martin
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Antigua, Penny, Puce
- By: Robert Graves
- Narrated by: Jilly Bond
- Length: 9 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
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'Lot 50: The rarest and most beautiful stamp in the world. The Venus de Milo of Philately.’ That was how the auctioneer announced it, and from that moment the feud began in earnest, for as children they had agreed to share Oliver‘s schoolboy stamp collection, and Jane now wanted her rightful share. So the Antigua, Penny, Puce became the focal point of their rivalry, with each one resorting to every refinement of malice, mockery and sabotage until the law stepped in, and with a strange quirk of fate decided the Battle of the Stamp - and the running Battle of the Sexes.
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Fantastic performance by Ms Bond
- By martin on 06-26-23
- Antigua, Penny, Puce
- By: Robert Graves
- Narrated by: Jilly Bond
Fantastic performance by Ms Bond
Reviewed: 06-26-23
Anyone can read a book...aloud. But to bring it to life takes a dramatical genius such as Ms Bond. Graves' works are always meticulous to parody and sometimes require credulity, but Ms Bonds' voice performances are so stunningly convincing (and humorous) that all unbelief is suspended. There is never any doubt of the existence and independence of these characters, all emanating, vocally and spiritually from her singular genius. You gotta hear it to believe it. And no one does a snotty little boy better than she. Similar kudos to the reader of the Real David Copperfield, but if it were a competition (and thank God art never is) Ms Bond would edge him out by a hair.
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The Creature from Jekyll Island
- A Second Look at the Federal Reserve
- By: G. Edward Griffin
- Narrated by: Mark Bramhall
- Length: 24 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
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This classic expose of the Fed has become one of the best-selling books in its category of all time. Where does money come from? Where does it go? Who makes it? The money magician's secrets are unveiled. Here is a close look at their mirrors and smoke machines, the pulleys, cogs, and wheels that create the grand illusion called money. A boring subject? Just wait. You'll be hooked in five minutes. It reads like a detective story - which it really is, but it's all true.
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Lost confidence in author
- By Amazon Customer on 07-11-20
- The Creature from Jekyll Island
- A Second Look at the Federal Reserve
- By: G. Edward Griffin
- Narrated by: Mark Bramhall
A work of genius.
Reviewed: 05-19-22
as above. Amazing reasoning, amazing scope. You will be surprised at how little history you knew.
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The Fall and Rise of China
- By: Richard Baum, The Great Courses
- Narrated by: Richard Baum
- Length: 24 hrs and 8 mins
- Original Recording
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For most of its 5,000-year existence, China has been the largest, most populous, wealthiest, and mightiest nation on Earth. And for us as Westerners, it is essential to understand where China has been in order to anticipate its future. These 36 eye-opening lectures deliver a comprehensive political and historical overview of one of the most fascinating and complex countries in world history.
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Offers excellent objective perspective!
- By Yu-Chin on 12-15-13
- The Fall and Rise of China
- By: Richard Baum, The Great Courses
- Narrated by: Richard Baum
Useful Idiot
Reviewed: 07-26-21
You've heard the phrase. I'm not so certain about the useful part. Maybe the quo ming tong could tell us.
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The Wind in the Willows
- By: Kenneth Grahame
- Narrated by: Derek Jacobi
- Length: 1 hr and 17 mins
- Abridged
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The enchanting tale of Ratty, Mole, Badger and Toad, read by Emmy Award winner Sir Derek Jacobi. When Mole goes boating with the Water Rat instead of spring-cleaning, he discovers a new world. As well as the river and the Wild Wood, there is Toad's craze for fast travel and motor-cars that leads them all on a timeless adventure.
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Wonderful narration, not the full text though...
- By Julia P on 02-08-10
- The Wind in the Willows
- By: Kenneth Grahame
- Narrated by: Derek Jacobi
You Cannot Edit Pefection
Reviewed: 12-28-18
What more could one ask for? Perhaps the most enduring work of the 20th Century, innocently unpretentiously disguised as a children’s book and arguably the best actor of our time who is willing to read it, masterfully, for us. And someone else who blows it.
It needs to be redone, just as it was originally, with Derek Jacobi…but it must in no way be edited. It is not a work that can be edited, or specifically, elided, any more than Shakespeare can. Can you imagine the listeners’ disappoint when Toad quickly bargains for the horse without that poetic description of the Gypsy’s stew? It is life without breath or marrow. What is it about? There are countless other butcheries done by some madman who doesn’t understand the work at all. Just as it’s spiritual twin, the Odyssey while depicting action, eschews it. The ideal state is peace, ease and contemplation…return to Ithaka. And some fool with scissors has decided, “Well let’s trim this down to what happens.” So we are left with plot, that is, almost nothing, except Jacobi’s curtailed brilliance.
Keep everything that has been done, but add back everything that belongs there. There is no partial perfection, and here you have two perfect actors. It were as though someone had painted wide black frames on the scenes of the Sistine Chapel and said to you, “Here, focus on what’s important.” The point of great art is that everything, and nothing is important. It all fits flawlessly, indispensably together.
Re-record it. For the sake of posterity. When will Jacobi come again? When will Grahame come again?
