Richard

Not one of his best. Pass.

Reviewed: 08-26-24

Normally a brilliant writer who produces landmark works, this account is almost incomprehensible. We have been primed to expect the best from Taleb, so I suppose one fail is to be expected. What is he trying to say here? Additionally, audio pauses in the book(dead air) lead one to think the book has quit. Not one of his best works. Pass.

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Boredom at Dawn. And Noon & Sunset & Midnight too.

Reviewed: 02-09-23

I could not bear the constant switching between two narrators on a minute-by-minute basis. If you can make it through this repetitive and non-revelatory book without feeling irritated, bored, and a bit ripped off, you deserve the Global Patience Award. The content is lacking and offers nothing new.

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Rare Find In A Bland Sea

Reviewed: 12-21-22

Almost 30 hours of listening? Yes. And all of it good. You'll learn more about WWII submarine warfare than you ever thought possible—the heart-pounding risks, the culture of young warriors cramped together in a fragile steel tube, a near-history account of pursuit and being pursued in the Pacific. And let's not forget the inferior torpedo technology that the US Navy thrust upon submariners and what it took to overcome it. This was the best war history I've encountered.

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25 Detailed Stories About People. And Nothing More

Reviewed: 04-10-22

If there was ever a more misleading title in the world, I haven't come across it. Expecting a sequence of thematic explanations about geology, it was disappointing to find that this is just a history (and a boring one at that) about some of the founders of modern geological knowledge, detailed to the extent of outlining the birth date and death dates of each of hundreds of historical figures, tales about their families, and other arcana above all else.
After enduring five chapters of this nonsense I have decided to turn this book back in for a refund. If you think you might enjoy every sixth sentence being interrupted by a forgotten individual's date of birth and date of expiry, then this is the book for you. It is not geologically focused.

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9 people found this helpful

Not Roberts' Best

Reviewed: 02-18-22

Far from being thrilling and almost unbelievable as advertised, this account got off to a very slow start and went downhill from there. David Roberts usually injects a sense of adventure and discovery into his narratives; instead, this was just a droll litany of excerpts from the weary logbooks of these intrepid explorers. The narration was lifeless, as if the narrator (Matthew Brenher) was plowing through the script while he was busy attending to other things, like watching the telly or checking the rugby scores. To the American ear, his British sucking up of Rs and other verbal oddities always kept me guessing. And I've lived in the UK, New Zealand, and Australia; I thought I had conquered the bias of my American ear. I give Roberts credit for revealing a story few have ever heard of, but I expected more from this fine author. What really killed it for me was the narration.

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Throw Darts at the Moon and Call It A Book

Reviewed: 01-21-22

I rarely take the time to present a review, but this book begged for reaction. Textually, it reads more like a dry doctoral thesis based on guesswork than the engaging book that one might expect by the implications of the title. A large part of the thesis itself has the appearance of pure speculation, I stopped counting the times the author used the words "might", "could be", "just might be", "has a strong possibility of", "just could be", and so forth. Where is the science? Let's just throw darts at the moon and call it a book. Most vexing was the author's exposition about ancient cultures without making much effort to provide corresponding historical context. We're all just supposed to know who these people were.
Worse, the narration was, for me, inarguably the worst I've ever listened to you. It drones on and on in a soporific monotone, flat enough to induce deep sleep. I only made it through two chapters before deciding to ask for a refund.

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5 people found this helpful

Three Martini Narration

Reviewed: 08-31-21

As much as I tried to focus on the detailed content of this book, I couldn't get past the disjointed, rushed narration. If I hear the word magnetism pronounced "mangey-tism' one more time, I'm gonna reverse my poles. Worse than the mispronunciations and odd mid-sentence interruptions, the narrator slurred enough words to convince me that he was sloshed.
I've attempted to focus on the excellent and probably informative thesis of this rushed presentation a couple of times, but I think I'll wait until I've had a pitcher of Margaritas in order to un-notice the horrific narration.

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2 people found this helpful

75% Junk Poetry. 25% Information. Poorly Narrated.

Reviewed: 08-06-21

Don't get me wrong, I love explanative journeys into the natural world all the more when an adept author takes brief journeys into the rhapsodies of feelings experienced along the way. I think of Craig Childs, Barry Lopez, and John McPhee here, all of whom are able to easily inform the listener/reader effortlessly while at the same time providing that rare telepathy of emotion that places the reader/listener squarely in the scene.
Underland is nothing of the sort; it's just a boring cascade of self-indulgent feelings about nature expressed in a scattered way. No Robinson Jeffers here. Yes, you'll learn a few things about what goes on beneath the ground we stand on, but you almost have to read between the lines to get at the good stuff. By "good stuff", I mean knowledge, learning something about the mysterious planet we live on that we didn't know. Isn't that the purpose here? Apparently not.
And don't get me started about the narration. That's the worst part. Hey, I've lived in the UK and New Zealand too, and as an American, I think I've developed a decent ear for our Mother Tongue in its original form. But Matthew Waterson slaughters the ear with mispronunciations, dropped word endings, and an apparent inability to pronounce any word with an R in it. It's just taxing to listen to him.
My opinion? Don't bother.

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Detailed

Reviewed: 03-18-21

Of all the books I've encountered about the War in the Pacific, this is the very best. The author's attention to detail is amazing. I finally have a cohesive sense of the first six months of the war with Japan.
The narration was pitch-perfect clear.

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2 people found this helpful

Like A High Schooler's Diary

Reviewed: 11-02-20

Epic Journey? No, it wasn't. The author stuffed this book with corny personal backpacking and traveling experiences with his family in the manner of a juvenile diary. Who cares? At times he wandered into overtures about nature, and that was fine, but it pales in comparison to Thoreau, Wallace Stegner, Glenway Wescott, John Krakauer, John McPhee or Rick Bass. OK, maybe it was ridiculous of me to hope for that. The only worthwhile themes were bits of information about the history of the various agencies involved in managing our wildlands, like the BLM and NFS, and so forth. All of that is available in better books. Notably, he forgot to mention the Army Corp of Engineers, a significant destroyer or savior of our land, depending on how you look at it.
But it gets worse. The narration was slurred, stacked with conjoined words, mispronunciations, and overall sloppy speech. So often, either hubris or a low budget results in authors thinking they're also good narrators. I'm sorry to say that for me, this book was a waste of time. If you buy this, consider skipping the chapters about family travels.

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4 people found this helpful