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Entertaining Thriller

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

Reviewed: 06-02-13

The Silence of the Lambs / 0099446782

On the grounds that everyone else on earth has seen the movie, I rented Silence of the Lambs over the weekend and found it surprisingly better than I'd expected: as far as classic films go, the movie held up well, and I was pleased to find how much of the movie explores institutional misogyny in the FBI and how Clarice Starling is forced to navigate a lot of hurdles that her male colleagues don't. Indeed, the movie piqued my interest enough that I bought the kindle book and audible audiobook and read along with the narrator to see if this theme was explored in more depth in the novel.

Twenty-four hours later, I'm still not sure how to rate this book. I found it entertaining to read/listen to. The novel is well-written from a purely technical perspective, though the occasional jumps to present tense when talking about people from Starling's past were sometimes disconcerting for me, since I'm less used to that style of writing. (Example: "Jimmy Price *is* a supervisor in Latent Prints at the Washington lab. Starling *did* time with him as a Forensic Fellow." [emphasis mine]) In some ways, the novel reminds me of the parts I liked in Steig Larsson's Millennium Trilogy, and the way the author could use otherwise "mundane" details to make the story feel vivid and immediate.

Also like Steig Larsson's trilogy, I feel like this book is trying to be an ally to women, and seeks to make some good feminist points...but I'm not sure how well it succeeds. I like protagonist Clarice Starling and I love her roommate Ardelia Mapp, and their conversations are some of the best in the novel. There's a lot of institutionalized misogyny that Clarice is forced to navigate around, just like in the movie, and quite a bit of this is handled reasonably well. There's a good conversation with Hannibal Lector about how society mistakes rage for lust, which I thought was a good dismantling of a lot of false "rape is a compliment" narratives. And I deeply appreciate the point made later in the novel when Clarice notes the incongruity in a case where all the victims are women, and yet NONE of the investigators are. That is a very crucial point that needs to be hammered home, and Harris does a good job of it.

On the other hand, the level of issues in this novel for female bodies that happen to be fat just about took my breath away, and it can't all be laid at the doorstep of the misogynistic serial killer. I didn't know whether to laugh or cry when Starling came to the conclusion that the serial killer would have been *forced* to stalk his victims (as opposed to kidnapping them opportunistically) because tall, fat women "aren't common" and that if he'd just staked out a location waiting for one to walk by then he "could sit for days and not see one." Because us tall, fat women are like invisible pink unicorns! And our invisibility is an objective fact and not a matter of people only noticing the people they subjectively prefer to focus on.

Additionally, the author can't seem to decide what level of "sisterhood" he wants to push as part of the narrative. It's a very good point that a case with all-women victims deserves to have women investigators on the team. And Starling may well be correct when she claims that she "can walk in a woman's room and know three times as much about her as a man would know", although I would say that statement is an over-generalization that very much depends on both the woman who owns the room and the hypothetical man looking at it.

At the same time, Starling has moments where she has to push through her own rage and distaste and misplaced pity: anger at women who were born into more money than she; distaste for women with fat bodies who are axiomatically "hard on [their] shoes" which are "strained into ovals"; pity on fat women who are willing to date men who aren't turned off by fat bodies. I think Harris intends these details to make Starling realistically flawed, yet even after she works through her issues, she still feels judgmental of other women, trapped in the Exceptional Woman stereotype that helps her navigate institutionalized sexism but doesn't tear it down. The overall effect muddles the intended feminist message I feel the author is trying to deliver.

I've noted elsewhere that the movie is a mess when it comes to trans* issues, and the book tries to do better. There's much firmer establishment here of the fact that the serial killer is not a trans woman and that most trans* people are not violent -- indeed, that violence is much more common among cis people. But there's still the problematic framing that trans* people are "passive", which is a blanket characterization which others trans* people into a monolith with a word which is almost never used in a positive manner. ("Passive" is rarely a compliment, in my experience.) Additionally, the assessment of why the killer is not really trans* largely boils down to "because he gave the wrong answers on the psychiatric assessments", and some of these passages in the novel end up sounding reductionist, like there's only one "right" way to be a trans* person. As with the women's issues, it feels like the narrative was TRYING to be sensitive, but missed the boat.