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4 people found this helpful
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Little House in the Big Woods
- Little House, Book 1
- By: Laura Ingalls Wilder
- Narrated by: Cherry Jones
- Length: 3 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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Told from four-year-old Laura's point of view, this story begins in 1871 in a little log cabin on the edge of the Big Woods of Wisconsin. Laura lives in the little house with her pa, her ma, her sisters Mary and Carrie, and their trusty dog, Jack. Pioneer life is sometimes hard for the family, since they must grow or catch all their own food as they get ready for the cold winter. But it is also exciting as Laura and her family celebrate Christmas with homemade toys and treats, do the spring planting, bring in the harvest, and make their first trip into town.
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GRANDMA WAS JIGGING
- By Jim "The Impatient" on 02-16-17
- Little House in the Big Woods
- Little House, Book 1
- By: Laura Ingalls Wilder
- Narrated by: Cherry Jones
ketchup on mignon
Reviewed: 12-27-18
I can’t tell you what a disappointment these narrations are. Of course Harper Collins can no longer be trusted to do anything right and I hear they’re of the verge of editing the marrow out of these wonderful works—probably the greatest pieces of American Literature. Ingalls makes Hemingway, Melville or Fitzgerald look like pompous pretentious adolescents.
Jones narration is an insult. She doesn’t do everything wrong—Ma is very good. But as a gestalt, she is ketchup on fillet mignon. Please redo the entire set. It is a cultural imperative. Despite her best efforts she cannot destroy the beauty of these works but where oh where does she get the idea to use a Southern drawl and why would she conceive that Pa is tone deaf and worse. He is after all a violinist. She infantilizes the speech of the girls by blurring the final consonants and extending the vowels in the most obnoxious, and I think culturally prejudicial way. These people are in no way backward or ignorant. The minute Cherry proposes to sing, any responsible director would have shoved her out of the studio and locked the door. Even worse, her affects are often inappropriate to the situation….it is hopeless, it must be redone.
And if you think what I’m asking is impossible…not at all: Killian’s narration of Fagle’s Odyssey is superb….not overacted, not unconsciously sneering.
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100 people found this helpful
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The Plot to Scapegoat Russia
- How the CIA and the Deep State Have Conspired to Vilify Putin
- By: Dan Kovalik Esq.
- Narrated by: Alex Hyde-White
- Length: 6 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
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Since 1945, the US has justified numerous wars, interventions, and military build-ups based on the pretext of the Russian Red Menace, even after the Soviet Union collapsed at the end of 1991 and Russia stopped being Red. In fact, the two biggest post-war American conflicts, the Korean and Vietnam wars, were not, as has been frequently claimed, about stopping Soviet aggression or even influence. And now the specter of a Russian Menace has been raised again in the wake of Donald Trump's victory.
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A Great Listen!
- By Mark Andreadis on 12-29-17
- The Plot to Scapegoat Russia
- How the CIA and the Deep State Have Conspired to Vilify Putin
- By: Dan Kovalik Esq.
- Narrated by: Alex Hyde-White
60's Radical
Reviewed: 07-04-18
60's Radical. Your heard it before. Same mill, new grist. Tried and flase, worn down, worn down. No info.
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5 people found this helpful
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The Deep State
- The Fall of the Constitution and the Rise of a Shadow Government
- By: Mike Lofgren
- Narrated by: Brian O'Neill
- Length: 10 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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Mike Lofgren is back with a book perfectly pitched for the frenzied circus of the primaries. His argument this time is that for all of the backstabbing and money grubbing of the campaign season, the politicians we elect have as little ability to shift policy as Communist party apparatchiks. Welcome to Mike Lofgren's Washington, DC - a This Town where the political theater that is endlessly tweeted and blogged about has nothing to do with actual decision making.
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Almost good, but profoundly misunderstands economics and very biased towards Democrats
- By Nina Prevot on 04-08-16
- The Deep State
- The Fall of the Constitution and the Rise of a Shadow Government
- By: Mike Lofgren
- Narrated by: Brian O'Neill
Mish Mash
Reviewed: 07-04-18
Not a Voltaic pile, but a pile nontheless. A wordy, wordy exercise in political disorientation. If up were down and black were white, and we mixed them all together...we would get a book like this. Good, for his sake, he can collect his GS pension.
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1 person found this helpful
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The Development of European Civilization
- By: Kenneth R. Bartlett, The Great Courses
- Narrated by: Kenneth R. Bartlett
- Length: 24 hrs and 32 mins
- Original Recording
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In almost every way that matters, historical Europe was the laboratory in which the world you now live in was conceived and tested. And you'll be living with the consequences for the rest of your life. These 48 lectures lead you through the doors of that laboratory and guide you through the development of Europe from the late Middle Ages through the eve of World War II.
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To sum up; Globalism Good - Nationalism Bad
- By Oliver Murray on 02-13-20
Pompous and verbose.
Reviewed: 11-19-15
This book wasn’t for you, but who do you think might enjoy it more?
The fatuous.
Would you ever listen to anything by The Great Courses again?
Of course.
What didn’t you like about Professor Kenneth R. Bartlett’s performance?
He is idiotic to the point of distraction. He should read a book now out of print by Rudolf Flesch called How to Be Brief.
You didn’t love this book... but did it have any redeeming qualities?
I couldn't listen long enough to find them.
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3 people found this helpful