mom10

Great thinker, I’d prefer another reader.

Revisado: 01-10-25

Anne Applebaum is a well researched and seemingly insightful political thinker and writer. I benefitted immensely from her explication of authoritarians — no ideology or respect for truth, but an intolerance of difference, of non-unity, of a sense of history, of a sharing of power. She also makes the case, based on many scholars’ tracking of the cyclical nature of human attempts to live in political society — no easy project!

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Margaret Fuller the person

Revisado: 10-09-24

I was very happy to learn of Margaret Fuller and share the author’s consternation at MF’s disappearance from literary history. However, I found the narrative quite tedious at times. I did get a sense of MF as a person. In the epilogue it might have been nice to hear about the author’s sources to assess how much the sense of personality was from letters and first hand accounts of others. Others in my book club were very enthusiastic, so mine is just an idiosyncratic take. The performance was very professional and she did the various characters well, I just didn’t love the breathless quality she brought.

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The magnificent language , the metaphors

Revisado: 03-14-24

Pitch perfect reader of pitch perfect prose. So glad I finally got to this book. And the interview with MR at the end is a wonderful treat!

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Fantastic tale of humanity’s highs and lows

Revisado: 01-26-24

Superb narrator of a superb book. Jane’s Mc Bride weaves a tale of the oppressed Jews and “Negros” in 1930s Pennsylvania and how they often worked together across a vast cultural distance to survive in a profoundly racist town. As one character said….at least in the South, they’re forthright with their racist ways. Heartwarming heart stopping, heartbreaking and amazingly inventive, it’s a wonderful book, wonderfully read.

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Seemed thin, superficial in some ways, unfocused

Revisado: 01-14-24

I usually thoroughly enjoy the many books I’ve listened to here. This reader was a problem to my ears from the beginning… too glib and kind of knowing in her tone. As things got more serious, the glibness disappeared, but I had a hard time really connecting with the narrator/main character. Which brings me to the story, a story that never really got off the ground. Was this about a false friend, a woman’s quest to find her own voice and her own mind, a glimpse inside the corruption of our govt (no surprise!) and the mercenary ambitions of all involved in the Vietnam War, a story about men and women’s roles in mid 20th century, or what?? It could be all those and presumably become a novel of great depth, but this isn’t it! Finished as it’s for my book club, but I really didn’t enjoy it, I’m sorry to say.

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Wow! I loved this book/reader too

Revisado: 07-22-23

This is a tour de force of inventiveness and empathic resonance with life’s pain and longing. There’s plenty of both of those qualities, but the pain is offset by the deep humanity and realness of the characters, the complex, true-to-life relationships and the very interesting structure of the book. And as for the audiobook itself, I loved the reader….pitch perfect!
PS I’m nowhere near a gamer, so that’s not a needed prerequisite to enjoying this book to the max…. I’m 74 years old and I just vaguely knew about the early games like Oregon Trail from my step daughters and Mario, Donkey Kong and GTA, etc. from my own son about a decade or more later.

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Guess I’m an outlier

Revisado: 07-01-23

I read all the rave reviews and I’m happy for the author and all those readers that they lived the book so much. But for me, it was quite a long slog. It did pick up and I wanted to know how it ended, but as a psychologist the characters felt too one dimensional. It was clear that Julia was going to seriously restrict Alice’s life and psyche. It was a relief when Alice’s voice was added and there was an acknowledgement of the difficulties. Reviews on many sites laud the shifting points of view, but it didn’t really seem like points of view technically. Neapolitan describes one or another character in the various sections, but it’s still her voice. I would have loved it if the various chapters were truly in the voice of the featured person. And the metaphors!! All I can say is…”block that metaphor!” The performance may have taken on some negative aspects for me because of my disappointment with the story, but it felt somewhat sing-song in its delivery.

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Fantastic!

Revisado: 05-28-23

This is a formidable accomplishment. Margaret Atwood is a rare gem of a writer… so inventive while being such a keen observer of humanity and social ills. She shows us that we are all flawed and passionate as individuals and also that in grabs for power and wealth, both people and societies can be deadly. Bravo, many times over. And it’s all done with exquisite prose and complex and gripping plot. Also, the reader is perfect!

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Loved it but it’s tough going at times

Revisado: 04-29-23

A wonderfully lucid and artful look at aging and death. At times very funny, like moments in the interview with dead George Orwell or the view of humanity from the vantage point of a snail’s soul that landed in a human woman after the snail’s death. At other times, Margaret Atwood gives us the raw pain of war in an extended piece about WWII and the almost unbearable pain of the loss of a cherished partner. Her language and her powers of observation are so deeply felt and deeply drawn. I’m sorry for those who read this book and found it boring. Maybe it was too painful or perhaps they were young and in that case, I can understand that much of it was hard to fathom. I’d say wait a few decades or more and then come back to it, you might be surprised!

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One of the best books ever!

Revisado: 01-11-21

Maggie O’ Farrell has written a book of enchantment and sorrow and love, passion and heartbreak that is deeply thrilling in its beauty and strangely captivating in the world it conjures. Her language is like poetry with its flow and imagery, yet this is firmly a novel at the same time. The pacing is just right, with the overlapping mix of its present and past, mimicking the way we live in our present with the ever present memories and sensations of the many layers of our past experiences, dreams, fears— the ones unforgettable and the ones that appear out of some distant place with a shock. Bravo for the inventiveness of all that she added to the little we know of the historical Shakespeare family and for the strange mysticism that creeps in around the edges.
Ell Potter’s reading deserves mention as it was an integral part of the experience of this book on Audible. If you’re reading this, you are an Audible reader and you know how the narrator can be a neutral presence, an irritant to—hopefully—overcome, or someone who brings the author’s world to life. Ell is a supreme embodiment of this last category, with a tone and pacing and emphasis that was at one with the characters and the moment. Bravo to her as well!

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