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A Must Read I’m so glad I’ve finally read!

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

Reviewed: 02-21-20

“I was pulled this way and that for longer than I can remember. And my problem was that I always tried to go in everyone's way but my own. I have also been called one thing and then another while no one really wished to hear what I called myself. So after years of trying to adopt the opinions of others I finally rebelled. I am an invisible man.”
— Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man

A masterpiece. So much I want to quote. So much more I will quote here. I’ve already filled my Facebook wall with quotes from this novel. As relevant today as when it was originally written. It’s a strange thing when a mixed culture Canadian white woman in the 21st century can relate to a black man’s struggle in the America of the 1940s, but I believe that is a factor of what is called “the human condition”.

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1 person found this helpful

So skewed it should come with a warning

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

Reviewed: 11-13-19

Republicans love to scare everyone with that evil concept “socialism”. In the 50’s, they used the words “Reds” and “Commies” which were enough to incite terror in the hearts of many Americans and lead people to lose jobs and end careers.

Now they use “socialism” and pair it with catastrophic examples: Venezuela comes first. Not mentioning how America had a role to play in what led to the current state of affairs in that sad place that once held such promise.

I’m not a lefty nor on the right. I believe in common sense. Common sense says, everything is not black and white. There are many variables between polar opposites. And there are many ways of integrating social programs without replicating communistic dystopias.

Think Canada. Think France. Think England, think Australia and New Zealand. Think of all the places in the world that offer their residents free healthcare and education. They are not on the verge of collapse and destruction. People are healthy, they don’t have to go into bankruptcy because of sudden illness, they are better educated, they can afford to buy cars and houses and go to work and keep capitalism going.

Stop listening to scary stories. They might not be telling you outright lies, but they’re telling you only the truths that serve their purposes. While deliberately obscuring other realities that aren’t helpful to their agendas.

To Rand’s dire call of Venezuela!
I answer CANADA!

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11 people found this helpful

This is Goodbye!

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

Reviewed: 11-23-18

From my Goodreads update: I'm 64% done with Clarissa

That's enough. I've endured this unending novel too long. That it is long isn't the issue. What I can't take is that one of the two main protagonists is a misogynist of the first order who makes it the sole purpose of his life to indulge in the mistreatment of women. I don't have to put up with it. I won't put up with it. Lovelace and your ilk: please die now, both in fiction and in life. I won't have it. Adieu.

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10 people found this helpful

No. Enough Already!

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

Reviewed: 11-23-18

I read this novel in my 20s which was sometime in the 1990s. I knew then it had been a huge classic for a long time already. I enjoyed it tremendously. It was high camp and it was a lot of fun to read. I followed it up with the movie, another great classic, and felt like I'd taken part in something that formed 20th century pop culture. Great literature, this is not, but it is a great read and it does have a message to deliver.

Which leads me to my following point, about messages to deliver: Audible should not be a political platform on which to deliver politically driven messages. To wit: a book ABOUT women WRITTEN by a woman which they chose to have narrated by a trans woman simply because she is famous and presumably would attract the LGTBQ crowd and also, YET AGAIN, deliver the message that trans women are "real" women and just as deserving and in fact MORE deserving than non-trans women to have honours (such as narrating an anniversary edition of a famous women's novel) heaped upon them.

Laverne Cox is a good actress. I've seen her on "Orange is the New Black" and enjoyed her performance as a trans woman there. But she is a terrible choice as a narrator for this book because she sounds all wrong, and I've seen the majority of comments here offer the same opinion. Had she had the voice and range to deliver this book, I'd have been fine with it and written a positive review. But I am angry about the decision Audible made for no less than a 50th anniversary edition of this book. Why is a trans woman a MORE important voice than a non-trans woman of greater talent in a case such as this, is what I'd like to know? If that wasn't a political/commerical decision on Audible's choice... then I don't know what is. Really disappointed. I'll be asking for my credit back. I chose here to speak up about something that deeply offends me. As a reader and as a woman. And as someone who really loves audiobooks. And someone who refuses to see women erased to enable a political agendas to be furthered. As she says herself, Laverne Cox didn't even have a notion this book EXISTED before she was asked to do this project, so it isn't as though she had a deep and soulful attachment to it. And yet, she was the final choice to narrate it?? How ridiculous is THAT?! Enough already!

