Anna Karenina
- 7
- reviews
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- 12
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Parfit
- A Philosopher and His Mission to Save Morality
- By: David Edmonds
- Narrated by: Zeb Soanes
- Length: 13 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 50
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 47
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Story5 out of 5 stars 47
Derek Parfit (1942–2017) is the most famous philosopher most people have never heard of. Widely regarded as one of the greatest moral thinkers of the past hundred years, Parfit was anything but a public intellectual. Yet his ideas have shaped the way philosophers think about things that affect us all: equality, altruism, what we owe to future generations, and even what it means to be a person. In Parfit, David Edmonds presents the first biography of an intriguing, obsessive, and eccentric genius.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Loved it
- By Anna Karenina on 07-05-23
- Parfit
- A Philosopher and His Mission to Save Morality
- By: David Edmonds
- Narrated by: Zeb Soanes
Loved it
Reviewed: 07-05-23
Really enjoyed this very engrossing review which captures the man, but also a lot of contemporary ethics and the world of cutting edge philosophy. Really well research and a story well told. Didn’t love the narrator because of the voice he gives to Parfit. Makes him sound like a daffy uncle instead of like a serious person taking positions on serious questions.
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2 people found this helpful
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Straight Man
- A Novel
- By: Richard Russo
- Narrated by: Sam Freed
- Length: 14 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 1,364
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 983
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Story4 out of 5 stars 986
William Henry Devereaux, Jr., spiritually suited to playing left field but forced by a bad hamstring to try first base, is the unlikely chairman of the English department at West Central Pennsylvania University. Over the course of a single convoluted week, he threatens to execute a duck, has his nose slashed by a feminist poet, discovers that his secretary writes better fiction than he does, suspects his wife of having an affair with his dean, and finally confronts his philandering elderly father, the one-time king of American Literary Theory, at an abandoned amusement park.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Straight Man
- By Holly Abery-Wetstone on 10-17-03
- Straight Man
- A Novel
- By: Richard Russo
- Narrated by: Sam Freed
So disappomtin!
Reviewed: 06-20-21
I loved Empire Falls and enjoy academic satires, so I had high hopes, but I suffered through this. I didn’t find the zaniness the least bit funny. The audiobook reader adds to the book’s problems by making the character seem completely unfeeling. His tone of voice never changes, no matter what is going on. Worst thing: the author doesn’t focus on the aspects of academia that are actually funny. There is no satirizing of the intellectual life here, just a comedy about budgets, philandering husbands, being a low achiever, dressing in tweeds and loafers, and the like. Russo is a very talented story teller, so you do keep wanting to read, but the book goes nowhere interesting.
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The Dutch House
- A Novel
- By: Ann Patchett
- Narrated by: Tom Hanks
- Length: 9 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 57,339
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 51,287
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 50,954
At the end of the Second World War, Cyril Conroy combines luck and a single canny investment to begin an enormous real estate empire, propelling his family from poverty to enormous wealth. His first order of business is to buy the Dutch House, a lavish estate in the suburbs outside of Philadelphia. Meant as a surprise for his wife, the house sets in motion the undoing of everyone he loves. The story is told by Cyril’s son Danny, as he and his older sister, the brilliantly acerbic and self-assured Maeve, are exiled from the house where they grew up by their stepmother.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Tom Hanks Should Read Every Book
- By Penny Mann on 09-25-19
- The Dutch House
- A Novel
- By: Ann Patchett
- Narrated by: Tom Hanks
Damp firecracker
Reviewed: 01-14-20
I loved the first 100 pages but partly because they gave me the impression that the story was going somewhere interesting. Not so much. Tom Hanks’s narration is great at first but eventually it becomes grating that he gives every character the same folksy, unemotional voice. Overall, disappointing.
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1 person found this helpful
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Elsewhere
- A memoir
- By: Richard Russo
- Narrated by: Richard Russo
- Length: 7 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 121
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 104
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Story4 out of 5 stars 101
Anyone familiar with Richard Russo's acclaimed novels will recognize Gloversville, once famous for producing that eponymous product and anything else made of leather. This is where the author grew up, the only son of an aspirant mother and a charming, feckless father who were born into this close-knit community. But by the time of his childhood in the 1950s, prosperity was inexorably being replaced by poverty and illness (often tannery-related), with everyone barely scraping by under a very low horizon.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Elsewhere---but not far enough
- By William on 12-08-12
- Elsewhere
- A memoir
- By: Richard Russo
- Narrated by: Richard Russo
Got bored
Reviewed: 12-05-13
This book wasn’t for you, but who do you think might enjoy it more?
