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Subway

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Not suited to just listening — need the paper version

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

Reviewed: 03-20-25

It’s a math-heavy book, which is fine. The math didn’t scare me. My issue is that I like to listen to books while doing other things like driving. The extensive math requires the reader (listener) to continually reference the accompanying pdf to keep up and to visualize diagrams. If you can do so this in your head, good for you, but most listeners will require constant access to the paper.

The story is well-written and well-read, with some humor. I understood the math; I just needed to see it on paper to make it permanent.

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Great breath of topics and time

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

Reviewed: 03-07-25

Amazing span of events dating prior to Marie Curie up to date of publishing, spanning natural, laboratory, industrial, military, and power production accidents. Very good technical detail provided for every incident. All told with an occasional irreverent sense of humor. Good stories well written and well read. Recommended.

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Personalizing and fictionalizing a great historical biography

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

Reviewed: 02-26-25

There’s enough fact woven into this historical fiction that you can learn about the real Lyudmilla. Add on a layer of fantasy and it makes for a good historical fiction novel.

The narrator’s constant phony Russian accent got old quickly, but otherwise her reading was good.

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Outstanding Analysis

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

Reviewed: 02-19-25

Toes is far more than just another biography repeating the story of Lincoln’s rise from poverty. Miller goes into great depth analyzing Lincoln’s papers and speeches, phrase by phrase, categorizing them so each chapter has a different subject area, and even referring to multiple drafts to show Lincoln’s thought process as he prepared some of his most important issuances. This is a valuable work for anyone who wants greater understanding of what Lincoln said, why he said it, and what he meant by it.

Recommended.

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Too many plots, last-second finish

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

Reviewed: 02-14-25

The author still writes too many disparate plot lines and carries them all through the entire book, only to suddenly tie them all together at once in the final pages with hand-waving and magic. My recommendation is to put more work into the writing so the book is actually shorter, rely less on multiple plots, and show the reader how the mysteries are solved rather than simply writing them off in the finish. She also lacks her father’s ability to write evocative passages about the landscape, weather phenomena, and Navajo culture, but I fear that will remain constant. The reader has improved vastly since her first attempt at reading these books.

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Meticulous research

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

Reviewed: 02-12-25

Very thorough story, not just of the title incident, but the history of the ship, the airplane, the people, and even Japanese-American relations.

The surprising part of the story is got little anyone seemed to care about the lost nuclear weapon, other than covering up its loss.

Recommended.

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Entertaining

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

Reviewed: 02-08-25

Nice tale by Asimov, but I could never quite figure out the different locations, and he needed to pull some magic tricks to make it all work in the end. Still, an entertaining read.

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In-depth analysis

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

Reviewed: 02-01-25

The first half of the book is a factual recounting of events, as are most books about this type of happening in the era under study. The remainder, however, constitutes detailed analysis of the personalities involved, their roots, their motivation, and in some cases, the aftermath of their involvement.

As this is a later edition, the author is able to discuss other scholars’ critiques of his work, compare his research with theirs, and appears to have a running beef with one other author in particular.

Well reasoned, well written, and well read, this book is recommended for anyone interested in learning more about the era than is presented in the usual first-person narratives.

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Misleading title

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

Reviewed: 01-06-25

I expected this book to be about, as the title implies, nuclear weapons — their materials, design, construction, integration, sustainment, and so forth. There was almost none of that except a little about the Manhattan Project. The rest of the book was about policy and treaties.

The reader was fine.

This is an OK primer on nuclear policy but it’s not about what the title says.

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Good Story - Bad Reading

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

Reviewed: 12-28-24

Terrible narration. I don’t care for the reader’s raspy voice, but the worst part was his habit of assuming inane accents whenever a foreign person was quoted. When Germans speak to each other in a meeting, they speak German - not badly accented English! So quit with the lousy impressions already. While his French and German boots were awful, his imitation of Churchill was particularly insipid. Worst narration I’ve heard in the hundreds of books I’ve listened to.

The story, however, was deeply researched, well written, and personally moving. The hardships these men faced to save the world for us have handed down a debt we can never repay. The best we can do is try to live in a manner that justifies their sacrifices. Thank you, airmen of the Greatest Generation.

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