Steve Winnett

Starts great, ends nowhere

Revisado: 06-26-21

The beginning was really interesting, profiles of a few people who actually took Covid 19 seriously and had the background, knowledge, skills and determination to lead the fight against the virus. Unfortunately for this country these people were not able to lead the fight, instead the whole thing was just totally mismanaged in the early days when it counted the most by the inept President Trump who really had no clue and the equally inept CDC who utterly failed to.provide America with the tools to CONTROL (as in Center for Disease Control) the disease.

All this in the first half or so of the book is the good stuff and is well presented and narrated by Mr Lewis. But the end of the book seems to just wander into a forest and get lost as Mr Lewis has one of his characters ending up in a cemetery mourning a homeless alcoholic what the heck is going on here? Very disappointing after such a promising start.

The book also shows clearly that even though we managed to get a reasonable number of people vaccinated in the end we could have probably prevented perhaps hundreds of thousands of deaths with a strong national public health system instead of 50 of them. But then the President openly passed the buck to the states. What happened to the buck stops here? Mr. President Trump, you're fired!

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Dull non-story about a very boring person

Revisado: 06-09-21

When I finally got to the end of night g happening with this silly woman, all I could say was, who cares?

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Horrible choice of narrator derails this book

Revisado: 02-25-21

I'm sorry but Margaret MacMillan is not from India like the narrator here she is from Canada and the choice of a narrator with an Indian accent was simply too jarring to make it possible to enjoy listening to this book. In addition the narrator mispronounces so many terms and phrases it makes me wonder if anyone was actually managing or editing this audio production. She just grated on the ears from word one.

A further problem is that although the book exhibits a stupendous breadth of historical knowledge the whole effort is a mile wide and an inch deep just a compendium of anecdotes and historical nuggets as we meander through wars across time. The New York Times rated this one of the top 10 books of 2020 no way! The author's book on Versailles (Paris 1919) was at that level, not this production. Of course maybe if the narration had been more suitable it would have been possible to pay more attention to the content.

What a total disappointment. In the end I was so fed up that I did something I rarely do - I abandoned it and returned it.

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Tedious and pretentious nonsense

Revisado: 12-24-18

This is the first of the New York Times's 10 best books for 2018 I have listened to. It is absolutely awful. To quote Gertrude Stein on Oakland, "There is no there there." I don't care about the gold digger Alice who spreads her legs for the aging fraud Ezra in the first part, nor do I care one whit for the stupid remarks and life of an Iraqi American economist being detained at Heathrow, and Ezra Blazer's dumb interview at the end sheds no light on this "narrative" for me. What a total fraud this book is! Are the other 9 of the New York Times's 10 best books for 2018 as bad as this totally overhyped, shallow, stupid collection of words? A collection of words is actually a good way to describe this book - there is so much filler material just to stretch it out so it is long enough to be called a "novel". Long quotes from books, reading out all the names of jurors being selected, long descriptions of baseball games - nothing but filler! I soldiered on to the end waiting for some revelation - nothing. This book is a giant con job. I really regret that I spent my hard-earned money on this overrated garbage.

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Amusing Start, Tedious and Pointless Finish

Revisado: 06-06-18

Ray Porter does a great job as narrator but the story he is handed turns into a dreadfully dull and pointless one. In the end who really cares what all these replicant spaceships are doing out there in the universe? The "plot" wanders all over the place and then just ends because enough words have been written to fill a book. In the meantime the author projects that humanity will destroy this planet through nuclear warfare in a little over 100 years, so the remnants of humanity deserve to populate other planets out there after destroying this one? You end up getting bored with the irritatingly geekish Bobs and indifferent to the fate of humanity, waiting for some deus ex machina aliens to drop out of the sky and just wipe out these pathetic cretins who have no business replicating their planet-destroying culture elsewhere. The book does show you how incredibly dull a world without women becomes in a universe full of Bobs without any babes - if you'll pardon the expression. You can produce 50 more of these pointless juvenile narratives count me out Mr. Taylor.

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Irish Myth + NYC Subway = A Wonderful Book

Revisado: 05-16-18

First of all, this is a very *literary* book, make no mistake of it. The New York Times should be ashamed of themselves for discussing (rather than reviewing) this utterly original and wonderful creation in the "Style" section because it was written by an actor and is therefore considered by them to be somehow "not literary". How wrong these snobs of the elite can be! David Duchovny has created something utterly new and original out of some old Irish cloth and his own sardonic wit and his sense of humanity. This book has its origins in the play "The Only Jealousy of Emer" by W.B. Yeats but to say that may be off-putting to many and I urge them to see past this and instead savor something truly original and non-derivative. For me this book compares favorably with George Saunders' wonderful "Lincoln In The Bardo" in that we see in these two books how literature offers the creative artist the greatest freedom from the linear, spatial, and chronological constraints we must endure as residents of this temporal world. Between the covers of a book the author can invent whatever he or she wants to give birth to! Both of these books are wonderful exercises in fantasy and history which at the same time have at their core a life-affirming sense of what is possible to us in this life.
By the way, Audible - my first impulse on listening to both of these fantastic books was to give them as gifts and I find I can't do this. What is wrong with you? Have you lost your minds? People who enjoy books love sharing them with other people and you don't want us to do this? You have been "fixing" the Give As A Gift option you removed it seems like forever don't you want the business gift-giving will generate? Is this really so hard to figure out?

