Benedict

Oftentimes the first thing I do when I log onto Audible is check if there is a new story by Alexander McCall Smith. If there is, I always immediately download and by the next two days I have listened to the whole story.

I really love this series because of the delightful characters and the main character's concern on how to live an ethical life with the situations that come up in front of her, rather than a theoretical situation. I think the author, Smith, does this intentionally.

Not to worry if you are not "down" for ethics in good stories! But if you do decide to get this book, I would suggest starting with the first of the series and moving forward.

The narration by Davina Porter is just so gorgeous!

As an aside, it is simply amazing how the author can invent a three-dimensional, new character and bring the reader along to "get it" on the spot.

I hope you do listen to this book and enjoy it.

I think this book is a great personal experiment: To learn something valuable with 20 hours of dedicated practice after you learn the theory of the project.

I believe this kind of thinking if part of the new way to learn. It is new and in the the tradition recently started by Tim Ferriss in the Four Hour Cookbook and the Four Hour Body.

Both of these authors present a recipe for applying quick learning to any number of subjects.

I had completed listening to this book just prior to the political scandals about the NSA and IRS coming to the surface. This book explains how using so-called computer "algorithms" are used by governments and corporations in our lives.

Nothing we can do to make these things go away!

The best part of the book is the author's work in explaining algorithms and their new place in our world so clearly.

I had not heard Basil Rathbone read/perform poetry. He is famous for his Sherlock Holmes portrayals in olden times, when they had steam engines and movies were all in black and white, don't you know..

But this and the final segment found here on Audible are spectacular and make my flesh all aquiver to be English and to hear such beauty and such a wonderful story.

I find Alexander McCall Smith my dearest author these days. What I appreciate most is his insight into the human condition and relationships.

This book is shorter than most of his works, but it packs the most wonderful exposition on the subject of Love that I have read in a long time.

I recommend this book highly for its touching and particularly meaningful story.

I am continuing to enjoy this series of readings of Marshall Burlingame's biography of Abraham Lincoln.

I had heard that Mary Todd Lincoln was difficult but I did not know HOW difficult. I appreciate the author cited source after source for his description of Mrs. Lincoln because it is almost unfathomable.

The other minor highlight was Lincoln's role in moving the capital of Illinois to Springfield. He also served to get the State of Illinois into debt over its head to the Rothschild family, a debt for canals, roads and other improvements -- a debt so large that Illinois defaulted and finally was able to pay off about 50 years later in the 1880s.

At one point, members of the legislature were so angry with Lincoln that he had to climb through a window to escape their wrath uninjured. It is hard being a lawyer for bankers!

I really appreciate the author's ability to portray Lincoln's astonishing great character and his ability to get others to get along and for himself to get along.

I am really liking this biography. For me it gives a clearer understanding of who Abraham Lincoln really was.

He was born really, really poor, and lived that way for most of his childhood. I really had no idea. His father discouraged his studies and actually tried to interfere. His mother fixed him up in a kind of dress and a bonnet for his first day of school.

Aside from all that, Lincoln clearly was a man apart. He would have to be to rise above this miserable environment. But he read his books, was honest, a peace maker and was one of the finest ever examples or rising above one's circumstances.

The author is very good at laying this out and I am looking forward to listening to the rest of the series.

Many years ago, I walked into a store here in San Francisco that sold trinkets, but had this book up on a shelf.

I asked the woman about it and she said get it, read it, and it will change your life. Even if I just read it once.

It did.

I found out about Seneca from reading Tim Ferriss' books, and I am so glad I followed up and got this Audible presentation.

Seneca had a crazy boss: The Roman Emperor Nero. But Seneca was able, till the last, to administer the Roman Empire. Seneca's philosophy is born of life experience at the highest levels of human existence.

For anyone who is interested in a deeper understanding of life, life that is not made up, I highly recommend this book.

The book is set up as letters to a friend so you don't have to worry about a wall of inscrutable words, and you should know this text is Not inscrutable!

I really enjoy Alex. McCall, particularly for the sophisticated quality of his writing and his apparent notion that we should make an effort in life to make it better for others, and to not grasp too hard at the apparent unkindnesses we are dealt in life.

The writing quality is very high in that Alex. tells a wonderful story with little understandings between the characters that I really adore.

Paul Hecht the Narrator really is wonderfully able to communicate these underlying meanings to the listener: What the characters say in their words and what they Really mean. I would love a talent for doing that in my own life!