Nickolai P.
- 14
- reviews
- 26
- helpful votes
- 101
- ratings
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The Book That Wouldn't Burn
- By: Mark Lawrence
- Narrated by: Jessica Whittaker
- Length: 22 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
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The boy has lived his whole life trapped within a book-choked chamber older than empires and larger than cities. The girl has been plucked from the outskirts of civilization to be trained as a librarian, studying the mysteries of the great library at the heart of her kingdom. They were never supposed to meet. But in the library, they did. Their stories spiral around each other, across worlds and time. This is a tale of truth and lies and hearts, and the blurring of one into another.
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Keeps the reader guessing
- By Gr on 08-17-23
- The Book That Wouldn't Burn
- By: Mark Lawrence
- Narrated by: Jessica Whittaker
Deliciously gripping from cover to cover
Reviewed: 10-21-23
The description had held down my expectations initially; after all, how interesting could a story centered around a library really be? It turns out that it could be packed with mysteries to be gradually unravelled by imperfect yet highly likeable characters. The setup and payoff that occurs within the span of this one book is immense and would surely take the grand prize if there was a contest for such things. Mark Lawrence has always had a knack for injecting his worlds with an air of mystery, a skill he has built up throughout his career to arrive at the level of mastery showcased here. Every few chapters yielded another delicious revelation to a question subtly posed so many chapters back. I can only hope that the next book is half as interesting.
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Farilane
- The Rise and Fall, Book 2
- By: Michael J. Sullivan
- Narrated by: Tim Gerard Reynolds, Michael J. Sullivan, Robin Sullivan
- Length: 13 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
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Being an unwanted twin in the Imperial line of succession, Farilane became a scholar, adventurer, and in a time when reading was once more forbidden—a book hunter. Her singular obsession is finding the mythical Book of Brin, a tome not just lost but intentionally buried. Respected and beloved by the Teshlor Knights, not even their legendary skills can protect her for what she finds is more dangerous than what she sought.
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Another Character that I Fell in Love With.
- By Wendy H. on 06-08-22
- Farilane
- The Rise and Fall, Book 2
- By: Michael J. Sullivan
- Narrated by: Tim Gerard Reynolds, Michael J. Sullivan, Robin Sullivan
Started slow but built up to a big finish
Reviewed: 11-26-22
I am likely to be in the minority here, but after reading all the previous books in this setting, the start of this one did not hook me at all. There was almost no connection to any of the previous books at first, and the protagonist was not immediately likeable since she came off as self-absorbed, presumptuous, and reckless. Fortunately, as the story progresses, familiar characters are introduced and stick around for a good chunk of the overall story. Many of the questions left unanswered from the previous instalment are elucidated by the events that take place throughout this journey which certainly feels rewarding. Finally, there is the ending which seems pretty controversial at first glance, but once you consider how well it was set up throughout, it starts to become very fitting indeed. I have to add - and this might be a minor spoiler - that because we already know all about the afterlife from the other books in the series, the stakes don't seem all that high and honestly, we have not spent enough time with the characters for the emotional impact to be particularly high.
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Children of Ruin
- By: Adrian Tchaikovsky
- Narrated by: Mel Hudson
- Length: 15 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
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Thousands of years ago, Earth's terraforming program took to the stars. On the world they called Nod, scientists discovered alien life - but it was their mission to overwrite it with the memory of Earth. Then humanity's great empire fell, and the program's decisions were lost to time. Aeons later, humanity and its new spider allies detected fragmentary radio signals between the stars. They dispatched an exploration vessel, hoping to find cousins from old Earth. But those ancient terraformers woke something on Nod better left undisturbed. And it's been waiting for them.
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Not ideal for audiobook format
- By bogmonkey on 01-08-20
- Children of Ruin
- By: Adrian Tchaikovsky
- Narrated by: Mel Hudson
Origional and thought provoking
Reviewed: 09-01-20
A great hard scifi story that builds upon the previous installment and shows you concepts and ideas on what truly alien life might be like warpped up in a compelling narrative that both entertains and makes you think.
