Mark

Although I enjoyed parts of this book, as others point out, towards the end, I found it a compilation of fairy tales and role playing plots. The early death of one of the characters I hoped for an interesting development, was rather unbelievable, and I never really found the characters coming alive. Well read.
For now I won't listen to any more of the series.

I found this useful to rather fast refresh the little Italian I know. Knowing some it is a bit slow here and there, but combining normal speech, slowly pronouncing an breaking down in syllables is very good for understanding and pronunciation. Explanations are mostly good and well distributed through the lessons, words, some grammar etc.

If you know some Italian, some breakdowns of the more simple words are repeated to often, and it's completely unnecessary to explain buena fortuna in every lesson! But one just uses these "pauses" to repeat the last sentences etc.

The English is rather amusing here and there both what is said and the pronunciation, but it's not an English course! And you learn well pronounced Italian.

Yes, i will follow the rest and hopefully relearn and improve my Italian a lot.

I found this useful to rather fast refresh the little Italian I know. Knowing some it is a bit slow here and there, but combining normal speech, slowly pronouncing an breaking down in syllables is very good for understanding and pronunciation. Explanations are mostly good and well distributed through the lessons, words, some grammar etc.

If you know some Italian, some breakdowns of the more simple words are repeated to often, and it's completely unnecessary to explain buena fortuna in every lesson! But one just uses these "pauses" to repeat the last sentences etc.

The English is rather amusing here and there both what is said and the pronunciation, but it's not an English course! And you learn well pronounced Italian.

Maybe a quick repetition for someone more fluent in Italian? But then maybe to basic?

It's cheap and you pick up some phrases, so maybe? But I'd rather recommend other courses available through Audible.

OK?

There is to much English dialog here. It is meant as a background, but is unnecessary and gives no Italian knowledge. Much of the Italian is presented to fast. Italian has a lot of small words, de, da, di del, della, chi, che, ch'e, mi, ti, il, le, lo etc, and in fast dialog it's easy to miss what you hear. This also is the case with longer words with more difficult pronunciation. Repetitions a bit slower with presentation of the words and meanings had been better than wasting time speaking English.
I'm unsure that hearing Italian sung, increases the speed of learning.

I'm a bit surprised that nobody commented on what to me was the main story here. The love of the two young people that meet and are separated in the beginning.
While the female is captured an abused through the war and therefore a ruined wreck that feels no one can love her anymore, the male main character has an exciting varied experience, taking what he can get from any women that comes in his path (they often throw themselves after him). And all the time he supposedly is upholding the female heroine as the only and perfect love for him.....
And he rescues her and brings her back to life, heroically overlooking her years as a sexual plaything, while his sexual history is a complete non topic. Tragically outdated view of male an female sexuality and roles.
There is no excuse that this was as it was back then. It is presented as just how it should be, without a comment. I generally have problems with books that seem to be partly the male authors juvenile wet dreams. It just ruins any story however well written otherwise.
I only gave this two stars since history and Australia interest me, but if what the book covers on these topics is just as untrustworthy, there isn't much left and it only deserves one.
I listened through hoping for some ending where the main male character might grow a bit morally and otherwise. Since the book was well written, I hoped for an ending that could mend some of the hopeless parts. But it didn't and I threw the audio book out.

As others have pointed out the clearly biased negative descriptions of MAO in this book are not believable and also illogical. Some people think that to convince others about a dictators terrible personality and life, you must only present negatives. The problem is that with any life experience most people know life is not black and white. And also to achieve something most often a person has to have some qualities to achieve it.
Hitler could not have come to power without any talents, if only a strange destructive charisma. Most agree he had other talents even an extraordinary strategic intelligence, which luckily was overridden by his megalomania as the war developed, so he lost.
In this book we are meant to believe, that a stupid, friendless, sadistic and destr5uctive person without any talents of organisation, leadership, military tactics and a total lack of economic understanding, whose every move turns into failures, tricked everybody else? And though everyone tried to oust him, and did several times, he lured himself back in and took power and control over the worlds largest country?
The odd thing is that this book makes most of the other communists leaders into heroes in comparison, like Deng who after Mao lead modern china to what it is to day: a despotic capitalist dictatorship that even beats the US in death sentences. No democracy, no freedom of speech, no respect for human rights, workers rights etc. etc.
And no documentation: Letter to a friend, in the report etc. no, names, no dates, no references. Still is a secret is often mentioned, but how the authors have uncovered them is not explained.
I was hoping to read how a struggle for freedom against poverty, etc. went wrong....
I just gave up, and warn others.

This series disappointed me. It was advertised as something better then Harry Potter, well, although HP is a bit childish for adults especially the first books, they grow up with the characters. Of course I did not expect something like HP, that would have been really bad, but I guess I expected some of the some humour and playing around with our world.
In HP the characters aren't really deep and get as personal as in other SF like Ursula Le Guin or The Hobbit etc., but here they are really flat... The story is pang and go. So if you just like action OK for you. But this books is here we go, then fight, then barely make it, run, fight again, wow the bad guy has potent weapons, barely get out of it etc. like a computer game.
Still there must be some qualities since I also bought the second book.....

Here Le Guin plays with wild fantasy and manages to comment on society, people, psychology, relations, power etc. etc. And all in a relatively light humorous tone. It is also very well read! My wife, who normally does not like to much fantasy, also loved this one.

Though as always there are qualitys in Le Guins work, this was a bit disapointing. It might be that Martinez, whom I believe has a god reading voice, overdoes the sweet, mystic tone in her voice and therefore makes this story more a romance than it actually is.