Carmelene
- 14
- reviews
- 50
- helpful votes
- 23
- ratings
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Gone with the Wind
- By: Margaret Mitchell
- Narrated by: Linda Stephens
- Length: 49 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
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Winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Literature, Margaret Mitchell's great novel of the South is one of the most popular books ever written. Within six months of its publication in 1936, Gone With the Wind had sold a million copies. To date, it has been translated into 25 languages, and more than 28 million copies have been sold. Here are the characters that have become symbols of passion and desire....
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Got the Accents Right
- By Noel on 04-27-10
- Gone with the Wind
- By: Margaret Mitchell
- Narrated by: Linda Stephens
"Oh, Scah-lett! Oh, Ash-leigh!"
Reviewed: 03-09-19
A classic story about a beautiful and tough but highly thawed warrior diva, a handsome prince who is also a blackguard, a plain faced (of course) woman who is a so-called saint and a man who is a failed hero with lots and lots of history thrown in and a central message that is true today -- real estate is the only thing you can count on! That being said, the characters come to life in ways that make you cheer, make you cry and make you hate to see the end come at all -- no matter how it ends. Then there's the narration. While the narrator is a little weak on making the men actually sound like uh, men -- she has the drama and the pathos and the emotions and the accent down! In fact, one of the best narrations ever! All in all, if you like this kind of hard-hitting, not to say also politically incorrect for today's taste's stories, this is for you! Very, very satisfying. Highly recommended for it's drama and sheer can't put it down storytelling.
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3 people found this helpful
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War and Peace, Volume 1
- By: Leo Tolstoy
- Narrated by: Neville Jason
- Length: 30 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
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War and Peace is one of the greatest monuments in world literature. Set against the dramatic backdrop of the Napoleonic Wars, it examines the relationship between the individual and the relentless march of history. Here are the universal themes of love and hate, ambition and despair, youth and age, expressed with a swirling vitality which makes the book as accessible today as it was when it was first published in 1869.
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A Truly Great Book and a Truly Astounding Narrator
- By A Midwesterner in Jersey on 05-18-09
- War and Peace, Volume 1
- By: Leo Tolstoy
- Narrated by: Neville Jason
Cockney accents among the serfs, really???
Reviewed: 10-25-18
Was there a reason the narrator used Cockney accents when speaking for the serfs, the soldiers, the maids, the servants, i.e., all the "ordinary folk" when narrating this book? It was a little disconcerting. But then -- in fact -- when I thought about it, all he used was British accents throughout. Too bad.
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2 people found this helpful
![Farewell to Manzanar Audiobook By Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston cover art](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51Bq-g24imL._SL320_.jpg)
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Farewell to Manzanar
- By: Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston
- Narrated by: Jennifer Ikeda
- Length: 4 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
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Jeanne Wakatsuki was seven years old in 1942 when her family was uprooted from their home and sent to live at Manzanar internment camp - with 10,000 other Japanese Americans. Along with searchlight towers and armed guards, Manzanar ludicrously featured cheerleaders, Boy Scouts, sock hops, baton-twirling lessons, and a dance band called the Jive Bombers who would play any popular song except the nation's number-one hit: "Don't Fence Me In".
Farewell to Manzanar is the true story of one spirited Japanese-American family's attempt to survive the indignities of forced detention.
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A Good Read for Junior High Students
- By Stephanie Aguilar on 05-09-17
- Farewell to Manzanar
- By: Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston
- Narrated by: Jennifer Ikeda
Japanese Internment Lite
Reviewed: 07-20-18
A great book for a middle school class to discuss and learn about history. Just too much of a skim of the surface for me. I read memoirs to learn about how other people overcome the tragedies in their lives, not just the fact that they happened. The narration doesn't enhance or detract from the book in either way -- which is what is wrong with it -- like the writing itself, it's bland. That being said, the narrator has an enjoyable singing voice.
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Where the Wind Leads
- A Refugee Family's Miraculous Story of Loss, Rescue, and Redemption
- By: Vinh Chung
- Narrated by: Josh Aaron
- Length: 10 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
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Vinh Chung was born in South Vietnam, just eight months after it fell to the communists in 1975. His family was wealthy, controlling a rice-milling empire worth millions; but within months of the communist takeover, the Chungs lost everything and were reduced to abject poverty. Knowing that their children would have no future under the new government, the Chungs decided to flee the country. In 1979, they joined the legendary “boat people” and sailed into the South China Sea, despite knowing that an estimated two hundred thousand of their countrymen had already perished at the hands of brutal pirates and violent seas.
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Refugees from Vietnam
- By Justicepirate on 06-22-18
- Where the Wind Leads
- A Refugee Family's Miraculous Story of Loss, Rescue, and Redemption
- By: Vinh Chung
- Narrated by: Josh Aaron
If They Can Do It So Can I
Reviewed: 07-20-18
What a refreshingly simple, straightforward, easily told story. There is no attempt by the author to manipulate the reader as he tells one (tragic, horrific, and even miraculous) event after the other.
