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Chekhov Audiobook By Anton Chekhov cover art

A nice selection but not the best narration.

Overall
3 out of 5 stars

Reviewed: 09-06-07

This is a nice selection of stories my Chekhov. I got it mainly because it contains my favorite story of his - The Black Monk. Unfortunately the narration is not the best. The pacing is a bit jerky and his pronunciation of Russian words and propper names sometimes incorrect. It's not horrible, but it could have been done better and detracts from the overall value of the audio book...

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14 people found this helpful

The Partly Cloudy Patriot

Overall
5 out of 5 stars

Reviewed: 10-04-03

Sarah Vowell is a unique voice, in more ways than one. She mixes astute observations with historical facts and throws in a lot of wry humor and biographical musings. Idiologues will probably be impatient with the contradictions. Although she is unabashedly liberal, she is also unabashedly patriotic and fervent about the documents of the founding fathers. Not that these two are contradictory, but the way things play out liberals are often seen as unpatriotic because they are not flag wavers shouting "America first no matter what." If you've heard Sarah on This American Life, you know she has a very distinct-sounding voice, which I can only describe as being a little like Lisa Simpson. If you like This American Life, The Partly Cloudy Patriot is a little like listening to 5 hours of it, although it's just Sarah with a few Cameos thrown in narrating quotes from presidents and friends, and of course They Might Be Giants as musical accompaniment.

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119 people found this helpful

Extremely funny

Overall
4 out of 5 stars

Reviewed: 05-28-03

Not much to add to the reviews already given, but I will say that I found the funniest parts to be those revolving around Sidaris's attempt to learn French and meld in with French culture. This is a big interest of mine (not French, but just cultural and linguistic differences), so it was especially funny. Other stories were also good, but to me there was nothing funnier than Sidaris speaking mock-French (basically really grammatically bad English to illustrate how basic and bad a speaker he was). I'm a pretty quiet person but was unable to contain myself on the metro hearing a lot of this despite people being within inches of me!

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1 person found this helpful

Shorter account with some colorful voices

Overall
4 out of 5 stars

Reviewed: 05-02-03

This book is not as exhaustive as the other one on Audible (Endurence), but is still well done and includes some details and insight that the other doesn't. The narrator also tries to immatate the accents of various crew members, so there's Scottish accents, Australian, Cockney, Welsh, Canadian, and so forth. This definitely livens things up quite a bit, although the story is so riveting it doesn't need it.

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8 people found this helpful

The Protein Power Lifeplan Audiobook By Dr. Michael R. Eades, Dr. Mary Dan Eades cover art

A great intro to low-carb eating.

Overall
5 out of 5 stars

Reviewed: 05-01-03

The Eades, I think, are the "thinking person's" diet doctors. This book is a follow-up to a more basic book entitled simply Protein Power. This book is a little more ambitious and tries to cover many, many aspects of health and wellness. I think their ideas about sunbathing are questionable, but who knows, perhaps they will be proven correct in the long run. What I don't question is their dietary advise, which has been culled from years of using these recommendations in a private practice as well as painstaking research of studies.

When I first started doing low-carb, I picked up Atkins because he is the most well known. I didn't particularly like his book because I thought it was kind of ranting and repetitive and didn't give a whole lot of science behind it. Luckily, someone recommended Protein Power and I found it worlds better and very level-headed, scientifically based, etc. If you are not one for the scientific details, some of this book will be irrelevent to you, but I myself find all of this interesting and useful. I think it is explained in a way that is simple enough for most people to undersand as well.

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17 people found this helpful

Eat More, Weigh Less Audiobook By Dean Ornish M.D. cover art

Vegetarian dogma mascarading as good medicine

Overall
1 out of 5 stars

Reviewed: 05-01-03

Although I was persuaded by Ornish back in the mid-90's, subsequent research has made me very doubtful. First of all, he basically wants everyone to give up meat. And I don't mean just red meat, but even fish. This is because he is involved in some Indian spiritual path that prohibits eating meat. It's fine to shun meat for philosophical/ethical/regious reasons, but Ornish isn't up front about this being part of the reason he recommends against meat.

Secondly, he maintains his almost zero fat diet as being responsible for reversing heart disease because those who have followed it under his supervision have actually had some reversal. The problem is that those same people were also undergoing a rigorous program of exercise and stress reduction at the same time, so there's no way to seperate out the diet from these other variables.

Low-fat has actually been renounced as a way to improve health and lose weight by many even mainstream nutritionists by now, yet Ornish stubornly clings to his ideas: white meat chicken breast coming in at 6 whole grams of fat is simply too much fat for him - he wants you to have 10 grams or even less for the entire day! Fat is an important part of the diet. Fat is part of every cell membrane and the brain itself is mostly fat. It just doesn't make sense that we should get such a trace amount in our diet.

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4 people found this helpful

Jews, God, and History Audiobook By Max I. Dimont cover art

Exhaustive study with different points of view

Overall
5 out of 5 stars

Reviewed: 05-01-03

Unlike the other reviewer, I thoroughly enjoyed this book, and I am a Jew. I only think his comments apply to Jews who have already cemented their opinion and can't stand to hear other points of view. The author provideds different opinions on many aspects of Jewish history, and also approaches the history from different perspectives of thought. It covers from the beginnings of the Jewish people and Abraham through to about 10 years ago, maybe a little more. It's very exhaustive, so if you want a good overall history, even if you differ with some interpretations, this is a very good start!

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19 people found this helpful

Many angles on the fast food industry

Overall
5 out of 5 stars

Reviewed: 04-30-03

I thought this book was going to be mainly about the health issues surrounding fast food, but that is such a minor part of it. We learn about the entire history of the industry, its effects on popular culture, economics, and other related food industries. I knew there was good reason to stay away from certain fast food restaurants based simply on health reasons, but now there are so many others, not the least of which are how they exploit their workers and enable partners in other food industries to exploit their workers. After listening to this book, I pretty much stayed out of fast food restaurants for almost two years. It is really a fascinating and persuasive book!

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1 person found this helpful