Bill Staley

Fabuloso!

Revisado: 11-16-24

A stirring chapter in the amazing tale of the French Revolution. Well told (and sung not too badly).

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A good mystery with laugh out loud moments

Revisado: 09-07-24

Tugged at our hearts, kept us guessing til the end, made us laugh, love Chet and Bernie.

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Compelling argument; not too academic

Revisado: 10-29-23

Where did the ancient Greeks and Persians get the seeds of their cultures and philosophies? Professor Beckwith argues that the Scythians are the answer. I found this a fascinating audibook and read most of it twice. (Once through the lingiuist analysis was more than enough.) The first and last chapters were the most thought-provoking. The narrator was very good.

A January 21, 2023 review (not by a professor) in the Wall St. Journal concluded "As for Mr. Beckwith, his curiosity, imagination and learning—from the Yellow River to the Danube, from archaeology to linguistics—do what every history ought to do but few achieve: compel the reader to think." They did!

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Too much telling, not enough showing

Revisado: 10-29-23

In the preface, the author says that he wrote this for his children. I suspect that even his children would have preferred just the stories with, at most, a one-sentence moral from the author for each story. Instead, the author preaches and preaches and preaches and preaches some more. There are great anecdotes about Charlie, but they are buried in endless homilies. I like Stoicism, too. But not told this way. I am not sure that it would be more palatable with another narrator. Maybe with another editor and narrator there would be something to which it woud be worth listening.

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It's the Little House books, but from Ma's side

Revisado: 10-29-23

My wife and I enjoyed listening to this audiobook as we drove from Vashon Island down the Pacific Coast in Washington State. We had each read all of the "and I" books many years ago. The narrator (Heather Henderson) is perfect. Betty MacDonald's humor is a bit too arch for today's tastes. But we still laughed out loud. Her characterizations are priceless. We wondered if this was how Ma Ingalls felt about living with Pa in Laura Ingalls Wilder's Little House books.

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More for historians than general readers

Revisado: 10-29-23

Buried in this book is a great story of the barbarian warrior who ruled Italy for 30 years in peace and stood up to the Eastern Roman Emperor. But telling that great story is not the author's purpose. The book covers everything ever written about Theoderic, his ancestors, the Catholic church before and its heresies, during and after Theoderic's time, and the end of Gothic rule in Italy after his death. Plus all of the legends ever recorded that might have mentioned or have been based on some version of the Theorderic story. For a general reader, it is way, way too much. Especially the church history.

The narrator does a good job with the Gothic names and the German and French words. He strives to make this dry kindling interesting, but even he sounds bored for long stretches. I cannot blame the narrator for that. However, he has an annoying habit of dropping the volume of his voice for parentheticals or clauses. If you are listening on anything other than headphones in a quiet room, you will miss many or most of these asides.

This book was reviewed in the Wall St. Journal in the July 17, 2023 edition. The generally positive review was written by a professor. I now see that this is a book for prfessors and grad students.

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If you ever took stuff apart to see how it worked

Revisado: 10-29-23

If you ever took stuff apart to see how it worked, this book is for you. You don't need to be a scientist to enyoy it. My wife and I thought the narrator was perfect, especially when he did other characters and accents. Maybe not politically correct, but very funny. And what an amazing career. Plus an affecting love story.

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The best opening in the whole series

Revisado: 02-08-22

Don't underestimate the ability of Bernard Cornwell to surprise you. This is the best opening in the whole amazing series.

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Still surprising and captivating

Revisado: 02-08-22

It IS a sin that this narrator (or his producer) did not synch the pronunciations of key peoples' names with the first (and best narrated) books in the series. But it's something that you get over as the plot carries you along. The narrator is plenty good enough and the author finds ways to surprise you, from the first paragraph to the last chapter. I think to myself "You should mix it up, listen to other books then come back to this series. Make it last. This is like eating dessert for every meal." But I can't stop.

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Great professor, great content, great course

Revisado: 08-21-21

Professor Harl takes a long view, starting before the Viking age and ending after it. At first I thought that this was too much, I did not sign up for a course on ancient Scandinavia. But I enjoyed all of it, because he makes it interesting. Come for the Viking raids, stay for the Icelandic sagas and the founding of Kiev!

As soon as you get the course, you should get the Penguin Historical Atlas of the Vikings by John Haywood, which Professor Harl recommends in the .pdf materials. It helps a LOT with the place names.

For Viking fiction in Audible, try The Long Ships by Frans G. Bengtsson. It's wonderful. If you like that, try The Walking Drum by Louis L'Amour (not a Western, not a Viking book, but rip-roaring like The Long Ships). For a taste of the the sagas, try Beowulf read (very well!) by Seamus Heaney.

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