David

Wonderful

Revisado: 06-15-20

I thought I knew everything about 2001: A Space Odyssey, having read books about it before, but this is an incredible work of scholarship that brings an amazing level of new detail to every aspect of the film. From the first glimmerings of an idea to the final vindication of Kubrick's vision after disastrous press screenings, Benson succeeds in making everything fascinating. Kubrick comes across as unexpectedly loveable despite his manic single-mindedness, and Arthur C. Clarke's romantic and financial trainwrecks are another surprise. I especially enjoyed the material about the creation of the man-apes, which turns out to be an amazingly complex collaboration between director, actors, and make-up artists. This book is essential reading for anyone interested in film.

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Counter-intuitive advice

Revisado: 12-04-19

The weird thing about this audiobook is that the author advises you to listen to fewer audiobooks. He recommends letting your mind wander during your journey to work instead of listening to audiobooks, as it encourages your mind to make creative connections. You know what? I tried it, and he's right. So that's good for me - but bad for Audible since I'm not purchasing as much from them!

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Pure Ackroyd, pure Thames

Revisado: 11-14-19

It's Peter Ackroyd. If you don't know what that means, it means a jumble of fascinating nuggets of information, arranged into only the slightest semblance of a structure. But the nuggets are wonderful nuggets and the Thames is the most fascinating of subjects. And Simon Callow has the perfect voice for this kind of thing, genial and mellifluous. Listening to this audiobook is like sitting by a fireside in comfortable antique armchair while Ackroyd smokes his pipe and regales you with wisdom. Just what the doctor ordered.

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Odd choice of reader

Revisado: 11-14-19

This novel is mostly narrated by an American teenager from the South. It's therefore strange to give the job of reading it to Jim Dale, an elderly Englishman. Dale is normally a great reader, but listening to his extremely unconvincing Southern accent for 5 hours was cruel and unusual punishment. The story itself is pleasant enough, but I never stopped being irritated.

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A treat for Lynch fans

Revisado: 08-08-18

If you’re an obsessive David Lynch fan, you’ll have heard a lot of this before, but the book is still worth listening to for two reasons.

First, there’s the childhood section - the biographer, Kristine McKenna, has done an amazing job of putting together a picture of the young Lynch by interviewing those who knew him. And Lynch himself goes on a hour-long reverie about his experiences as a child, telling many stories that I have not heard him tell before.

Secondly, there’s the final section of the book, which deals with Inland Empire, the ‘music phase’, the marriage to Emily Stofle, and then the return to Twin Peaks and its aftermath. This period has not been covered properly in any previous Lynch biography and it’s very detailed, even if Lynch himself has much less to say.

This is not a perfect audiobook - McKenna reads her own work at a good pace but is rather monotone, and Lynch gives us two almost identical exhortations to take up transcendental meditation. But Lynch’s voice is extremely soothing and overall it’s a fascinating and illuminating trip into his mind.

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Moving and makes you hungry

Revisado: 04-19-18

A superhero origins story of how a lonely boy who lost his mother ultimately became one of the great food writers.

As expected, Slater writes beautifully concise yet evocative prose, and this book will give those of us who grew up in Britain in the 70s multiple Proustian flashbacks of long-forgotten food items.

Slater isn't a particularly good reader (too many wrongly-stressed words for my taste), but it doesn't matter too much because his personal stake in the writing makes it extremely moving.

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Perfect

Revisado: 04-19-18

A thrilling story, well-organized by the author and well-told by the narrator. This must be the definitive treatment of this particular mission.

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Solid information

Revisado: 04-19-18

If you want a solid, listenable history of California that's neither too long nor too short, this is what you need. It covers the early history really well. Toward the end, it becomes more thematic than chronological and loses some narrative drive as a result, but it's still interesting.

The narrator is perfectly decent, and doesn't mangle the Spanish names too much.

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Not enough peril

Revisado: 04-19-18

I gave up on this one. I usually like books about shipwrecks, discovery and adventure. But these people didn't seem to be suffering enough. They got cast away on a seal-covered island with plenty to eat and the weather wasn't so bad. Maybe things got worse later on, but I got bored and stopped listening.

Does that make me a bad person?

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Tolerable

Revisado: 04-19-18

This post-show follow-up to the Secret History still has some of the flaws of its predecessor - too many verbose and fanfic-y biographies of characters - but at least it's shorter, and the final chapters are rather beautiful, meshing well with the baffling and bittersweet ending of Season 3.

The book does answer a couple of questions raised by the TV series, so if you like your Lynchian enigmas pure and unsullied, stay away.

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