S. Schwankert

Gave up halfway through

Reviewed: 01-14-25

This should have been a great book, but there are no characters to care about or root for. The book sounds like it is warming up but then never gets there.

The narrator’s reading sounds like an AI voice.

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The tedium of the ice.

Reviewed: 11-21-24

Mensun Bound’s “The Ship Beneath the Ice” does an excellent job of allowing the reader to experience the tedium of the long months that Shackleton and his men experienced after Endurance was first trapped, and then later sank.

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What a mean-spirited book

Reviewed: 09-12-23

Mr. Stone must have a Titanic ax to grind. That can be the only explanation for a book that is a mean-spirited and poorly informed look at the Titanic story. How Mr. Stone could call Eva Hart an “Oprah-like” figure is baffling. And please, it’s “scuba dived,” not “scuba dove.”

Adding insult to injury, Mr. Stone’s voice is poorly suited to the material. Avoid.

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1 person found this helpful

Comprehensive

Reviewed: 12-28-22

It’s understandable why other reviewers have written that this book is all over the place. However, “The Lives of Chang and Eng” provides a comprehensive context for the world in which they lived.

It is entirely possible that the author realized early in his undertaking that original source materials, especially from the brothers, would be scarce, and that filling a book would require an expansion of scope. There are certainly times when the book becomes repetitive. Overall this is a fine historical work.

I would avoid other books read by the same performer. His delivery led me to listen to the work at 1.2x, and his habit of allowing his sentences to hang at their end was not pleasant to the ear.

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Superb for athletes of all sports

Reviewed: 06-03-22

This book was recommended to me years ago and I’m kicking myself for not having read it back then. I am not either an alpinist nor do I have any interest in mountains, but this book need not be only for people with Eiger dreams. Any endurance athlete can benefit from what it discusses in terms of physiology, psychology, and preparation. I may even pick up a used paper copy of the book so that I can use it as a reference, it is so dense and comprehensive that it requires more than one read. Thank you to the authors and I highly recommend this book.

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1 person found this helpful

Find the original, not this work

Reviewed: 04-12-22

Perhaps this was a work that would have been better to read than to hear. The author, who reads her own work, sounds like she’s auditioning for a high school play. Her obvious lack of knowledge of any Chinese dialect grates on the ear as she reads Chinese names and Chinese terms. Fortune’s story is a great one and not need the exoticization that it receives in this telling. Go find his original work and read it, and put this unnecessary interpretation to the side.

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A concise history

Reviewed: 03-06-22

This is a concise history of the Red River War. There is just the right amount of introduction and detail on each of the characters and events. It can be listened to in a long car ride or broken up into three half-hour segments.

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The longest volley ever

Reviewed: 03-05-22

This is an excellent piece of history but it’s too long in one of two ways. Either the reader will really enjoy the secret, communist history of ping-pong. Or, the reader will enjoy the part of the story the covers the diplomacy that the title promises. However to put the two together makes it for far too long story. The book bogs down in the middle in endless detail of various players treatment during China’s Cultural Revolution. Even though the many China hands that will read this book may find that bit interesting, the audio performance makes it extremely tedious. It’s strange that the producer did not feel it necessary to find a narrator who is experienced in the contemporary pronunciation of Chinese names. Throughout the book’s reading, the continuous mispronunciation of these names, especially since those names represent some of the story’s central characters, is absolutely grating and takes away from an otherwise engaging history. Perhaps this is one to read rather than to hear.

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Interesting but not a classic

Reviewed: 04-29-21

This is an interesting mountaineering story but far from a classic. There’s far too much unrelated fluff included, such as an entire chapter about a British Indian female climber who runs into trouble on Everest. The audio performance is excellent, I would like to hear more books read by Steve Campbell.

The book is also unnecessarily anti-China.

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11 people found this helpful

Enjoyable and short

Reviewed: 03-02-21

This is an easy interview with Elmore Leonard, recorded more than 15 years ago. Leonard provides some insight into his writing and how he wrote, and his emphasis on character. No great revelations in this one, but it's enjoyable and short.

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