Yes. It is possible to write an engaging and powerful memoir without using stupid metaphors or the F-word.
If you like learning about cultures that may not be familiar to you and learning how people overcome under circumstances in which it seems impossible for anyone to overcome anything, this is a good read.
I came away from the book feeling empowered. "If they could do it (whatever "it" is), so can I."
The book was read by the author, which, as I have found, is often the kiss of death when it comes to animated, interesting narration, but in this case, the tale was so well told that the author's monotone just didn't matter.
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The Romanov Sisters
- The Lost Lives of the Daughters of Nicholas and Alexandra
- By: Helen Rappaport
- Narrated by: Xe Sands
- Length: 13 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
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They were the Princess Dianas of their day—perhaps the most photographed and talked about young royals of the early twentieth century. The four captivating Russian Grand Duchesses—Olga, Tatiana, Maria and Anastasia Romanov—were much admired for their happy dispositions, their looks, the clothes they wore and their privileged lifestyle. Over the years, the story of the four Romanov sisters and their tragic end in a basement at Ekaterinburg in 1918 has clouded our view of them, leading to a mass of sentimental and idealized hagiography.
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Made you want to change the ending
- By MissSusie66 on 01-23-15
- The Romanov Sisters
- The Lost Lives of the Daughters of Nicholas and Alexandra
- By: Helen Rappaport
- Narrated by: Xe Sands
Gliding over the surface
Reviewed: 07-17-18
I would call this a People Magazine Article on the Romanov sisters. To the author's credit however, there isn't all that much to work with since a lot of the letters (the historical artifacts of the time) were destroyed by the authors themselves. That being said, if you are interested in a more or less "overview" of this highly dysfunctional and tragic family -- this is for you. Be prepared with little to no historical background out of which this drama played out.
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From the Corner of the Oval
- A Memoir
- By: Beck Dorey-Stein
- Narrated by: Beck Dorey-Stein
- Length: 9 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
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In 2012, Beck Dorey-Stein is working five part-time jobs and just scraping by when a posting on Craigslist lands her, improbably, in the Oval Office as one of Barack Obama’s stenographers. The ultimate DC outsider, she joins the elite team who accompany the president wherever he goes, recorder and mic in hand. On whirlwind trips across time zones, Beck forges friendships with a dynamic group of fellow travelers - young men and women who, like her, leave their real lives behind to hop aboard Air Force One in service of the president.
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I kept waiting
- By L. N. Smith on 08-01-18
- From the Corner of the Oval
- A Memoir
- By: Beck Dorey-Stein
- Narrated by: Beck Dorey-Stein
From the Corner of her Bedroom
Reviewed: 07-16-18
Just finished "From the Corner of the White House," by Beck Dorey-Stein, which is supposed to be her memoir about working as a stenographer in the Obama White House.
The title of the book would give you to think that the White House was what this memoir was about wouldn't it?
Well, don't be fooled like I was.
What it's really about is the various love affairs of an insecure, misguided, sexually obsessive young woman who uses the backdrop of her job as a stenographer at the White House as an excuse to write her "memoir."
"When," I found myself asking more than halfway through the book, "is the author going to stop talking about herself and the men she "loves" and start talking about the White House?"
Now that I've finished the book however, I see that she did talk about the White House, and about Obama, and about his staffers and about Air Force One and about "how she can't believe how lucky she is" and especially about how easy it is to be a stenographer --- which, sad to say, is painfully obvious -- but it's hard to tease these facts out from under the bed sheets.
Bottom line. There's just not that much to say about setting up a microphone, recording a speech/statement/press conference, etc.and then going back to your office and typing it up.
Which is probably why the author threw in all the stuff about her love affairs.
And oh yeah, about how she figures out that she "really is a writer."
I guess she is. After all, she has had a book published that I can almost guarantee you will be made into a movie -- it has what everybody wants these days. Politics and sex. (Sorry, no violence).
So, do I recommend the book? Let me say if you are an Obama fan you will love it. The author literally drools over Obama and, to be fair, along the way shares some interesting behind the scenes moments with him.
That being said, she doesn't really have anything to say about him that the Obama fan doesn't already think and feel.
If you are into obsessive love affairs, boyfriends who cheat and even people who write memoirs who cheat and write about it ad infinitum then, if you have something else to do (like crocheting so you don't end up feeling like you have entirely wasted our time) while you're listening to this drivel, you might get through it.
Otherwise, if you want writing and storries that matter, insight, perspective, and real historical moments that don't take place at a pool side, in a hotel room, or in a bar then I'd give this one a pass.
