Kelley

Can confirm

Reviewed: 01-24-21

Of course, I would have preferred an author-read autobiography from start to finish, but that's not what happened, and I lived with it, because this book offers a truly fascinating story. Total Recall moves at action thriller speed and lets us love its hero who keeps claiming to believe in us. Arnold tells you from the start that he was always supremely motivated and naturally manipulative (not how he puts it), and who isn't ready to be manipulated into feeling motivated after this soul-sucking year?

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I love it!

Reviewed: 09-05-20

Guys. I only downloaded this selection because I have a terrible migraine and needed to find a book written for adults that wasn't full of murder. That part worked out as planned, but then Maria Bamford convinced me to write my own comedy special, which is not at all how I saw my day going. I'm pretty excited about it! So, this is a real program about writing an hour of comedy that's funny and inspirational. From experience I can say it's invalid approved. I imagine the robust would also enjoy it.

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3 people found this helpful

Fished in

Reviewed: 06-19-20

This book reminded me of all the crazy internet dating I did in the late 90s/early 2000s, and how close I came to being at the center of some awful story of my own. I was mesmerized by this insane crime -- so impossible to believe, no one considered what, with hindsight, must have seemed so obvious. Leslie Rule does a great job with this material. At first I was jarred by the repetitive, cumulative information given, but soon I felt I was in the middle of a real-time reenactment with all the crazy-making texts laid out like threads in an enormous red flag. Rule doesn't judge Dave, who is criminally clueless, so we can make judgements of our own. I enjoyed that too. These cyber-romances with their spice of psycho-drama, cowardly disclaimers and transparent manipulations used to happen all the time. Luckily, the killer in this story is a rarer breed. Let's hope there aren't too many more out there.

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15 people found this helpful

Am I being taught a lesson?

Reviewed: 05-14-19

I enjoyed the first collection. It was funny! This collection - or the first four stories, I should say - is ... odd. It's like there's supposed to be a twist? or a moral? or some narrative slight of hand that might build character in its adult listeners?
I don't know. I think Trump makes comedians crave positivity more than they crave anything that might be funny or entertaining or worth spending time listening to. Sad.

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Old woman no like book

Reviewed: 07-19-18

I gave this book well over half an hour (at 1.5X because this woman squeezes the shamanic out of every. word. she. says.) skipping to the beginning of two different chapters, just in case, and I can tell you, from that research, that this book is super irritating rubbish. Any point the author might conceivably have had is buried under anecdotes about her family and friends (because intellectual or cultural references everyone might relate to wouldn't honor her truth, I suppose) and vague sentences about spiritual mountain selves and the great naturescape or god knows what else, and it makes zero sense and resonates with nothing at all, and I'm going to get my money back and get either Neil Gaimam's Norse Mythology or David Spade's new thing. Can't decide.

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4 people found this helpful

Trevor Noah hates cats

Reviewed: 11-26-16

I enjoyed hearing a firsthand account of South Africa. Everything I thought I knew before was gleaned from Newsweek circa 1986, so ....not much. This book is thoughtful and informative. No doubt the author has been confronted with enough ignorance abroad to have crafted clear and interesting explanations of his country's recent history.
The rest of the memoir is nice enough. I find all childhoods boring, and so was not riveted by the stories, but if you like childhood, you will probably love it. Unless you object to a callous indifference to tortured cats. My fat cat is sleeping on a pillow in a sunbeam right now, and neither of us is ready to handle the starvation and slaughter of poor-neighborhood pets. If you're with us on this, you better brace yourself.

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3 people found this helpful

Good one!

Reviewed: 08-05-16

For some reason, I'm fascinated by this hoarder thing. Although I'm not a problem hoarder, I have the niggling suspicion I'm holding on to stuff I should throw out. The "end clutter" books I've listened to were dull and uninspiring. This book, is interesting. And helpful. Especially if, like me, you can't make yourself throw away a lipstick you last wore in 1995.

Also helpful if you have to navigate between piles of stuff to get around at home.

Either way, I recommend it!

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39 people found this helpful

Privilege calling privilege privileged

Reviewed: 08-05-16

I almost didn't buy this book, because I thought (correctly, as it happens) I knew everything about Patty Hearst already. I read Hearst's book, I saw both movies, I saw it spoofed on Drunk History, I heard Dave Anthony tell it on the Dollop (twice- SLA episode and SWAT episode), I read Days of Rage, I mean... enough already.

But then, I thought: Hey! I knew a lot about O.J. and I still liked that book, right?

So, I bought America's Heiress, imagining I'd get the same fresh pithy insightful top-notch journalistic prose.

Instead, I got the 400 page wikipedia entry I was afraid I'd get. There is nothing at all new here, and no insight. Okay - Toobin thinks Stockholm syndrome is a joke, and that Patty made bad, armed, criminal decisions uncoerced, He is sick to death of her lame "I got kidnapped, locked in a closet, and raped" excuse. Huh, thats..... nothing. I don't care enough about it to decide if I agree with him or not because it's a non-issue at this point. Where is the relevance?

O.J. was good because Toobin nails the fancy lawyers in the story. Why shouldn't he? They are of his class and his profession. He's writing what he knows.
Not so the scruffy weirdos of the SLA. Toobin gives them all the human depth of a cage full of badgers. It's hard for me not to see a touch of class-blindness there. It also means we're in the wiki-world of here's what happened, step by step. I found it pointless.

So here's my last beef: Toobin concludes by criticizing the fact that Hearst got a commuted sentence and a pardon based on her wealth and position. Well... Does Jeffrey Toobin honestly think his personal success has nothing to do with his privileged background? Because I think having a famous network newscaster mom and news producer dad might have had something to do with the success he now enjoys. Somewhere there's a poor unconnected writer in Nowheresville not getting her 400 page historical rehash published, thanks to people like him.

J'accuse!

Oh - PS: If you don't know anything about the story, go ahead, cause it's a good one.

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32 people found this helpful

Remove from cart

Reviewed: 05-17-16

It's true. I may have over served myself on the Scientology peeping lately, especially since Inside Scientology, my first, is still by far my favorite. And just so we're clear, books are the extent of my relationship to Scientology. I've never been near it otherwise.

Okay so, let me start. This book is lame.
As I listened , I kept thinking, "Did I just pay money to let an old man bore me to tears? There are three geezers at the donut shop down the street who will do it for free," Why should I care about any of this? Because he has a semi famous son?

Well, there's not much about the son in this book. David set out on his own at a young age, so this is hardly an insider account. And besides, Ron Miscavige (back to the old dude at the coffee shop) only wants to talk about himself. He wants to make sure we all know about his stellar musical career and hilariously unscrupulous money-making schemes and wife-beating mishaps.He wants to namedrop and toot his own horn. He is a huge narcissist (under 5'6"), who's spun a yarn out of his everyday life and sold it! The man's still got his conman chops.

The blatant narcissism was interesting for a few chapters, but then it got annoying and then dull.

Unless absolutely anything negative about Scientology is fun for you, I can't imagine you would like this book.

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6 people found this helpful

Must love prosecutors

Reviewed: 03-28-16

Arias, besides being a monster, is a bore, and Martinez is an insufferable egomaniac. If you know nothing at all about the crime, you might find it interesting... I still recommend reading one of the other books. Unless you like that self-righteous long arm of the law thing that leads to pages of self-admiration. It disturbs me to hear a prosecutor so in love with himself. Vested self-interest in the courtroom seems like a really bad idea.

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3 people found this helpful