I want to be clear, because sometimes my reviews are misunderstood: I enjoyed this novel. I'm giving it 4-stars. I'm pleased that I bought and listened to/read it. I might read it again someday. If you don't mind the above issues and/or can turn off the parts of your brain that are bothered by them for however long it takes to read a classic thriller novel, I recommend this book as enjoyable. But at the same time, this isn't a flawless novel of perfection, and I was a little disappointed to see an author try so hard to be an ally and miss the mark in places. Though I'm glad he tried at all, I hope that future writers who are inspired by this classic will improve on these flaws.

A note on the audiobook for this novel: I purchased the unabridged recording narrated by Frank Muller through Audible. Muller does a good job on the narration, but there's a persistent white noise hum in the background that I managed to tune out *except* when there was complete silence between chapters, at which point I noticed the soft white noise hum all over again when it started up in the next chapter -- each new chapter, I had to re-acclimate to the underlying sound, which took several sentences to get used to.

There's also a weird artifact on the track at the moment: at some points in the narration, there's "ghosting" on the track, as though there were two identical recordings of Muller's voice (a left and a right for stereo, maybe?) and one track suddenly falls a half-second behind the other, so it sounds like he's repeating himself for a moment until the voices re-sync. You can hear this at half a dozen points in the audio, including at Chapter 15 at time 3.08.49. I've reported this content error to Audible and they've been able to reproduce the error on their end, but they haven't yet fixed it as of 6/2/2013.

~ Ana Mardoll

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700 Pages of Awesome

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

Reviewed: 03-05-13

A Distant Mirror / 9780307793690

I selected this book for a book club discussion, not realizing that it's ~700 pages long rather than ~400 pages long. Whoops! However, this is a completely awesome book and everyone had a ball reading and discussing it, even if several members weren't able to finish on time, and I recommend it highly as a fun and fascinating, as well as wonderfully researched and sourced, look into 14th century culture.

"A Distant Mirror" is a look at the 14th century and follows the life of Enguerrand de Coucy VII as a vehicle for examining every facet of life during this time period. If the idea of following the life and biography of a 14th century French lord you've probably never heard of turns you off to the idea of this book (as it briefly did me when selecting this book to read), don't let it! Tuchman is an absolute master at her work, and manages to make Enguerrand VII's life deeply interesting and entertaining, while using the larger narrative to talk about every aspect of 14th century life in griping detail.

Indeed, the first 8 chapters (of 27 total) deal largely with 14th century life before even really introducing Enguerrand VII, and while the entire book is 100% concentrated awesome, these opening chapters are definitely my favorite. Tuchman examines the 14th century ideals of religion and chivalry (as well as when and how and why the ideal diverged from reality), the social and political climate of the 14th century for France and some of her surrounding neighbors, the daily lives of both nobles and commoners (including their entertainments, their religious observances, and their access to medicine), and the impact of the Black Death and the Papal Schism in shaping history and social thought.

Tuchman is a truly entertaining writer, and I love how she shows her work as she goes along, and grounds sources before using them by warning the reader as to how accurate and/or unbiased the source is understood to be. (One terribly amusing anecdote of a brigand company shaking down the Pope for money is prefaced with the note that "it has been said of Cuvelier that 'the tyranny of rhyme left him little leisure for accuracy.'") And while this is absolutely a history book, it reads just as fluidly and fascinatingly as you could ever hope for -- I finished all ~700 pages and was left with nothing but admiration for this book and the feeling that Tuchman had made a really large and complex subject very accessible to the lay-person.