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A Very Easy Death
- By: Simone de Beauvoir
- Narrated by: Hillary Huber
- Length: 3 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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When her mother was in the hospital with terminal cancer, Simone had time to reminisce about her mother's early life, as Simone and her sister, Poupette, prepared to face the decision of whether to prolong a life when it is full of suffering. Like most people,they believed it would be better to die than to continue to suffer, but their mother had a very different view of the matter. Françoise de Beauvoir had finally found happiness in her life, and she truly believed she could find happiness in her own suffering.
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Too Brainy for me.
- By Carmelene on 05-03-18
- A Very Easy Death
- By: Simone de Beauvoir
- Narrated by: Hillary Huber
Too Brainy for me.
Reviewed: 05-03-18
Okay. I have now Read de Beauvoir -- I don't have to read anything else. Just too cerebral for me. There is a line in Amadeus wherein one of the characters states that (more or less) Mozart's music is good, but that it has too many notes. Ha ha. That's what I would say about this little memoir. Too many words. There were times I felt that the narrator was literally droning on. And the voice she gave the poor Mamam!!! Oh my Goodness. Sounded just like a frog. Actually, it may be worth the listen just to hear that awful voice! But that's about all I can say about this writing -- unless you are a die hard fan of the author.
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3 people found this helpful
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Patience and Sarah
- By: Isabel Miller
- Narrated by: Jean Smart, Janis Ian
- Length: 5 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
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Set in the 19th century, Isabel Miller's classic lesbian novel traces the relationship between Patience White and Sarah Dowling, whose romantic bond does not sit well with their puritanical New England community. In addition to being an inspiring love story, the audiobook for Patience and Sarah is an ideal listen for young-adult audiences. It is a story that shows how irrelevant race, religion, and gender are to love and that loving and being loved are what keep us human and sane.
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A beautiful tale blooms with great narration.
- By Nancy J on 05-14-16
- Patience and Sarah
- By: Isabel Miller
- Narrated by: Jean Smart, Janis Ian
A new definition for "melting."
Reviewed: 05-03-18
While the author introduces "melting" as a metaphor for orgasm between same-sex (female) lovers -- I found myself melting with boredom. I mean, how many ways can you say they are having sex without saying they are having sex -- while trying so hard to say they are in fact having sex. Nice little story -- but little it is. I had to force myself to finish it. As for the narration, One of them was excellent, I could tell the different characters one from the other. The other? Not so much -- in fact, with the other, I couldn't tell the characters apart.
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The Best of Us
- A Memoir
- By: Joyce Maynard
- Narrated by: Joyce Maynard
- Length: 12 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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In 2011, when she was in her late 50s, beloved author and journalist Joyce Maynard met the first true partner she had ever known. Jim wore a rakish hat over a good head of hair; he asked real questions and gave real answers; he loved to see Joyce shine, both in and out of the spotlight; and he didn't mind the mess she made in the kitchen. He was not the husband Joyce imagined, but he quickly became the partner she had always dreamed of. Then, just after their one-year wedding anniversary, her new husband was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer.
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I love Joyce Maynard- I'm a longtime fan
- By Susie Q on 11-06-17
- The Best of Us
- A Memoir
- By: Joyce Maynard
- Narrated by: Joyce Maynard
And then this happened and then this happened.....
Reviewed: 05-03-18
The title of my review says it all. Disappointing read to say the least. Tragic story. Yes. But not helped by the (dismal) writing. At the end of the book, the author reads her wedding vows, saying that it is a "treat" that is not shared with people who "only" read the book. Unfortunately, the vows sound like an outline for the book -- there's not a single thing in them that the author hadn't already said, hashed over, or explicated upon in the body of the memoir. I've not read this author. The memoir was recommended. I myself wouldn't recommend it. I like to learn something from reading memoirs -- that's why I read them. If I wanted a recitation of events, I could have read the Wikipedia article.
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2 people found this helpful
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Pearl Buck in China
- Journey to The Good Earth
- By: Hilary Spurling
- Narrated by: Hilary Spurling
- Length: 9 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
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The author of the much honored two-volume biography of Henri Matisse unearths the life and work of the Nobel Prize and Pulitzer Prize winner Pearl Buck, whose novels in the 1930's and 40's were the first written for a Western audience to describe ordinary life in the still secret China of the late 19th and early 20th century.
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Very good
- By M. Brandman on 06-15-10
- Pearl Buck in China
- Journey to The Good Earth
- By: Hilary Spurling
- Narrated by: Hilary Spurling
Oh dear, boring. Boring. Boring.
Reviewed: 04-23-18
What did you love best about Pearl Buck in China?
The way the author of the book drew from Buck's fiction to elucidate her life.
What did you like best about this story?
Learning about what parts of The Good Earth and other of Buck's books were autobiographical.
How could the performance have been better?
ANYBODY could have done a better job. Someone who actually CARED about the material they were reading would have helped. A little inflection. No hurried, rushed, flat speech totally devoid of intonation. Just because someone has written the book does NOT mean they can narrate it!
Any additional comments?
I will never order another book read by the author without listening to the preview several times.
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7 people found this helpful