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Disappointing Effort From A Fine Writer

Revisado: 02-27-18

What disappointed you about Aurora?

{SPOILERS GALORE HERE skip if you wish.} The author was here writing H.G. Wells "The War of the Worlds" in reverse. Wells's Martians are killed not by Earth's weapons but by its tiny, alien (to the Martians) microbes. I would have preferred a narrative that ended this way. I found myself totally uninterested in the whining Freya and her followers running away from (a.k.a. deserting) those who set foot on the small moon Aurora. The deus ex machina injection of hibernation to enable the lead characters to get back to Earth was undermined by the ship's sudden immunity to all the problems of deterioration it was experiencing on the trip back. These problems of deterioration would have sidelined the ship and killed the hybernauts, yet these problems just conveniently disappear from the narrative. Freya is a whining loser and so are her band of followers. She and her followers also desert the colonists on Iris who surely could have used the resources of the full starship. The ending on the beach on Earth is just ridiculous. I will continue to check out Kim Stanley Robinson's books - he is an intelligent and interesting writer - but this one for me was just a major disappointment. It's hard to like a book when you find yourself loathing the main character.

What do you think your next listen will be?

Not sure.

What does Ali Ahn bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?

She did a fantastic job with the voice of the ship.

What character would you cut from Aurora?

Freya - which would mean the end of the book. But I detest her.

Any additional comments?

I loved New York 2140, the Mars books, and The Years of Rice and Salt. I will give Mr. Robinson a pass on this one in hope of finding other of his books more to my liking. Most good writers have to be allowed a clunker or two.

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Stupid woman narrates a stupid story

Revisado: 01-28-18

Would you try another book from A. J. Finn and/or Ann Marie Lee?

No.

What could A. J. Finn have done to make this a more enjoyable book for you?

Never have written it.

How did the narrator detract from the book?

Narrator does not create the material, the author does.

If you could play editor, what scene or scenes would you have cut from The Woman in the Window?

The beginning, the middle, and the end.

Any additional comments?

Story and main character simply lack credibility. Awful book.

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Patriotic exploration of our more perfect union

Revisado: 08-22-17

If you could sum up The Lincoln Myth in three words, what would they be?

Fascinating historical journey,

What was one of the most memorable moments of The Lincoln Myth?

The opening presentation of President Abraham Lincoln receiving a disturbing message from his predecessor, James Buchanan.

Have you listened to any of Scott Brick’s other performances before? How does this one compare?

Same excellent quality.

If you could rename The Lincoln Myth, what would you call it?

Our More Perfect Perpetual Union

Any additional comments?

The 1781 Articles of Confederation between the 13 states aimed to establish a perpetual union. But that union proved to be weak and dysfunctional, leading to the 1787 Constitutional Convention which aimed to establish a more perfect union, to quote the Preamble. What the Preamble did not say was a more perfect *perpetual* union. This is the genesis of Mr. Berry's fascinating narrative which revolves around the constitutional legality - or lack thereof - of secession from the Union. This is high-minded, serious stuff, steeped in American history, especially that of the Civil War. Throw in the Mormon Church and its checkered history in this nation and you have the ingredients of a fascinating tale. Now the plot itself, and the characters, yes they are all a bit wooden. But I enjoy the elements of both invention and non-invention in the author's injection of American history into the present. I feel his purpose in presenting such a tale is noble and patriotic, and I really appreciate this, and forgive all the narrative and character flaws. I enjoy his books a lot for the visits to American history, something which those of us who are privileged to live here as citizens should truly cherish. Thanks again, Mr. Berry, for a splendid journey through our present as shaped by our past.

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Hi*story* at its best

Revisado: 08-16-17

Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?

"The first message of the morning watch plopped out of the pneumatic tube into the wire basket with no more premonitory rattle than usual." This splendid opening sentence, which in my mind rivals those of Ian Fleming, begins our journey into how a "pebble on the long road of history" - this intercepted telegram - "killed the American illusion that we could go about our business happily separate from other nations." The story is the stuff of spy thrillers and its outcome - the entry of the United States into World War I in 1917 - of monumental importance. The author turns great history into a great and compelling story. This book is an incredible achievement.

Who was your favorite character and why?

Admiral Hall, the British Director of Naval Intelligence at the time, is unquestionably the hero of this narrative. He brilliantly masterminded the handling of this intercepted telegram to turn the course of history because without the United States on their side, it is totally possible that Britain and France might have been brought to their knees by the Germans' unrestricted U-boat warfare on merchant shipping - and history would have been altered in a deadly way.

What does Wanda McCaddon bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?

She brings a voice of authority and reason which makes this great story - a total delight to read between the covers of the book - an equal delight to listen to.

If you were to make a film of this book, what would the tag line be?

Why America matters so much to the free world.

Any additional comments?

Thank you, Audible, for making this recording available.

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