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I hope that this is only the first installment

Reviewed: 01-31-20

Yes I am a James Taylor fan. However I don't believe my love for his music has done away with my critical faculty, so I offer this review. As Taylor has now entered his seventh decade, it is interesting to hear his recollections and reflection on his earlier life. Even casual fans of Taylor will be familiar with his general biography through his early years; there's no bombshells or unexpected turns of events revealed here. Still, as a songwriter Taylor is a storyteller and I was rather taken with his own tale as presented here. I intended to listen for about 20 minutes and found I had to listen to the whole thing.

I'm being honest when I say that I think it's unlikely that Taylor will get asked to narrate other audiobooks - he's fair to middlin' as as narrators go: speaks clearly but with a pretty flat emotional affect. That's ok by me; the world doesn't need him to be a great narrator as he's already one of the greatest singer/songwriters of all time. But I think there's definitely a certain sincerity in his voice as he tells his story and I was left with the wish that he'll do more of these episodes of his life. But I am thinking he won't as so many of the next era's stories would involve lots of folks who are still living, and he's careful in this one to avoid assuming he has the right to share them. There are little pieces of music throughout that are useful, including his earliest ever recording which was new to me.

I think even those who aren't fans would enjoy this mini-memoir.

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A peek into tv news - well I sure hope NOT!

Reviewed: 11-06-18

I got this book on recommendation of a good friend. I enjoyed it but only to a certain point. I found the main characters somewhat entertaining, yet extremely shallow and self-centered. I have worked in radio off and on for 30+ years - in music, not news - and I have run into people like these, but they do not comprise the majority. I shudder to think that, as the author says in the note at the end, these are composites of those she has worked with in her broadcast news career.

The main character, Amanda Gallo, seems to have almost no power of self-reflection, lives entirely in the moment, and is throughout the book devoid of a personal moral code - willing to do almost anything in service to her dream of being an anchor on a major tv network. She's momentarily troubled by doing things against what she was taught in journalism school or what ideals she was raised with, even political views she's held her whole life, but a makeover, more money, beautiful clothing, seeing herself in a tv monitor, hobnobbing with the famous, etc. are all far more important to her than any of sense of personal honor. And she's also very concerned about her love life in a way that I find completely unreal for a female journalist who has worked her way up through the ranks to the New York market (probably the most difficult market to break into in the USA); she would have to be far more intelligent ( or, quite frankly and unfortunately, she'd have to be amazingly and unbelievably good-looking) than she is written here. I found the ending drama very unsatisfying; her principled on-air speech would have never have been permitted, and I find it a bit beyond the bounds of credulity that her best friend would behave in the way she does.

One theme running through the book that I very much appreciate, and that Amanda voices several times, is how her ideas change as she is confronted with her own biases. She meets people in the course of her job with whom she thought she had little in common, in fact had in the past dismissed as idiots, crackers, rednecks, etc., and she finds that they are people too, with legitimate concerns, ideas, and so on; they are no longer dismissable once she knows them personally. I think that's the best part of the book, and maybe the the best takeaway.

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2 people found this helpful

Perhaps Tepper's greatest work in audio book form!!

Reviewed: 06-25-18

I highly recommend listening to this book. It is an excellent future dystopian/post-catastrophe story that explores how patriarchy might be eliminated from the human race. Sheri S. Tepper often wrote about gender conflicts and the toxicity of patriarchy - I think this story may be her greatest achievement. I re-read this book just about every year since I found it in 1989; it's been out of print for several years and TRULY deserves to be far better known than it is! The narrator does a fine job differentiating between the different characters and I like her performance in most ways (I think my love for this book is so great that almost no narrator could perfectly satisfy me, except for perhaps Davina Porter....). As someone else said, if you like "The Handmaid's Tale", you'll enjoy this. Now if we could only get "Raising the Stones" as an audio book!!

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7 people found this helpful

One of my favorite books gets the whole treatment

Reviewed: 11-30-16

When I first read this book by Neil Gaiman, I had gotten it to read to my chidren. I fell completely, completely in love with it. I reread it three or four times before I put it down and could move on. I was delighted to find this wonderful performance thanks to one of Audible's 4.95 sales! I love the book even more now; the cast is superb. The only reason it did not get 5 stars overall from me is the music between chapters. It goes on too long and there's too much of it - and I'm a musician so it's quite rare for me to say something like this. That being said, I heartily recommend this audiobook to absolutely everyone.

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3 people found this helpful

Thoroughly enjoyed this.<br />

Reviewed: 06-27-16

I saw the movie before I had heard of the book, and the movie script was surprisingly faithful to the book. I live in a place where space programs are an important part of our economy and community so, like Apollo 13, I always like to see/read stories of the scientists and engineers employing their smarts to solve problems. Narrator was good, too. I recommend this audiobook highly.

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Confessional, honest, bitter and yet a bit creepy

Reviewed: 03-18-14

Would you consider the audio edition of Late, Late at Night to be better than the print version?

I haven't got the print edition. I am unhappy that there is NO ACCOMPANYING PDF so that we audiobook purchasers can see the pictures, so the print edition certainly has that one over the audiobook.

What does Rick Springfield bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?

I really got to like when he would give voice to his depression, which he calls "the Darkness" or "Mr. D". He uses his natural speaking accent (Australian) and I believe this added greatly to the honesty & emotional impact of the book.

Any additional comments?

I hope the writing of this book was cathartic and/or healing for him in some way, for it seems that the serious therapy he undertook in the past only helped him better understand his misery & what drives him. His bitterness at those who have wronged him and his willingness to share a fair number of his sexual conquests (which must number into the thousands) - that's the creepy part.