A note on the audiobook version of this book: There are currently two different versions of this book available on Audible, one narrated by Nadia May and one narrated by Aviva Skell. I tried listening to both books, and I recommend the Nadia May version. Her narration is a little slower than Aviva Skell's (indeed, there is a 2.5 hour difference between the two versions, and I think that's entirely pacing and not reflective of new/added material between the versions), and I found the pauses and slower pace necessary in order to adequately process all the material in this book. And Nadia May's pronunciations of the French names and places in this book are delightful to hear, so there's no need to worry that you might not be getting the full experience with her.

I absolutely recommend this book if you have any interest in the 14th century or in chivalry and its effect on nations when large sections of a privileged populace are armed and dangerous.

~ Ana Mardoll

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The Children of Henry VIII Audiobook By Alison Weir cover art

Follows "The Six Wives of Henry VIII"

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

Reviewed: 11-04-12

The Children of Henry VIII / B008QYINQU

I gave "The Children of Henry VIII" four stars when I rated the text version, and I'm happy to give this audiobook the same. I still don't care as much for Simon Prebble as for Weir's other narrators; in general I prefer narrators of the same gender as the author for non-fiction, and in specific to this case, I don't care for some of Prebble's pronunciations. I preferred Judith Boyd's ("The Lady in the Tower") smooth "Shap-we" (for Eustace Chapuys) to Prebble's "Chap-poo-we". However, since this is a direct follow-on book to 'The Six Wives of Henry VIII", it's nice to have the same narrator for continuity.

If you're coming to the audiobook without having read the book, this is a solid scholarly look at the four heirs of Henry VIII: Edward, Jane Grey, Mary, and Elizabeth. The book follows the relationships between the heirs and not so much the reigns of the heirs themselves, which means that the book stops rather abruptly at Mary's death and Elizabeth's accession since there are no more inter-heir relationships to document at that point -- though you can continue from there with Weir's "The Life of Elizabeth I", which I do recommend).

~ Ana Mardoll

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Good Narration, Great Historical Account

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

Reviewed: 11-03-12

The Six Wives of Henry VIII / B009PRIE2K

I gave "The Six Wives of Henry VIII" five stars when I rated the text version, and I'm happy to give this audiobook the same, or at least four-and-a-half stars. I don't care for Simon Prebble as much as for Weir's other narrators; in general I prefer narrators of the same gender as the author for non-fiction, and in specific to this case, I don't care for some of Prebble's pronunciations. I preferred Judith Boyd's ("The Lady in the Tower") smooth "Shap-we" (for Eustace Chapuys) to Prebble's "Chap-poo-we". But these are minor flaws that I'm prepared to forgive for the sake of the overall text.

If you're coming to the audiobook without having read the book, this is a solid scholarly look at the six wives of Henry VIII, from the childhood of Katherine of Aragon to the death of Anne of Cleves. I especially enjoy that this book really is about the wives and not about Henry, and I also highly recommend the following companion text "The Children of Henry VIII".

~ Ana Mardoll

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The Lady in the Tower Audiobook By Alison Weir cover art

Superb Narration

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

Reviewed: 11-03-12

The Lady In The Tower / B003D1RUCE

I gave "The Lady In The Tower" four stars when I rated the text version, but I'm happy to give this audiobook a full five stars. The narration is superb; Judith Boyd captures the text so perfectly that it sounds like we're listening to the author read her own work, which is really the gold standard for narration in my opinion. What faults I had with the book -- such as long snippets of quoted source material that sometimes broke up the flow of the writing -- have been fixed here by the superb narration, and everything sounds deeply harmonious and works together as a whole.

If you're coming to the audiobook without having read the book, this is a solid scholarly look at the last days of Anne Boleyn. Weir starts with the last time Anne saw her husband Henry, follows the coup that brought down Anne and her faction at court so swiftly, analyzes the trial in close detail, explains the finer details of the execution, and ultimately follows with a quick overview of how Anne has been historically portrayed, depending on era and religious inclination.

