E.A.Snelson

Professional reader please!

Revisado: 06-27-22

I usually prefer author-read books but this is painful to listen to. The material merits a professional who can place emphasis correctly.

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Unique fascinating personal and real

Revisado: 05-11-20

This may be the best example of one of my favorite art forms: historical memoir read by the author. Here, Mr Shapiro's warm voice gathered me into his amazing childhood in China and Japan during wartime. It felt like he was in the room reminiscing about his extraordinary experiences, without the self absorption that can weigh memoirs of less remarkable lives.

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Horrible narration

Revisado: 02-23-19

How someone who wrote these lectures could read them so poorly is a mystery. This is my first listen to Great Courses, although the subjects have always tempted me. Does the series employ no editors at all? Salisbury stumbled over her own words regularly, and demonstrated an irregular pronunciation of Spanish and other non-English names and terms. Most annoying was her constant fracturing of phrases, breaking in the midst of clauses for no reason, unless breath control is a real problem for her, which problem her listeners should not be forced to share at a rate of every paragraph. The subject matter was very interesting, apart from her personal opinions or remarks about her own pedestrian experiences. I did not need to hear which Picasso is her favorite and why, or repeated whining about the cost of soccer jerseys purchased, apparently unwillingly, for the author/narrators grandchildren.. These same lectures, read by a better speaker, and edited professionally, would be great.

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esto le resultó útil a 6 personas

Narrator Kills Story

Revisado: 05-22-18

This may be an excellent book but I cannot listen to this narrator another minute. Overacting to a overwhelmingly distracting level.

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First and last Grisham

Revisado: 08-23-17

Not needing any more legal procedure in my life, I have avoided Grisham, but was lured into this as being different particularly in its literary plot line. Meh. Not interesting leads --grieving young female writer vs male writer's fantasy of a rich bookstore owner/lady's man living the literate beach life. Writing not interesting enough to make up for a self-indulgent plot.

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Dull disappointment

Revisado: 05-10-17

Sorry to have listened to this slow and awkward story. The characters should have been much more interesting--a chef/sleuth with an over the top theater buddy -and the setting my beloved Minnesota. Sadly, the creativity in coming up with the main characters seemed to have spent the author's ability. Predictable plot, obvious red herrings, dull minor characters, very poorly written dialog made this whole book a drag. Stupid, drawn out, artificial climax. The narrator enlivened this listen by being so laughably bad, mispronouncing common words, and completely missing the cues in the text. Wanted to support a local woman author, but getting my money back.

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Fascinating story poorly told

Revisado: 03-15-17

Margaret Wise Brown deserves better. I had no idea that, in addition to being one of my favorite children's books author, she had an interesting life. This book appears to be attempting to drown out Brown's story in utter tedium. The author poorly strings together bits from Brown's own writings but adds nothing. Nothing the performer could do but make this a boring listen.

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esto le resultó útil a 1 persona

Iowa is not a southern state.

Revisado: 05-25-16

Translating novels with lots of dialogue is an art that has not been utilized in this book and its narration. The British reader does a fair Swedish accent, but why do all the Iowa characters speak with Southern accents? Very distracting for this Midwesterner. The dialogue itself needs Americanizing--is ground beef really referred to as "mince" in rural Iowa? Fairly gimmicky story that tries to avoid predictability and fails, but deserves an editor nonetheless.

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esto le resultó útil a 2 personas

Finally a memoir of a interesting life told in an interesting voice-her own.

Revisado: 05-07-16

Her story is so interesting---where she went and what she accomplished as a poor young black single mother at a time when so much was denied her is so much more powerful than memoirs of those who had so much handed to them, who are famous for being famous.

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Better heard than read

Revisado: 09-17-12

Because Tina Fey is such a good performer, I assumed, correctly as it happens, that this would be a fun listen. But the audio clips, and her sharp asides, made audio the better source.

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