Stan
- 26
- reviews
- 38
- helpful votes
- 34
- ratings
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Beloved
- By: Toni Morrison
- Narrated by: Toni Morrison
- Length: 12 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
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Staring unflinchingly into the abyss of slavery, this spellbinding novel transforms history into a story as powerful as Exodus and as intimate as a lullaby. Sethe, its protagonist, was born a slave and escaped to Ohio, but 18 years later she is still not free. She has too many memories of Sweet Home, the beautiful farm where so many hideous things happened. And Sethe's new home is haunted by the ghost of her baby, who died nameless and whose tombstone is engraved with a single word: Beloved.
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Sensational
- By Vicki Reeves on 23-09-2019
- Beloved
- By: Toni Morrison
- Narrated by: Toni Morrison
Beloved - a strange world
Reviewed: 13-08-2019
I’ve never read Morrison. I’d been meaning to for years and her death hastened the reading. It is such a strange world she shows us. An internal world of foreign logic. Then her language - so simple and profound and yes, at times poetic. Morrison has a wonderful reading voice, warm and comforting and calm even as she describes horrors. You can get lost in it. I did.
2 people found this helpful
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Americanah
- By: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
- Narrated by: Adjoa Andoh
- Length: 17 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
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As teenagers, Ifemelu and Obinze fall in love in a Nigeria under military dictatorship. The self-assured Ifemelu departs for America, where Obinze hopes to join her, but post-9/11 America will not let him in, and he plunges into a dangerous, undocumented life in London. Fifteen years later, after so long apart and so many changes, will they find the courage to meet again, face to face?
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Brilliant! Highly recommended .
- By Veisinia on 01-05-2016
- Americanah
- By: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
- Narrated by: Adjoa Andoh
Insightful and beautifully written
Reviewed: 12-10-2018
I was fascinated by the slices of life the book presented me with. Sensitive and moving with 3-dimensional characters.
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Blue Monday
- A Frieda Klein Novel, Book 1
- By: Nicci French
- Narrated by: Beth Chalmers
- Length: 11 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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Monday, the lowest point of the week. A day of dark impulses. A day to snatch a child from the streets.... The abduction of five-year-old Matthew Farraday provokes national outcry and a desperate police hunt. And when his face is splashed over the newspapers, psychotherapist Frieda Klein is left troubled: one of her patients has been relating dreams in which he has a hunger for a child. A child he can describe in perfect detail, a child the spitting image of Matthew. Detective Chief Inspector Karlsson doesn't take Frieda's concerns seriously until a link emerges with an unsolved abduction twenty years ago....
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Quality page turner
- By Stan on 13-01-2018
- Blue Monday
- A Frieda Klein Novel, Book 1
- By: Nicci French
- Narrated by: Beth Chalmers
Quality page turner
Reviewed: 13-01-2018
The underpinning psychology of this murder mystery is very interesting and seems very credible. It’s a page turner of quality. The narrator does a very good job.
1 person found this helpful
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Dark Emu
- Black Seeds: Agriculture or Accident?
- By: Bruce Pascoe
- Narrated by: Bruce Pascoe
- Length: 5 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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Dark Emu argues for a reconsideration of the 'hunter-gatherer' tag for pre-colonial Aboriginal Australians and attempts to rebut the colonial myths that have worked to justify dispossession. Accomplished author Bruce Pascoe provides compelling evidence from the diaries of early explorers that suggests that systems of food production and land management have been understated in modern retellings of Aboriginal history, and that a new look at Australia's past is required.
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Important book, but read critically
- By Anonymous User on 21-08-2019
- Dark Emu
- Black Seeds: Agriculture or Accident?
- By: Bruce Pascoe
- Narrated by: Bruce Pascoe
A powerful argument for a great achievement unacknowledged
Reviewed: 17-12-2017
If you were schooled before the 21st century you likely learned nothing more of indigenous Australian life prior to European settlement than “hunter gatherers.” In this book, often using the diaries of first contact Europeans, Pascoe sketches a compelling description of an aboriginal way of life that included agriculture, aquaculture and land management. Large permanent structures were built and remnants can still be seen. Pascoe explores the creation of a society that was peaceful and sustaining over a period of 60,000 years. It is a powerful and paradigm shifting work.
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So, Anyway...
- The Autobiography
- By: John Cleese
- Narrated by: John Cleese
- Length: 13 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
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John Cleese describes his nerve-racking first public appearance, at St Peter's Preparatory School at the age of eight and five-sixths; his endlessly peripatetic homelife, with parents who seemed incapable of staying in any house for longer than six months; his first experiences in the world of work, as a teacher who knew nothing about the subjects he was expected to teach; his hamster-owning days at Cambridge; and his first encounter with the man who would be his writing partner for over two decades, Graham Chapman.
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Great for Cleese fans
- By Stan on 10-12-2017
- So, Anyway...