I highly recommend this audiobook, and have already listened to it from start to finish at least three times since I bought it. My only regret is that Boyd doesn't narrate all the Weir non-fiction books available on Audible.

~ Ana Mardoll

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Good Narration, Slow Story

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

Reviewed: 10-28-12

Invasion of the Body Snatchers / B002VACTHE

I bought this audiobook on the recommendation of a friend and I'm still uncertain how to rate it, especially as I haven't rated the book text itself elsewhere. I'll try to address both here, the book content and the quality of the audio book.

The audiobook itself is quite good. The narration is strong and does a lot to flesh out the narration voice -- indeed, I think the narrator manages to make an otherwise forgettable or even unlikeable character very sympathetic. The wry humor and deep weariness of the narrative voice comes through loud and clear, and it does a lot towards creating the atmosphere that this book is trying to evoke: when a major plot point is that the weary heroes cannot sleep or all will be lost, it's a plus to have a weary-sounding narrator. And it works very well as a whole.

The book itself I'm less enthused over. I recognize that this is a book from the 1950s and was revolutionary in its own way, but sometimes it doesn't feel like it has aged well. There's some casual misogyny here that may be distracting to the reader, and the heroes don't always face their apocalypse very sensibly. Readers will figure out major plot points long before the characters do, which makes them sometimes seem willfully obtuse. (This is one of the unfortunate side-effects of modern readers being genre-savvy to this form of literature, I suppose.)

Early in the stages of the apocalypse, the reasons given for why the heroes can't go to the authorities for help seem sort of flimsy, culminating at a point where they manage to call someone in Washington in order to register concern only to be talked out of it because, meh, it all seems kind of silly so nevermind. I get that this is supposed to be a commentary on the inefficient authorities against internal threats, but you'd think once you got through the phone lines, you'd at least TRY to register that stuff is about to go very, very badly.

Overall, if you already know you enjoy this book, I think you'll be pleased with the audiobook version. If you've heard of the book because it was groundbreaking for its time, and if you don't mind some of the usual flaws of 1950s science fiction -- genre-ignorant characters and sometimes very slow pacing -- then you may well enjoy this book. I give it 3 stars for the text and 5 stars for the narration itself.

~ Ana Mardoll

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2 people found this helpful

Perfect Narration

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

Reviewed: 10-28-12

Nickel and Dimed / B002V1BOFQ

I cannot praise highly enough "Nickel and Dimed"; it's one of those few books that I honestly think pretty much *everyone* should read. It's depressing and heartbreaking to see, first-hand through the on-the-ground journalism of Barbara Ehrenreich just how hard it is to get by in America as a member of the working poor, even with the numerous starting advantages that she began with.

The audiobook maintains the same high quality of this book by providing perfect narration. Maybe I'm unusual in this respect, but the ultimate goal for me as a reader is to hear what the author intended -- the humorous inflections, the wry disappointments, the sarcastic quips -- as though the author were reading hir own work to the reader. Cristine McMurdo-Wallis nails this novel perfectly, to the point where it's almost difficult to remember that this isn't the author we're listening to. For me, that's pretty much the Holy Grail of narration.

If you enjoyed reading "Nickel and Dimed", I can pretty much guarantee you'll like this unabridged audiobook version of the same. And if you haven't read the book before, I think you'll still get a lot out of this audiobook, and I recommend it highly.

~ Ana Mardoll

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Decent Abridgement

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

Reviewed: 10-27-12

World War Z / B002V8DH36

I love Max Brooks' "World War Z", and I heartily recommend the book to anyone who is interested in zombie tales, particularly world-building after the apocalypse. The only complaint I have with this audiobook edition -- and the only thing keeping it from being a full five-stars -- is that it is an abridgement. In order to keep the narrative flow, they kept in the "essential" stories, but I feel that it was the "flavor" stories that brought so much originality and creativity to the text. I understand why they had to go, but I am sorry for it.