Hardcore Russo fans.
Has Elsewhere turned you off from other books in this genre?
No
How did the narrator detract from the book?
I started finding him cranky and tiresome.
You didn’t love this book... but did it have any redeeming qualities?
The first several chapters are terrific. There just isn't enough of a story to last to the end.
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1 person found this helpful
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Behind the Beautiful Forevers
- Life, Death, and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity
- By: Katherine Boo
- Narrated by: Sunil Malhotra
- Length: 8 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 2,303
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 1,980
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Story4 out of 5 stars 1,981
In this breathtaking book by Pulitzer Prize winner Katherine Boo, a bewildering age of global change and inequality is made human through the dramatic story of families striving toward a better life in Annawadi, a makeshift settlement in the shadow of luxury hotels near the Mumbai airport. As India starts to prosper, the residents of Annawadi are electric with hope. Abdul, an enterprising teenager, sees “a fortune beyond counting” in the recyclable garbage that richer people throw away.
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4 out of 5 stars
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An Antidote for Shantaram
- By Dr. on 06-14-12
- Behind the Beautiful Forevers
- Life, Death, and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity
- By: Katherine Boo
- Narrated by: Sunil Malhotra
Absolutely awesome
Reviewed: 12-05-13
Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?
Yes. The book is incredibly enlightening as well as engrossing.
What other book might you compare Behind the Beautiful Forevers to and why?
A Fine Balance, the novel by Rohinton Mistry. Only this is all real.
Have you listened to any of Sunil Malhotra’s other performances before? How does this one compare?
I haven't listen to any other, but he's fantastic on this audiobook.
What’s the most interesting tidbit you’ve picked up from this book?
There are no "tidbits"--everything is important! The most eye-opening parts of the book are about corruption, which is ubiquitous.
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The Mothers
- By: Jennifer Gilmore
- Narrated by: Tavia Gilbert
- Length: 8 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall3 out of 5 stars 8
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Performance3 out of 5 stars 8
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Story3 out of 5 stars 7
Jesse and Ramon are a loving couple, but after years spent unsuccessfully trying to get pregnant, they turn to adoption, relieved to think that once they navigate the bureaucratic path to parenthood they will have a happy ending. But nothing has prepared them for the labyrinthine process - for the many training sessions and approvals; for the constant advice from friends, strangers, and "experts"; for the birthmothers who contact them but don't ultimately choose them; or even, most shockingly, for the women who call claiming they've chosen Jesse and Ramon but who turn out never to have been pregnant in the first place.
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2 out of 5 stars
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Whiny
- By Ray Stewart on 12-06-15
- The Mothers
- By: Jennifer Gilmore
- Narrated by: Tavia Gilbert
Like a diary
Reviewed: 05-24-13
Would you try another book from Jennifer Gilmore and/or Tavia Gilbert?
Probably not
Would you be willing to try another book from Jennifer Gilmore? Why or why not?
Book was too straightforward--not enough literary texture.
What didn’t you like about Tavia Gilbert’s performance?
Her voice has an anxious, tense quality that made the character seem unlikeable. Also, there were problems with her reading (the director should have caught these). She doesn't know how to pronounce Jewish words, she pronounces "Ramon" in two different ways, her Ramon accent is strangely Russian at times, and she's inconsistent--Ramon has an accent but his mother doesn't.
Do you think The Mothers needs a follow-up book? Why or why not?
Nah.
Any additional comments?
The book was very informative--I learned a lot about the adoption process by reading it. Anyone contemplating adoption will find this very useful and thought-provoking.
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The Founding Fish
- By: John McPhee
- Narrated by: John McPhee
- Length: 14 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 139
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 89
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 89
Few fish are as beloved, or as obsessed over, as the American shad. Although shad spend most of their lives in salt water, they enter rivers by the hundreds of thousands in the spring and swim upstream heroic distances in order to spawn, then return to the ocean.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Read and released.
- By Darwin8u on 11-14-14
- The Founding Fish
- By: John McPhee
- Narrated by: John McPhee
bad audio
Reviewed: 08-21-06
I just started this, and the reader (John McPhee) sounds awful. The sound engineers should have edited out all the breathing noises and the sound of his tongue arranging itself in his mouth. Awful. I'd really like to get my money back. My fault, I guess, because I didn't listen to the preview.
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7 people found this helpful