Rohan Deshpande

Heartbreaking, Intriguing, Very Slow

Reviewed: 11-15-19

This book was a weird one for me. In some ways it was a page-turner: I kept wanting to hear what would happen next, so I had trouble putting it down. And the language is beautifully melancholy, which makes the whole theme of "forgetting your past" that much more effective. But it's also a really, really slow burn, and it doesn't always feel like it goes anywhere. The characters can be slow and methodical to the point of being dry, and there were definitely times where I would get frustrated that more wasn't happening.

All in all, I'm glad I read this book, and I'd recommend it to anyone looking for a new read. But I'm not sure it was as great as I expected.

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Not the Best Bryson

Reviewed: 11-14-19

While I am a big fan of Bill Bryson's works, this book falls short of his best work. I think this is because the subject matter is more technical and straightforward than usual. Often, his books frame subjects in a new light and express a lot of wit; this book is more of a breakdown of how the body works. While it is extremely informative, with plenty of cool facts and insights, it doesn't feel as clever or captivating as other works of his.

I also want to take a moment to call out the narration: Bryson read his own work, and I think the book suffers because of it. For one, unfortunately, his accent (another reviewer calls it an affectation) is half-American, half-British, and 100% distracting. I was often pulled out of the story by the weird way he was pronouncing certain words and phrases. Outside of that, he never seems particularly excited by anything he's writing about, which really contributes to the somewhat dry feeling the book has. I wonder if the same text read by a more emphatic and professional reader would be much, much more interesting.

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2 people found this helpful

Excellent and impressive, but probably too long

Reviewed: 04-24-18

This book is an amazing achievement. It covers a true American icon in exhaustive detail with careful effort to leave nothing out. That being said, even for an unabridged historical biography, this book is LONG, probably longer than it really needs to be. While leaving every detail in is important to biographers and readers of biographies, I do think the book suffers as an audiobook simply because of its gargantuan length. Several sections of the book become dry simply because of how long it takes to get through them, and I think this could have been avoided with a little conciseness.

That being said, the performance is lively and entertaining, and absolutely helps to keep the story moving. Bramhall has recognizable voices for each person he imitates, which helps the listener understand exactly what is happening during the detailed descriptions of Washington intrigue, battlefield maneuvering, etc.

All in all, this book is worth every penny and should be listened to. Just be prepared to get bored during parts of it. 1.5x speed is a must.

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Excellent listen for the serious baseball fan

Reviewed: 11-01-17

"The most important quality in a pitcher was not his brute strength but his ability to deceive, and deception took many forms" - Michael Lewis, Moneyball.

This book is for those of us fascinated by (perhaps obsessed with) baseball who want to know more about the thought process and execution necessitated by pitching in the majors. This book describes the intersection between talent, execution, discipline, and creativity, and provides fascinating insight into what it takes to play ball at the highest levels of the game.

My only critiques are of the sections detailing the author's life in Iowa, and of the narration itself. The former was well written but honestly seemed to be a different book; the transitions between each narrative were pretty forced if you ask me. The latter is partly personal preference, since I thought the narrator had a very annoying voice. But some of it is the narrator's poor choices, like reading out the web URLs in footnotes (including the colon and slashes), and doing very poor accents for spanish-speaking players. These bizarre choices took me right out of the narrative and I thought the book was worse off because of them.

All in all, the brilliant writing and interesting subject matter makes this a worthwhile listen for any baseball lover. Just... try to ignore the narrator.

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3 people found this helpful

Excellent History, Slow Performance

Reviewed: 10-17-17

I found this book to be a little disappointing in the audio format. While the author has written a comprehensive, accessible, and insightful breakdown of Caesar (not an easy task), the performance is rather flat and can be a little dry at times. I do believe this book is a valuable resource for anyone looking to learn a lot about Caesar's life and background, as it does a great job establishing the context and setting of a lot of the events of his life. This is why I rated the 'Story' as 5 stars. However, I was disappointed by what I perceived to be a lack of interest and engagement by the narrator; some of the most dramatic battle scenes receive no more emotion than the expositional parts about the Roman priesthood.

I don't mean to say that this book isn't an impressive and well-written overview of a complex and difficult subject: the author has done something remarkable by compiling so much information into one book. However, I think this book will appeal more to people already familiar with and keenly interested in Roman history and Caesar's life, as it doesn't necessarily have features that might pull in the more casual listener.

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