The cast of voice actors here are superb, and even if you don't like abridgements (I usually avoid them, myself), I think most people will get tremendous enjoyment out of this one.

~ Ana Mardoll

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Solid Collection

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

Reviewed: 10-27-12

The Complete Stories of Sherlock Holmes, Volume 3 / B004LOPYW0

I really enjoy the Sherlock Holmes stories and books, so I was happy to find this available in audiobook form. The narration isn't as great as I'd like -- the narrator speaks a little too quickly for my tastes and some of his voices (particularly for female characters) sound a little distractingly silly -- but overall this is a solid compilation and I'm happy to have it. Note that while it's the "complete" stories, they're spread across three volumes, so you'll have to buy all three to have the total collection. Speaking of, I really wish the Audible application could show which track corresponds to which story (rather than just Chapter 1, Chapter 2, etc. for the whole kit and kaboodle) but that may be a technical limitation they couldn't get around.

Volume 3 consists of the novel "The Valley of Fear", and the stories in "His Last Bow" and "The Case Book of Sherlock Holmes".

"His Last Bow" contains the following stories:
- The Adventure of Wisteria Lodge
- The Adventure of the Red Circle
- The Adventure of the Bruce-Partington Plans
- The Adventure of the Dying Detective
- The Disappearance of Lady Frances Carfax
- The Adventure of the Devil's Foot
- His Last Bow

"The Case Book of Sherlock Holmes" contains the following stories:
- The Adventure of the Illustrious Client
- The Adventure of the Blanched Soldier
- The Adventure of the Mazarin Stone
- The Adventure of the Three Gables
- The Adventure of the Sussex Vampire
- The Adventure of the Three Garridebs
- The Problem of Thor Bridge
- The Adventure of the Creeping Man
- The Adventure of the Lion's Mane
- The Adventure of the Veiled Lodger
- The Adventure of Shoscombe Old Place
- The Adventure of the Retired Colourman

~ Ana Mardoll

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5 people found this helpful

Solid Collection

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

Reviewed: 10-27-12

The Complete Stories of Sherlock Holmes, Volume 2 / B003FCIORQ

I really enjoy the Sherlock Holmes stories and books, so I was happy to find this available in audiobook form. The narration isn't as great as I'd like -- the narrator speaks a little too quickly for my tastes and some of his voices (particularly for female characters) sound a little distractingly silly -- but overall this is a solid compilation and I'm happy to have it. Note that while it's the "complete" stories, they're spread across three volumes, so you'll have to buy all three to have the total collection. Speaking of, I really wish the Audible application could show which track corresponds to which story (rather than just Chapter 1, Chapter 2, etc. for the whole kit and kaboodle) but that may be a technical limitation they couldn't get around.

Volume 2 consists of the novel "The Hound of the Baskervilles", and the stories in "Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes" and "The Return of Sherlock Holmes".

"The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes" contains the following stories:
- The Adventure of the Silver Blaze
- The Adventure of the Cardboard Box
- The Adventure of the Yellow Face
- The Adventure of the Stockbroker's Clerk
- The Adventure of the "Gloria Scott"
- The Adventure of the Musgrave Ritual
- The Adventure of the Reigate Squires
- The Adventure of the Crooked Man
- The Adventure of the Resident Patient
- The Adventure of the Greek Interpreter
- The Adventure of the Naval Treaty
- The Adventure of the Final Problem

"The Return of Sherlock Holmes" contains the following stories:
- The Adventure of the Empty House
- The Adventure of the Norwood Builder
- The Adventure of the Dancing Men
- The Adventure of the Solitary Cyclist
- The Adventure of the Priory School
- The Adventure of Black Peter
- The Adventure of Charles Augustus Milverton
- The Adventure of the Six Napoleons
- The Adventure of the Three Students
- The Adventure of the Golden Pince-Nez
- The Adventure of the Missing Three-Quarter
- The Adventure of the Abbey Grange
- The Adventure of the Second Stain

~ Ana Mardoll

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