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35 people found this helpful

Have a very nice listen! :-)

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

Reviewed: 11-05-18

A great play about a man who is forced to face his imminent death and who also happens to be the President of the United States (played by Kevin Kline). The inept grim reaper,—hilariously portrayed by Billy Crystal—who is sent to take him to the beyond has anxiety issues and the POTUS's staff is scrambling to understand why the President is suddenly acting so strangely as he decides to use his last 24 hours to make things right with his nearly estranged wife (Annette Benning) and teenage daughter, and also leave a legacy he can be proud of by not allowing a pipeline project to go through. He may be guilty of having too much ambition and having an overinflated ego, but the POTUS in <i>this</i> story apparently does have a soul, and it may yet be redeemable. Of course things go not at all as planned or expected, but in the end, someone is bound to have a nice day. A really good production which was fun to listen to, if not the most profound philosophical work I've ever come across. But then that's not what we've come to expect from Billy Crystal either, who has a talent for making us laugh at life's more absurd sides, and that's more than fine by me. Got this as one of the free Audible Original recording offered to members in November, and I see it's been getting lots of love and rave reviews, all well deserved beyond a doubt!

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7 people found this helpful

Wonderful Entertainment

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

Reviewed: 02-26-17

Just finished listening to The Assassin's Apprentice today, a fantasy tale set in an alternate medieval time about a young man who is trained from age 6 onward to become a dispatcher of souls at the king's command. A lovely coming of age story, plenty of adventure, and intimations of special 'gifts' that allow for wordless communication. This is most definitely not my usual fare, as I don't read fantasy all that much. But Robin Hobb is an apt storyteller and has crafted characters you want to find out more about. I was going to just give this first book a listen, taking advantage of a sale, and thought I'd just ignore the rest of the series (who needs yet ANOTHER series to follow when the tbr is already out of control!), but I'm already tempted to listen to the next book. A perfect diversion from current events.

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4 people found this helpful

Felt too much like chick-lit for my liking

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

Reviewed: 02-25-17

Overall, I can't say I was very excited by Mademoiselle Chanel: A Novel. Unlike another reviewer, I was indeed entirely clear when I got this book that it was a work of fiction and could expect plenty of free interpretation, but there could have been many ways to tell her story without making it sound like a Hollywood Romance. Only taking part in France, with French people, who are presumably speaking French to each other. I bring that part up because I am not American and found it very difficult to get into the spirit of things with a narrator who was so emphatically American in her delivery that it made the whole thing slightly surreal to me.

I think in retrospect I would have been better served with a straight biography of Gabrielle aka Coco Chanel. I am not a reader of romance by habit and I like my fiction as free of it as possible, and I certainly never in my life had any curiousity about how Coco Chanel might enjoy her sexual relations or not. I found these passages distracting and annoying and completely unnecessary.

There was little to like about the woman other than her clear determination to be one of the most successful fashion designers of her time. Whatever had to be done to get there, she did it. Here we saw a woman determined to leave her mark on the world, but also incredibly dependent on men and their money to make her place, just as she also presumably strives to remain completely independent. I was curious to see how the author would describe how she fared during the Second World War, as read somewhere a few years ago that she had presumably collaborated with the Nazis, though I had no other information than that. Here, once again, romance comes to the rescue and saves the day between her and her Nazi of choice. He was a 'good' Nazi, you understand, so really she was doing her country a service. She may have been a heartless bitch to her employees, but she was willing to sacrifice herself for a good cause, as long as there was promise of profits in the offing.

Truly, the book got on my nerves and I'm not sure why I stuck to it. I think the fact that it was written in the first person made it especially unpalatable, as this gave us an entirely subjective point of view on the kind of person she was without the benefit of the perspective of what her contemporaries thought of her very much.

Why am I even giving it three stars then? Because the author does a good job of describing the times and places, and as an entertainment, I suppose it was a good story. In fact it came highly recommended by a reviewer I've been following for quite a few years already. She may or may not have said words to the effect that it was a thumping good read. Of course, that is always a highly individual experience.

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13 people found this helpful

The Psychopath Test Audiobook By Jon Ronson cover art

If You Think You Are One, You Certainly Aren't.

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

Reviewed: 02-13-17

Equipped with a 40 point questionnaire provided by its creator, Ronson sets out to identify psychopaths (once and for all, I now know that 'psychopath' and 'sociopath' are one and the same thing). He makes the very valid and probably all too true point that psychopaths are often to be found at the top of the echelon, as politicians and especially CEOs, since their lack of empathy and competitive urge and predatory instincts are useful traits to have in a cut-throat financial market. In the later part of the book, Ronson makes the case that psychiatry has overreached its purpose by giving diagnoses where none are necessarily needed, and he mentions both autism and bipolar disorder as two of the most commonly inappropriately and overused mental conditions ascribed to children. One specialist argues that there is no real evidence that bipolar disorder actually exists in children, as apparently the illness usually develops in late teens or young adulthood and not before. I contest this finding as I'm absolutely certain I've been 'bipolar' (or whatever new term they find for my specific condition in future) since early childhood.

One theory he proposes is that society, and specifically, all the EVILS in society, are caused by psychopaths shaping the world to suit their needs for exploitation and victimization. I believe this book has been hugely influential since it came out in 2011 and may directly or indirectly have influenced journalists and the public at large to claim that the current POTUS is unhinged and probably a psychopath... though since this term isn't used in DSM-4 (The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders; DSM-5 was released in 2013, after the publication of this book), the closest diagnosis they can give is 'narcissistic personality disorder', which essentially amounts to the same thing.