I very much liked how often he described how deeply he feels for his long-suffering wife, and throughout shed light on what sex addiction is really like; suffice it to say: addiction is addiction is addiction.

Another thing that is truly remarkable about this book is that he goes through - perhaps somewhat exhaustively - each one of his albums and shows us part of his songwriting process and how he made each one. After listening to the book, I went back and listened to several of the albums he's made in the last 30 years and the songwriting is solid. I especially like "Venus in Overdrive" & "Songs for the End of the World", but an album I really didn't care for when it came out, "Tao", seems very different to me now.

I mostly enjoyed this book & I mostly enjoyed hearing Rick Springfield read his own words. I think I was led to listen to this book after watching Dave Grohl's film, "Sound City", of which RS is a part (and I HIGHLY recommend this film if you are a music fan). Learning more of his story has made me reconsider his music and see him as the songwriter he really is, not as the teen idol I thought he was when I was in Junior High. As Springfield is in his mid-sixties in age and still rockin' pretty hard, I'm thinking I may have to make it a point go to one of his concerts and soon.

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17 people found this helpful

Davina Porter is the GOLD STANDARD in narration

Reviewed: 05-30-13

If you were to make a film of this book, what would be the tag line be?

He's super fabulous and so is she.

Any additional comments?

I started reading this series of books because my dearest friend in the world just LOVES these books. No, I didn't start with the 1st one because I was getting them out of the library so I took whatever was available. I read them all (there were only 5 at the time) and I very much liked the writing - clever, literate, well researched, the story was unique, the characters likeable and I love really good and long books as I read very fast. Still I would roll my eyes again & again & again when the 2 main characters, Jamie & Claire, would go on about how great/wonderful/handsome/beautiful the other one was; I began to think I would scream if I had to read *one more description* of how amazingly groovy somebody's hair was.....

Enter Audible. The same dearest friend gave me a few free credits & I decided to use one of them on "Outlander". Heck! It's a great value: more than 33 hours long?!? Imagine my astonishment when I found myself laughing out loud and another time IN ACTUAL TEARS during the listening of this book - Davina Porter's performance *made* *me* *care* what happens to these people.

.I now have all of the unabridged audiobooks and am looking forward to more volumes as they are released. It's true, Ms.Porter canna do a good Boston accent (but she does ALL the others so well), and I still roll my eyes whenever I have to hear for the fiftybazillionth time how handsome he is and how gorgeous she is but I love all of the characters like family now and simply adore narration by Davina Porter. RECOMMENDED

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Absolutely OUTSTANDING

Reviewed: 05-30-13

First- full disclosure: I'm a fan of the book. I'd read it just a few years after it came out when I was probably a freshman in high school; it made an indelible impression on me and I think Margaret Atwood is a flippin' GENIUS. I think it should be required reading for every human being in North America.

My daughter, in her mid-teens, loves audiobooks. She is a great reader as well; however, she will only very occasionally take a book recommendation from her mum. I got this audiobook in the hopes that she *might* listen to it if I put it on her iPod.

Claire Danes hasn't been a favorite of mine - it isn't that I *don't* like her.....I just missed "my So-Called Life" age wise & I can't recall seeing her in anything since "Romeo & Juliet" (I haven't watched much tv since 1997). I was skeptical if Ms. Danes could do this material (that's so important to me) justice, but I hoped my daughter would enjoy it.....

One evening I couldn't sleep & I had no more credits so I decided to give it a try - AMAZING. I hadn't re-read "The Handmaid's Tale" in 20+ years and listening to it again now was not only chilling but I was dumbfounded at Atwood's prescience (just check out Ms. magazines' recent articles about the War against Women). And Claire Danes? She inhabits this narrative, gives such a strong, nuanced performance that I cannot BELIEVE she didn't win the Audie for this. Danes reading Atwood is a golden example of how audiobooks can be so much better than reading a book yourself; great writing paired with great reading is sublime.

I still don't know if my daughter has listened to it - I pray that she does. HIGHEST RECOMMENDATION POSSIBLE

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2 people found this helpful

Even better than I'd hoped

Reviewed: 05-30-13

I read quite a few of the other reviews before downloading this one; I'm not sure why I was on the fence. I THOROUGHLY enjoyed this audiobook, especially as the sisters Wilson took their respective turns at narration. I think they were very candid and open about their own failings and quite generous to others in their history. I gained a much greater appreciation for each of them as musicians, songwriters and captains of their own fates; I've spent the last week on Spotify listening to lots of their music over again.

Another reviewer here on Audible was quite scornful about their passivity during the 1980's - their most financially successful period and the beginning of the uber-focus on Ann Wilson's weight gain - and I have to say that I cannot agree with the other reviewer. I believe they wrote very sincerely about how they lost their way artistically during that time and how they laboriously clawed their way back to themselves through great personal challenges. I have read/heard a fair number of musicians' memoirs/autobiographies/biographies over the last 30 years (at least 40 or more I think) and this was the first one where the heartbreak of infertility was discussed in depth!

The best memoir I've EVER heard is Keith Richard's "Life"; this book is just a notch below that one - but only a notch! Ann & Nancy Wilson are unique in their position as rockers, siblings & women and this book tells so much of that history - I definitely recommend it.

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11 people found this helpful

Spend yer money on this!

Reviewed: 07-12-12

Julia Sweeney is VERY funny, and this remembrance of her life is mostly funny. When it isn't funny, it's touching. We were on a long trip as a family & the teenagers & the adults all really enjoyed it. The only reason this doesn't get 5 stars is that it isn't long enough! So don't spend a whole credit, but DO spend yer money on this.

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