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Supernavigators
- Exploring the Wonders of How Animals Find Their Way
- By: David Barrie
- Narrated by: David Barrie
- Length: 10 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
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Animals plainly know where they're going, but how they get there has remained surprisingly mysterious - until now. In Supernavigators, award-winning author David Barrie catches us up on the cutting-edge science. Here are astounding animals of every stripe: Dung beetles that steer by the light of the Milky Way. Ants and bees that rely on patterns of light invisible to humans. Sea turtles and moths that find their way using Earth's magnetic field. Humpback whales that swim thousands of miles while holding a rock-steady course.
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Some interesting tidbits but frustratingly slow
- By N. on 10-28-19
- Supernavigators
- Exploring the Wonders of How Animals Find Their Way
- By: David Barrie
- Narrated by: David Barrie
Very fascinating but lacks some cohesion
Reviewed: 03-11-20
The content was very interesting indeed but I had hoped for more to tie it altogether. Each chapter was engaging and had truly fascinating information presented but nothing really tied them together and you could very well switch the order of most of the chapters and hardly notice much of a difference. I really wish there was more of an overarching theory or something to tie the different navigation methods together or at least a summary chapter which just collated all the different animals discussed throughout the book and categorised them. That would make the content much easier to remember and digest.
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1 person found this helpful
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Understanding the Dark Side of Human Nature
- By: Professor Daniel Breyer, The Great Courses
- Narrated by: Professor Daniel Breyer
- Length: 12 hrs and 8 mins
- Original Recording
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Hardly a day goes by that we don’t hear about someone committing a violent, reprehensible, even evil, act. And each time it happens, before we know anything about the circumstances, we are already sure of one thing: We are nothing like that perpetrator. But how can we be so sure? After all, we are all human. In Understanding the Dark Side of Human Nature, Professor Daniel Breyer takes us on a fascinating philosophical journey into many of the deepest and darkest questions that have engaged humanity for millennia.
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A Great Cross-Cultural Conversation
- By Anonymous User on 09-09-19
Untrustworthy and aimless
Reviewed: 12-23-19
I've listened through most of it and gave the benefit of the doubt as much as is reasonable, listening to 3/4 of the way to the end. Unfortunately, the best I can say is that the recounting of some of the statements and arguments of ancient philosophers was somewhat thought-provoking even though I did not find most of the analysis to be insightful or useful. Much of the philosophizing struck me as building castles in the sky - the arguments may be elaborate and flow logically but are ultimately built on faulty assumptions disconnected with reality.
This is compounded by the aimlessness throughout the course but especially found in the later chapters. They seem to have only tenuous connections to the main questions stated in the beginning and do not obviously advance our understanding of the topic. This leads to an overall impression of the course as just being a mishmash collection of observations and commentary which does not form a strong cohesive whole and does not lead to any clear cut conclusions. I would have found arguments backed up by hard science to be more persuasive and insightful but what is presented in this book is not well presented or perhaps not well researched as evidenced by the presentation of the ego-depletion hypotheses. This idea is highly suspect and there has been a lot of criticism and failure to replicate research backing the claims made by the hypotheses. None of this was mentioned and the idea was portrayed as de facto hard fact. This kind of misinformation should not be taken lightly and casts serious doubt on the accuracy of the rest of the content.
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Understanding Complexity
- By: Scott E. Page, The Great Courses
- Narrated by: Scott E. Page
- Length: 6 hrs and 4 mins
- Original Recording
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Recent years have seen the introduction of concepts from the new and exciting field of complexity science that have captivated the attention of economists, sociologists, engineers, businesspeople, and many others. These include tipping points, the wisdom of crowds, six degrees of separation (or Kevin Bacon), and emergence. Complexity science can shed light on why businesses or economies succeed and fail, how epidemics spread and can be stopped, and what causes ecological systems to rebalance themselves after a disaster.
