for the denouement but a dullness of despair. It became interminable, absolutely humorless, and depressing. I decided even the last few minutes - maybe 15 or 20? - weren't even worth the listen to find out who MIGHT get off the island with life and limbs intact.

The characters were generally more differentiated and developed in the novel, but also generally less humorous and with stronger contrast to one another, the entrepreneur and uncle proving, for example, to be absolutely
tyrannical, unable to see ANY perspective beyond his dream, even when his brilliant and supportive staff had been eaten or killed one by one, and there appeared to be no one left to run the computerized systems, and the
dinosaurs (the raptors were the brilliant, intuitive pack hunters) had figured out how to breach the fortresslike
defenses, including patiently and methodically jumping on steel bars over windows in order to gain entrance.
He just became morbidly whiny, wondering why the computers wouldn't work, and thinking he would just walk out the front door of the only relatively safe building, trying to find someone who could help.

Malcolm, the mathematician, slowly became a favorite character, because, unlike the movie character, he did not
form a love triangle with the pretty paleobotanist, and the archeologist/biologist; he was a detached observer, answering questions when asked, but not proselytizing, or trying to force his viewpoint. However, as in the film, his leg was bitten and injured, but contacting the medical helicopter was becoming increasingly hopeless, and he, alas, seemed to be dying.

The paleobiolgist professor was much more interesting, strong, and well rounded, even really liking and respecting kids, particularly the boy and girl attending the trip. The boy was the elder here, quite fascinated and informed about dinosaurs, smart and resourceful as well. In the end, just because he made an effort to figure out the computers,even when it seemed overwhelming, became a little hero. The professor's assistant, the very pretty paleobotantist, was not drool ingly in love with him, hoping he'd change, but independent in her own research and life.

The other characters were well created and much more understandable. Even the "bad" guy who succumbed to temptation to steal the frozen embryos had a triggering event with the despotic uncle who refused to pay him extra for extra research, blackmailing him into submission. I don't excuse the crime, but Chrichton wisely gave him two sides, just like the uncle who seemed such a well meaning, inspired genius creator, but was unable and
unwilling to see any viewpoint but his own, which caused many people their very lives. Whew!

Looking back , it was worthwhile to get more science, but once past that, the consequence of tragedy went on faaarrrr tooooo looong for this little head.

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Whoops! Where Did The Mystery Go?

Revisado: 12-29-17

Any additional comments?

I missed checking the running time, but, liking the narrator and characters in the sample, purchased it as an entry experience. Meeting all the characters, including the intuitive, or
perhaps parasympathetic/prescient Siamese cats was cheerful, neighborly and fun.

This story ended about half the time the other stories run, and, indeed, I was just feeling comfy and oriented to who is whom, when the story ended with the closing credits!

The only suggestion of a mystery was the fact that the main character's alternate living quarters, an enviable old apple barn, possessively nicknamed "The Barn" as a nod to history which included this huge building as a landmark for the whole town, was vandalized and set afire.

But nothing was done nor did any action follow! Just George Guidell (whom I follow whenever there's a choice) as narrator wishing us well!!!

Half a story is not worth a whole credit; I notice the reviewers of the two previous books
were also disappointed, so, though not enumerated, this story may be in this period of
sad decline, so I don't want to recommend it unless you've heard all the other stories to
your heart's content and just want to add this to your list of the series.

I'm surprised and disappointed, but determined to be a bit more careful, and listen to earlier
stories in the series with good, not general reviews.

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AT LAST! THE OTHER SIDE OF THANKSGIVING STORY.

Revisado: 11-24-16

Any additional comments?

A fan of Graham Greene since "Dances With Wolves", who leaves behind his quirky humor in this story, and gives a feeling reading, I also am thankful to the author, Mr. Metaxes, who did such a nice job telling what it was like to be an Indian/First People before the Pilgrims landed, and how Squanto, after being unwillingly captured, taken to Spain and finally returned, made an extraordinary coincidence by meeting up with the first Pilgrims, speaking English. The dinner
sounded authentic, and delicious. Would I so love to include lobster and mussels at this historical dinner! But, at least I can add succotash, another dish that ran true for the time because Indians
did grow the "THree Sisters": corn, beans and squash.

I took off just one star for the music, which at times was irritating and invasive, not really adding to
or enhancing the mood.

This is a family story,worthwhile for both children and adults.

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I VOTED FOR BERNIE ANYWAY!

Revisado: 11-19-16

Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?

Two girlfriends told me about Bernie over a year ago, and after a speech excerpt or two, I knew he was virtuous, serious and spoke for the 99%. How can we want anything else except an economy and politics which works for us all? This little book is an excellent,
clear, and sensible short introduction to Bernie's person and background. It gave me grounding for my positive feelings toward him as it explained that his message has always been the same values throughout his whole career, more or less starting in high
school. He certainly has a necessary place in ANY debate,discussion or speech, and I look forward to the time when we have actual subject covered which include the numerically lesser candidates. (I could not stomach listening to the inane stupidity, trumpery, and **** filled mud slinging between the two major runners.)

If you are now at leisure to find out some basics about Bernie, I highly recommend this
book by Benjamin Sutherland. You'll learn a lot in 2 or 3 commutes.

The narrator was someone for non fiction whom I would like again. He only mispronounced two or three words, but this was little noticeable as his whole delivery
was well paced, just expressive enough for the subject, clear and bold; overall quite
pleasant.

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