KSJ

Oath of office

Reviewed: 01-10-25

Good storyline, correct for areas of that part of that part of the world , and military references

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The great sarcasm

Reviewed: 12-14-23

Love the series, great twist in this one. I recommend a series to anyone who enjoys all supernatural creatures.

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100 Stars

Reviewed: 04-10-20

Solzhenitsyn is a master of political fiction. It’s like A Tale of Two Cities for the USSR… only much better. It resonates brilliantly and truthfully from the smallest human detail to the largest instance of geopolitical madness.

If you haven’t had occasion to consider it before, Solzhenitsyn will make it abundantly clear why such a nice idea like communism (“Hey, let’s all share everything and be fair!”) was, is, and always will be fatally flawed… The problem, you see, is that it fails to take into account ALL of human nature - all the darkest bits being inseparable from the good ones.

In the First Circle is a master work that I have read many times. That being said, if you are new to Solzhenitsyn you should be aware that it has a large cast of characters and many intertwining threads, and for some people it might be a little difficult if they don’t have some general knowledge of the Stalin era of the USSR.

But this is easily remedied! Begin with Solzhenitsyn’s A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich. It is very short, deceptively simple, brilliantly written, and it will orient you to the world portrayed in Solzhenitsyn‘s other works. That’s how it happened for me…

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13 people found this helpful

The Master

Reviewed: 03-04-20

Jim Dale has set this standard years ago. Very few have met it. Superb. Let others aspire.

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Perfect

Reviewed: 03-02-20

It is always wonderful to see a superb piece of writing get the caliber of narration it deserves. Absolutely beautiful book, sad and funny and magical.

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3 people found this helpful

Top-Notch Performance

Reviewed: 02-28-20

I will definitely search out more from this narrator. Excellent with voices, accents, pacing, everything.

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Practical, relatable, and frequently hilarious

Reviewed: 01-23-20

I really liked the fact that the first half of the book is Harris simply narrating his own life story. It’s quite interesting, and even more importantly it provides a context for everything else he did when he began to experiment with meditation. Without this, the book would not have been nearly as relatable or inspiring. It probably would not have been useful at all.

I love that he is a total skeptic – and I completely identify with the experience of growing up as a child of the generation following the hippie dippy one. I, too, have always fled from crystals, caftans, incense, people who talk about chakras, etc., etc. Shelving the self-help section in a book shop where I worked used to be an experience of both self-superiority and despair - definitely not very helpful, but the irony was OK.

In addition to being a sincere, sane, and unabashed skeptic, he is also self-deprecating, skilled at delivering laugh-out-loud anecdotes, and equally unashamed of throwing in both big “smart-person” words and “lowly” but well-chosen “swear” words.

I “don’t do” nonfiction (just like I “don’t do” self-help, but I recommend this unreservedly.


Aside: I also “don’t do” meditation, but with a fair amount of cringing & self-mockery, I’ve just started to give that a bit of a go. Who knows? It might turn out to be good, and I think it’s certainly worth a try at the very least.

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1 person found this helpful

Beautifully Narrated

Reviewed: 01-06-20

A beautiful performance of a wonderful book. I only wish that Ms. Winslet would record lots of other things!

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SUPERB Narration

Reviewed: 01-06-20

Stephen Fry”s narration is stellar. Just perfect, really. Without amazing narration like his, there”s little point to an audiobook regardless of the quality of the text.

That being said, I find myself hesitating to continue the series, as someone else narrates. Perhaps I will like Martin Freeman just as much (the reviews are mixed, and a sample’s not enough to decide the matter). However the discontinuity alone is enough to be irksome. Worse is the why-mess-with-perfection? factor.

Put it like this: If versions by Stephen Fry were being produced, I would be willing to both wait for them and to pay a higher price for them. Ah, well....

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Good Book, Excellent Narration

Reviewed: 08-28-19

This was the first book by Maguire that I ever read. I liked it very much both then and now. To my personal taste, none of his other books have been nearly as good; I remain somewhat bewildered by the massive success of “Wicked.”

The narration is absolutely fantastic in every way. Pacing, inflection, voicing of the characters, etc. Narration can make a merely-OK book a pleasure to listen to, and it can absolutely ruin an excellent book. I will definitely look for other books read by Jenny Sterling.

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3 people found this helpful