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harringtonhound

  • 14
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  • 3
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Amazing performance!!

Overall
5 out of 5 stars
Performance
5 out of 5 stars
Story
5 out of 5 stars

Reviewed: 12-03-22

I want Simon Callow to read all of Dickens!!!! The introduction written by Callow is wonderful, too.

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Meh?

Overall
3 out of 5 stars
Performance
3 out of 5 stars
Story
3 out of 5 stars

Reviewed: 09-15-22

Blandly over-sensationalized. Although, I think a lot of this will stick with me for a long time. I think I was expecting more of a story line, and not so much of list of historical stuff. It did inspire me to listen to the soundtrack of The Sting. I enjoyed that.

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Tom Hanks is the perfect narrator for this book!

Overall
5 out of 5 stars
Performance
5 out of 5 stars
Story
5 out of 5 stars

Reviewed: 03-05-20

I think I saw a negative review of this book where the person complained that “nothing happens.” I LOVE books like this. In it’s way, it’s very British like that. This book is a story told largely through dialogue and it’s wonderful. Tom Hanks manages to add another delicious layer of reality on the whole thing. I think this is the best of Ann Patchett’s work. She always provides images that stay with me, but in pieces. This book, “where nothing happens” remains absolutely vivid all the way through.

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Brilliant journalism!

Overall
5 out of 5 stars
Performance
5 out of 5 stars
Story
5 out of 5 stars

Reviewed: 02-28-20

As thorough as this book is, it never becomes too dense to follow. And it is exhaustively thorough! I listened to all of the Trump, Inc. podcast (to date) before embarking on the book—this helped me follow the details. And there are a ton of details.

The history and degree of corruption that has led to our current political state is documented in stunning detail. Many of the “fun facts” go back to Nixon and Ford administrations.

I look forward to any future work by Andrea Bernstein. She is a brilliant journalist.

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2 people found this helpful

Meh.

Overall
3 out of 5 stars
Performance
3 out of 5 stars
Story
3 out of 5 stars

Reviewed: 03-25-19

A little too breathless, a little too breezy, and certainly not well-edited.

That said, a diverting listen. No surprises—but a confirming look into the lives of the ridiculously wealthy.

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1 person found this helpful

Literature at its best

Overall
5 out of 5 stars
Performance
5 out of 5 stars
Story
5 out of 5 stars

Reviewed: 03-27-17

It's been a long time--too long--since a new book has held me riveted. The language, the story, the profound reality encapsulated in this relatively short book bring to life the very best of fiction.

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Not Dickensian enough

Overall
2 out of 5 stars
Performance
5 out of 5 stars
Story
3 out of 5 stars

Reviewed: 11-29-13

Several reviews said Tartt is a modern day Dickens. Okay, this is richly woven. Lots of detail. But in Dickens, there's a sense of redemption coming for someone--if you just stick with the story. But I couldn't stick with this. It opens with the main character at age 27/28--but the story starts with him at age 13. Halfway through the second quadrant, he's still thirteen and I'm thinking "Just how long is this kid going to be 13? Can we fast forward to 27? How are we going to get through the next 13 years if 6 months has taken up this much time in the book?"

Too many of the characters are two-dimensional--fairy-tale characters with no depth. The ones that are intriguing get whisked away too quickly. Maybe they appear later in the book, but honestly at least one of them needed to be more present in the second quandrant of this book to keep me interested enough to see what happens to the main character. I can't finish it.

For all of it's detail, the story lacks veracity. Too much information, too little consequence.

The narration is great and I will definitely look forward to other books narrated by David Pittu.

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Grrr! The chapters are out of sync!

Overall
1 out of 5 stars
Performance
1 out of 5 stars
Story
1 out of 5 stars

Reviewed: 10-22-13

The recording starts at Chapter 2, then skips from 3 to 5. It might be a great book and a wonderful performance....but I checked out as soon as I realized the recording was botched.

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Loved this book! Great historical perspective.

Overall
5 out of 5 stars
Performance
5 out of 5 stars
Story
5 out of 5 stars

Reviewed: 08-27-13

This was a delightful book. Well written. It covers the time in London's East End pretty much right after WWII. It provides an amazing historical perspective on medical history, particularly that of ob/gyn at a time that was not all that long ago, but seems like another world entirely. It also provides perspective on the lives of London's poor before the economy around the docks collapsed. Oh, and before the pill. It really was another world.

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Life of Pi Audiobook By Yann Martel cover art

Disappointing....

Overall
3 out of 5 stars
Performance
5 out of 5 stars
Story
3 out of 5 stars

Reviewed: 08-26-13

Okay, I really liked the premise of the story and I know it was fiction. And a fiction within a fiction. The writing was excellent. The performance was excellent. It's the story itself that disappointed me.

First, a small point. That's not how exotic animals are currently trained. (Read "Kicked, Bitten, and Scratched" by Amy Sutherland.) These old-fashioned memes that are stuck in the popular culture drive me crazy. They are no help to us or the animals that share our lives (domestic or exotic).

Second, without revealing a key feature of the plot, the fiction went too far for me. It broke too many laws of the physical world. If this were a fantasy novel, that could've been dealt with. But it's not in the fantasy genre so there was one request for the suspension of disbelief too many and that was centered around a key development in the plot. So, I just felt dissappointed.

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2 people found this helpful