Uther

A phenomenal work of post-apocalyptic fiction

Revisado: 02-01-21

I've read widely in this genre and this truly stands out; a profound imaginative achievement!

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Perfect for nostalgic DS9ers

Revisado: 07-22-20

So grateful to Armin Shimerman for his excellent work on this, both writing and narrating!

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Wonderful ‘fly on the wall’ insight into Churchill’s wartime cabinet.

Revisado: 06-15-18

Having read some of the Cabinet papers in the (British) National Archives at Kew, I can say that this unique set of accounts of what was said by the major British players during their crucial wartime deliberations is fascinating. The narrators are also excellently chosen, creating the best kind of dramatisation, increasing the sense of authenticity and helping you to re-live this history without distracting from the story being told. This is a very short programme created for radio, but it is absolutely worth spending a credit on if you have any interest in Britain’s role in World War II or Churchill himself. This is the kind of programme at which the BBC excels, and I only wish the same thing could have been done at much greater length. #VoicesFromTheGrave #WorldWarII #Witty #Gritty #Clever #tagsgiving #sweepstakes

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Excellent content and narration with original interviews!

Revisado: 06-15-18

The narrator is well chosen, having made his name in The Jewel in the Crown tv series and since done lots of narration on documentaries, radio programmes and audiobooks. The content of this summary of Churchill’s life is well-balanced, so that it packs in enough information to fill a much longer audiobook. It is very well edited with excerpts of original broadcasts from the time, including parts of key speeches such as the announcement of the war, alongside retrospective interviews of Churchill contemporaries. So wonderful are these recordings in fleshing out the story that one wishes the BBC would do more to put its historical sound archive onto longer digital audio programmes in unedited form.

Yet for the purpose of this short programme, everything is well chosen in order to present a very balanced portrait of Winston Churchill as a man, including his faults and shortcomings as well as his pivotal role as the wartime leader whose eloquent speech-making and rhetorical flourishes galvanised and embodied the fighting spirit of imperial Britain after the collapse of its allies and until the entry of the Soviet Union and United States into the war. There is very little in his long career, in terms of events, and connections to other countries, which has been left out, in spite of the relatively short length of this audiobook. In summary it was a delight to listen to and I highly recommend it to anyone interested in Churchill, the British war effort or any of the films about the war that have come out recently.

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Excellent and magical atmosphere of Russian mythology and the world of snow and trees!

Revisado: 01-31-18

I am more familiar than your average non-Slavic person of Russian history, literature and culture, including some of the fairy tales and folk culture, but I have never come across anything in English which captures the world of pre-Christian Russian mythology, contrasted with the increasing dominion of Orthodoxy, and which evokes the Russian medieval world of snow, forests and harsh winters, quite the way this does. It is a magical and magnificent story in its own right, but the creation of this atmosphere in which you can live and breath old beliefs and the world of ice and snow is truly breathtaking. It does not shy away from depicting the harsher aspects of women’s lives in that lost era, and that adds to its sense of realism (alongside the mystical and the supernatural) and plausibility, but it navigates the story of a female protagonist against such constraints in a manner that seems both true to actual elements of Russian folklore and which would be inspiring for young women and girls who read the story and see the heroine evade and overcome those patriarchal, and even violent, constraints. The story also points towards the wider treatment of witches across the whole of Europe and North America, suggesting that they were preservers of the pre-Christian cultures of the European (and neo-European) societies in which witches were persecuted. There are many other themes that could be discussed, but the book imaginatively interweaves all of these elements and proves quite educational as well as evocative of a real and an imagined world that would otherwise be unknown to Western and other non-Slavic readers. It depicts a world which cannot be accessed through the classic works of Russian literature, but which is quintessentially and indispensably central to what Russian culture is and has been. It also stands up perfectly well against other works in other settings, for anyone who appreciates the genres of historical fiction, fantasy and mythology. It would be a gift to any young person to discover the world Arden has captured and reimagined at an early stage in their lives. It is also emotionally moving for any adult readers sufficiently open to works in this genre. #ComingOfAge #FairytaleTwists #Inspiring #Magical #Animal #tagsgiving #sweepstakes

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An exceptional translation of a timeless masterpiece!

Revisado: 04-26-17

I walked along Arbat in Moscow one day and saw immaculately dressed small children standing on the street reciting Pushkin's poetry. To Russians he is their Shakespeare, and so no child can escape him. A lot of Russia is in this one short work, and even though I have come to him after many other Russian authors it seems now to have been a crime to have sought to understand the Russian soul without its leading light. As a historian of people of 'mixed race' its interesting to note that Pushkin was, to a lesser degree than Dumas, of black descent - yet both thoroughly assimilated to and taking their respective tongues and national cultures to the greatest heights.

The reason that Pushkin is so little known relative to the other Russian greats is surely because he is a poet, and poetry, even more than prose, must suffer alteration in translation. However, this is truly wonderful and lyrical translation of Pushkin's masterpiece into English verse, for which Dr. Mary Hobson is to be commended. Inspirationally Hobson began learning Russian at 56 and received her PhD in the subject at 74, as well as - appropriately - the Pushkin Gold Medal for translation! Even if Russian speakers may say all translation is an echo, this beautiful English language version is a testament both to the depth of Pushkin's original and to Hobson's skill in bringing it to life for us. Anthem Press published her written translation, which I am now eager to get hold of.

#MidlifeCrisis #UnlikelyHero #Cynical #Tearjerker #Russia #tagsgiving #sweepstakes

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An amazingly erudite and insightful man!

Revisado: 04-01-17

Wonderful interview with a wide ranging and informative discussion from one of the most thoughtful central bankers anywhere!

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Immersive, dark, dystopian scifi-fantasy!

Revisado: 04-01-17

An incredibly immersive, and strangely believable picture of a post-nuclear-annihilation future for our species. The degree to which this world is so alien and yet plausible that it draws you in to an altered sense of reality is the book's greatest strength. It is incredibly dark, and the first few chapters along with the last few are better than the middle. Its a book you have to struggle on through like a dark tunnel. Yet its incredibly imaginative, seeming to draw on Orwell's appreciation of political ideologies as well as a Dostoyevskian exploration of metaphysics, mysticism and religion, both highly inflected through the Russian and Soviet prisms. I have bought multiple copies of this book to give to friends, and although it drags on with a somewhat repetitive plot pattern towards the middle, I highly recommend it to anyone who wants to enter another world, like a child encountering an exquisite fantasy for the first time!

#PastMeetsPresent #Mindbending #Depressing #Dark #WorldWarIII #tagsgiving #sweepstakes

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Sublime if you appreciate fantasy, the Napoleonic era and Pride & Pejudice

Revisado: 03-19-17

I am a selective fan of fantasy, but after Tolkien this is the best single work of fantasy I have ever read, and it truly transcends its genre!

#FairytaleTwists #MythologyInspired #Magical #Satire #TorturedHero #tagsgiving #sweepstakes

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Tim Curry is the perfect narrator for this scifi classic!

Revisado: 03-08-17

Tim Curry's narration is perfect. The story is a scifi classic, though dated in some respects, but its interesting to see how it anticipates later scifi and fantasy - I cannot help but think that it fed into the fantasy genre as well, such as the underground places in the Hobbit and Lord of the Rings, and into ULG's tombs in the Earthsea cycle.

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