- The Autobiography
- By: John Cleese
- Narrated by: John Cleese
Great for Cleese fans
Reviewed: 10-12-2017
A friend liked this because you can just let it wash over you. It does not require close listening (though there is enjoyment in that too.) The great pleasure is that it is John Cleese reading his own words in a rather conversational way. Described as an autobiography, the book actually is Part 1, perhaps without intention of a Part 2. Cleese describes his childhood, his relationship with his parents, and his schooling. His arrival at Cambridge opens the door to his professional career which seems carefully traced until Python starts production. Whatever followed Python is occasionally mentioned but not given the detailed treatment of the pre-Python period. Those who want blow by blow of Python or Fawlty will be disappointed. Those who know the work of his 1960s contemporaries and predecessors will be very pleased.
2 people found this helpful
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Black Water Lilies
- By: Michel Bussi
- Narrated by: Joan Walker
- Length: 11 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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Giverny. During the day, the home of the famous artist Claude Monet and the gardens where he painted his water lilies. But once the tourists have gone, there is a darker side to the peaceful French village. This is the story of 13 days that begin with one murder and end with another. Jérôme Morval, a man whose passion for art was matched only by his passion for women, has been found dead in the stream that runs through the gardens.
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Writer's trickiness disappoints
- By Stan on 17-10-2017
- Black Water Lilies
- By: Michel Bussi
- Narrated by: Joan Walker
Writer's trickiness disappoints
Reviewed: 17-10-2017
This is a well written book of well-drawn characters. If part of the appeal of reading crime fiction is the chance to anticipate before the reveal who is the villain, the writer's use of a few "tricks" disappointed this reader.
1 person found this helpful
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A Man Called Ove
- By: Fredrik Backman
- Narrated by: Joan Walker
- Length: 9 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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Ove is almost certainly the grumpiest man you will ever meet. He isn't as young as he used to be. He drives a Saab. He points at people he doesn't like the look of. He is described by those around his as 'the neighbour from hell'.Every morning he makes his inspection rounds of the local streets. He moves bicycles and checks the contents of recycling bins, even though it's been years since he was fired as Chairman of the Residents' Association in a vicious 'coup d'état'.
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Best book i've read in a long time!
- By Anne on 11-01-2015
- A Man Called Ove
- By: Fredrik Backman
- Narrated by: Joan Walker
Life affirming delight
Reviewed: 16-08-2017
I loved this book! It deals with the deep and inarticulate love of Ove, the central character. Written with simplicity and insight, where a few well chosen words invited me to go deeply into myself in a life affirming way.
2 people found this helpful
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The Narrow Road to the Deep North
- By: Richard Flanagan
- Narrated by: Richard Flanagan
- Length: 15 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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August, 1943. In the despair of a Japanese POW camp on the Thai-Burma death railway, Australian surgeon Dorrigo Evans is haunted by his love affair with his uncle's young wife two years earlier. Struggling to save the men under his command from starvation, from cholera, from beatings, he receives a letter that will change his life forever. This savagely beautiful novel is a story about the many forms of love and death, of war and truth, as one man comes of age, prospers, only to discover all that he has lost.
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Going to read the book - can't listen any more
- By John on 08-05-2015
- The Narrow Road to the Deep North
- By: Richard Flanagan
- Narrated by: Richard Flanagan
Powerful story
Reviewed: 23-05-2017
This tale built around the life of a Burma Railway POW enters the minds of many of its characters beyond the central one. It is episodic and achronological. Above all in it's simple and vivid use of language, it is brilliantly written and well read.
1 person found this helpful
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The Vikings
- By: Kenneth W. Harl, The Great Courses
- Narrated by: Kenneth W. Harl
- Length: 17 hrs and 59 mins
- Original Recording
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As raiders and explorers, the Vikings played a decisive role in the formation of Latin Christendom, and particularly of western Europe. Now, in a series of 36 vivid lectures by an honored teacher and classical scholar, you have the opportunity to understand this remarkable race as never before, studying the Vikings not only as warriors, but in all of the other roles in which they were equally extraordinary - merchants, artists, kings, raiders, seafarers, shipbuilders, and creators of a remarkable literature of myths and sagas.
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Some good information
- By Naomi on 16-01-2018
- The Vikings
- By: Kenneth W. Harl, The Great Courses
- Narrated by: Kenneth W. Harl
Vikings more than horned helmets
Reviewed: 27-12-2016
In fact they did not wear them. Being totally ignorant of Viking history, I learned a lot.
It was fascinating to learn of the huge impact upon Europe and beyond that the Vikings had.
I loved the nick names they had for so many of their leaders. And the place of Icelandic saga writing and why it occurred there.
2 people found this helpful
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The Dispatcher
- By: John Scalzi
- Narrated by: Zachary Quinto
- Length: 2 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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Zachary Quinto - best known for his role as the Nimoy-approved Spock in the recent Star Trek reboot and the menacing, power-stealing serial killer, Sylar, in Heroes - brings his well-earned sci-fi credentials and simmering intensity to this audio-exclusive novella from master storyteller John Scalzi. One day, not long from now, it becomes almost impossible to murder anyone - 999 times out of a thousand, anyone who is intentionally killed comes back. How? We don't know.
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Need More
- By Amy on 06-03-2017
- The Dispatcher
- By: John Scalzi
- Narrated by: Zachary Quinto
Easy read
Reviewed: 27-12-2016
This story has an interesting premise and rockets along. A bit Runyonesque with its hard-boiled dialogue. A good brief diversion.