Ceanothus

Depressing!

Revisado: 01-15-18

This story managed to be creepy and depressing even while failing to be be believable.

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Fun listen!

Revisado: 12-18-17

The performance was excellent. The story was creative, engaging and fun, and would have been a 5 except the end was a bit too tidy and predictable for my tastes.

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Don't bother, do try one of Pamuk's other books.

Revisado: 09-27-17

If you are looking for an interesting novel set in Istanbul or nearby, Pamuk is the author for you - but "Silent House" is not the book. Try almost any of his other books. I've been a huge fan of Pamuk's writing since I read "My Name is Red". Then I devoured and thoroughly enjoyed "Snow", "Istanbul" and "A Strangeness in My Mind". I thought I'd love ALL of his books, but I was wrong. The story in "Silent House" was so boring that after a while I just didn't care where it was going. I couldn't even make myself finish it, and that is very unusual for me. It was hard for me to commit to another of his books after that, but I did, and am glad I did, as I am now thoroughly enjoying "The Red-Haired Woman". He can craft amazingly complex stories with fascinating details and subtle undercurrents, it just didn't work in "Silent House".

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Faithful to Sayers style, if not to relationships

Revisado: 06-22-13

I found this story to follow the style of Sayers' writing very well, and the reader was superb. The characters did have different relationships to each other than in the old Wimsey stories, but it was believable that their relationships could have evolved this way over time. The reader was amazing, and made me clearly visualize this as a performance by my favorite Lord Peter Wimsey and Harriet Vane actors, Edward Petherbridge and Harriet Walter. I thoroughly enjoyed this audiobook and highly recommend it for fans of the BBC series.

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Disappointing.

Revisado: 03-26-13

I was hoping for a good historical fiction in the vein of the books written by Orhan Pamuk, and was bitterly disappointed in that regard. It does fit the category of historical fiction, and it does a semi-decent job of putting you into the setting, but it doesn't have enough of the background history or enough character development to be great literature. It is far more of a romance story than I expected, and also devotes way too much time to sexual details that seemed gratuitous to me - as if someone's editor told them it would sell better with more sex. I found myself thinking, "oh, not this again" multiple times, and even fast-forwarding through parts of it - especially the details of the sadist's idea of fun sex. Too much information there, and not enough on the background politics of the time or the characters' personal histories. I did finish the book, but I have no intention of reading any more by this author.

The reader was very good however, and was probably the main reason I finished the book. She was able to seamlessly switch from a female voice with an English accent to various male voices with Scottish accents in a way that never seemed at all strained. She didn't draw any attention to herself as distinct from the story, and really seemed to BE the characters.

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Way more depressing than usual for Keillor's work

Revisado: 04-02-12

Kind of like reading a novel-length obituary, with detailed descriptions of big problems such as alcoholism. It definitely has some gems, but the overall effect each time I listen is to end up feeling depressed, so it takes some resolve to pick it up again each time.

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Not the best kind of voice for this story.

Revisado: 02-06-12

I enjoyed the way the book formatted the story itself, but the reader wasn't the best choice. He didn't really stumble on it, or do anything extremely wrong, but I think a more youthful and ardent voice would be more appropriate and would help bring the story to life better. The audiobook was on sale for a very low price, so it was worth the cost, but I would have been more disappointed if I'd used a full credit for the purchase.

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Best book I've read in years!

Revisado: 01-23-12

What did you love best about Life of Pi?

It transported me, first to living the life of a young middle-class boy in India, then to a fantastical (but, against all odds, somehow very real) struggle to survive a shipwreck in the Pacific, sharing a lifeboat with a tiger. The circumstances were quite unbelievable when looked at with a rational mind, and yet the story-telling is so exquisite that disbelief is completely suspended while in the midst of the story. I found myself really thinking of it as a true story, a documentary of a young boy's incredible survival against great odds, and it required an effort to remind myself that it was fiction. Amazing story-telling!

What did you like best about this story?

The author is a keen observer of the zoo animals in the story, and has offered very detailed portraits of these animals. My spouse was once a zoo-keeper, working primarily with the big cats, and I found the author's observations to sound much like those of someone who had really lived with these animals. No corners were cut in researching these animals or the interactions between the keepers and the animals.

Any additional comments?

Some descriptions of death by tiger are pretty hard to tolerate (I generally don't tolerate gore well at all), and yet it is worth the effort to get through these scenes. They are not gratuitous.

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Fabulous storyteller!

Revisado: 01-10-12

Any additional comments?

I purchased this audiobook because I plan to visit Australia later this year. I didn't learn very much that will be useful in my upcoming trip, but, omigod, did I ever get my money's worth anyway. The author is a marvelous story-teller with a wicked sense of humor. Warning: parts may leave you laughing too hard to drive safely - especially his description of himself falling asleep from jet lag while being given a tour.

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Politically important and interesting too.

Revisado: 01-10-12

What did you love best about The Post-American World 2.0?

The story is well-written and is very good at granting more world perspective to those of us who don't get out of the U.S. too often and don't have a lot of experience in seeing the world or ourselves the way others (foreigners) do. This is not a story that lays political blame, but one that offers very broad perspective from our own history and the history of other important countries.

Any additional comments?

The narration was occasionally problematic. I started off really enjoying the author's fairly mild accent, but once I was halfway through the audiobook I realized that the accent was actually slowing down my comprehension slightly. Pleasant to listen to, but perhaps not the ideal voice for maximum comprehension.

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