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Good but basic
- By Spencer on 08-24-19
- Understanding Complexity
- By: Scott E. Page, The Great Courses
- Narrated by: Scott E. Page
Had hoped for more
Reviewed: 10-01-19
Thr information was rather general and nothing stood out as particularly profound or insightful. I got the impression that the entire field is in its infancy with many more questions than any actual anwsers or hard science.
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Blackout
- Breakers, Book 8
- By: Edward W. Robertson
- Narrated by: Ray Chase
- Length: 12 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
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The final book in the postapocalyptic Breakers series.
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I love everything about this series
- By Eco-Emancipator on 01-05-17
- Blackout
- Breakers, Book 8
- By: Edward W. Robertson
- Narrated by: Ray Chase
Great ending to the series
Reviewed: 07-02-19
A very comprehensive ending to the story which wraps up all the character threads and leaves you with a good idea of what path they will travel after the everything ends. There are enough twists and turns to keep things interesting and you do not really know what will happen to everyone until the climax passes.
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Holy Sister
- By: Mark Lawrence
- Narrated by: Heather O'Neill
- Length: 13 hrs
- Unabridged
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In this third book in the thrilling and epic Book of the Ancestor trilogy from international best-selling author Mark Lawrence, powerful novice Nona Grey must fight to survive in "a fantastic world in which religion and politics are dark and sharp as swords, with magic and might held in the hands of wonderful and dangerous women".
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A bit disappointing.
- By Fred C on 04-16-19
- Holy Sister
- By: Mark Lawrence
- Narrated by: Heather O'Neill
Brilliant
Reviewed: 04-18-19
Loved every minute of it. The narrator was a perfect fit. The way the way all of the plot points came together and resolved so cleanly was majestic and a rare thing to experience. I can hardly wait to see what Mark will cook up next.
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Books that Matter: The Prince
- By: William Landon, The Great Courses
- Narrated by: William Landon
- Length: 11 hrs and 1 min
- Original Recording
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Should leaders be feared or loved? Can dictators give rise to democracy? Should rulers have morals or wear them like a mask? Niccolò Machiavelli's The Prince puts forth unsettling questions like these, whose answers redefined centuries of political wisdom. But what does it really mean to be Machiavellian? These 24 lectures are more than just a close reading of one of the great books of Western history.
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The history is destroyed by moralizing and biases.
- By Steve Goppert on 08-16-17
- Books that Matter: The Prince
- By: William Landon, The Great Courses
- Narrated by: William Landon
Mildly interesting but unfocused
Reviewed: 05-05-18
I think the biggest flaw with this series is a lack of unifying thesis or theme. Yes, it does all connect back to The Prince but not in any focused or interesting way. This makes the series more or less a collection of bits of context and sometimes interesting facts surrounding The Prince and its author. This already weak formula is furthermore diluted with sections of commentary which I find somewhat out of place and which add very little to the substance of the series while lengthening it needlessly. These are comments of a personal nature or the tired metaphor of "Machiavelli is in Hell" which I felt only bloated the lecture which was already lacking in interesting content to begin with. While I did gather some interesting facts about the context around the creation of The Prince and some very brief but interesting history on how it influenced European thought in the centuries after its publication, I find it very difficult to recommend.
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1 person found this helpful
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The Fold
- By: Peter Clines
- Narrated by: Ray Porter
- Length: 10 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
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The folks in Mike Erikson's small New England town would say he's just your average, everyday guy. And that's exactly how Mike likes it. Sure, the life he's chosen isn't much of a challenge to someone with his unique gifts, but he's content with his quiet and peaceful existence. That is, until an old friend presents him with an irresistible mystery, one that Mike is uniquely qualified to solve.
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Loved it until the last couple of hours.
- By shirley on 06-03-15
- The Fold
- By: Peter Clines
- Narrated by: Ray Porter
Solid SciFi held back by immersion breaking device
Reviewed: 04-22-18
The narrative was fairly intelligent and worked in science into the fiction admirably enough. Sadly, I constantly felt my immersion assaulted by out of place contemporary culture references which made it doubly difficult to connect with the characters.
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