Statistics show that 1% of the population are psychopaths and that they are much more present in our daily lives than we might realize. Most people reading on psychology and psychiatry has a natural tendency to worry that they may have whatever illness is described, so the question 'am I a psychopath?' is bound to occur to most readers, but the author claims that just the fact of worrying if you are one indicates you definitely aren't, since psychopaths aren't capable of introspection to begin with. Also, anyone with a surfeit of empathy, as Joh Ronson is (he suffers from pronounced anxiety problems) is more likely to be a victim of a predatory sociopath than to become one. The current theory is that people are born this way and are impossible to 'cure' and that trying to rehabilitate them only teaches them how to more convincingly mimic how most sane people express emotions, in effect providing a kind of 'finishing school' for psychopaths. I found those segments describing how the illness (or characters trait) is manifested and how researchers used extremely unusual methods (including LSD trials) to find a 'cure' really fascinating. Definitely recommended.

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6 people found this helpful

A Radically Different Approach to Self-Medication

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

Reviewed: 01-15-17

This book came to my attention a few months before its release, when a caring friend mentioned that it might be of interest to me. This friend, along with most people who know me, was aware that I struggle daily with my mood disorder, and she was right in thinking I'd be curious to learn about a radically different approach to 'self-medication'.

Ayelet Waldman also suffers from mood disorders and according to her, she has taken just about every pharmaceutical drug available on the market, AND suffered all the accompanying side-effects. Treating a mood disorder such as bipolar disorder is complicated business and usually involves a whole drug cocktail to stabilize both the highs and lows. Approaching menopause, Waldman found that she was becoming more and more out of control, and the feeling she was putting her marriage at risk with repeated angry outbursts along with suicidal thoughts prompted her to seek a solution.

Having studied a book on the subject of microdosing which provided helpful guidelines, and not least of all, having procured a small vial of LSD from a mysterious source, she decided to become her own research subject for a month-long trial which involved taking minute amounts of LSD every three days and journaled any changes she was able to perceive over this period. At the kind of doses she was taking (about one-tenth of a standard hallucinogenic dose), the user experiences no hallucinatory effects whatsoever. Instead, she describes the overall effect of the experience as providing a feeling that one is more focused, more in control and with the general impression that one is just having... a really good day.

Waldman makes it very clear that she is by no means a typical drug user and that in fact, with her background as a Federal public defender, she is probably more cautious than most. She did a lot of reading and research on LSD to discover that it is actually a relatively safe drug and that one is unlikely to ever overdose on it. Furthermore, she was very much against the idea of 'tripping out' or getting high in any way. The doses she was taking did not produce psychotropic effects, which leads Waldman to make some very good points on the merits of legalization of drugs, which might be beneficial for treating individual who do not respond to other pharmaceutical drug regimens. She makes good points on why there is a need replace the ineffective and ultimately racist 'war on drugs', and develop a more practical approach to drug use, to, among other things, allow for more clinical trials and ultimately to give adults a right to decide for themselves whether they would like to alter their consciousness with drugs or not.

I would not say this is a 'general interest' book. I had a keen interest in it because it treats on a subject that is very close to me, but I can imagine that someone expecting to read about someone's wild experiences with LSD will be sorely disappointed.

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104 people found this helpful

Loyalty and Other Human Foibles

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

Reviewed: 10-07-16

The story takes place in a small town in Switzerland. Gustav and Anton are to be lifelong friends. They meet on their first day of kindergarten, with Anton in tears about his first day away from home and Gustav summoned by the teacher to keep him company. Gustav's mother is strict and unfeeling. Gustav is used to her unpleasant ways and doesn't take special notice of them. Anton is destined to become a concert pianist, showing signs of prodigality at a young age. Their childhood takes place in the 50s. Anton is Jewish with a banker father and doting mother. Gustav's mother holds a grudge against Jews, claiming she lost her husband because he tried to help their cause during the Holocaust. This novel does indeed feel like a sonata, with intimate portraits of each of the characters, going backward and forward in time, from the 30s and a newfound vocation for Gustav's mother, to the early 21st century, when both men have a loaded past separately and together. The characters come in and out of contact, in a kind of gentle dance. Rose Tremain's beautiful writing shines in this book, as it has done in the other five novels I've read by her in recent years. I learned a little bit about Switzerland, where nationalism was one of the core values and played a large part in helping that small county remain neutral during European conflicts. Loyalty is one of the themes explored here in depth, and once again, Tremain demonstrates a beautiful sensitivity to what makes humans tick. Highly recommended—one I will revisit for sure. Excellent narration by Derek Perkins on the audio version.

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11 people found this helpful