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I really enjoyed the book. I picked it off the $4.95 sale list because I was desperate for something different to read. In someways it is like the Alexander McCall Smith No.1 Ladies Detective Agency series --in that it features an exotic local with characters whose mind-set is a lot, lot different from my own East Coast suburban milieu. I was hooked. I just could not put it down. It was really a simple story--nothing deep; nothing complicated; nothing depressing; nothing upsetting--just a pleasant way to escape from the every day.

Like No.1 Ladies Detective Agency, the narrator brought this book to life. If I had been reading to myself, all the characters would have had a Boston accent. But Tania Rodrigues read with an Indian accent which helped to paint the setting of the book.

This book is not going to win any awards. It is not great literature and it isn't pretending to be anything it's not. It is just a very pleasant way to spend the time listening to an enjoyable, heartwarming story about ordinary people living ordinary lives.

My sister told me, "You have got to see "Call the Midwife. It's available to stream. Get it." So I got it and I was hooked from the get-go. Then I saw the book on Audible and decided to get it even though I tend to avoid reading the book when I've seen movies --and the movie if I've read the book. Glad I broke the rules.

I read one description of the book as "misery memoir meets a fascinating slice of social history"** and this description has stuck with me as the almost perfect description of this book. The book is much more detailed in ways that a movie never can be but I have to admit that by the time I got to the end I was ready to put the book down. The author had long since made her point, I thought, and it was starting to get repetitive.



(**Sorry I can't credit the source because I am not sure of it.)

There are some books that just don't lend themselves to being read out loud and this is one of them. This is more of a reference book and just does not lend itself to being read like a story. It is meant to be browsed and referred to over and over again.

That is not to say that it is a bad book, because it isn't. It is chock full of fascinating information. This is one of those books that you are going to want to underline, jot notes and stick flags in so that you can find your way back to the noteworthy--and you can't do that with an iPod.

As for the narrator. Terrible choice. Can't pronounce the foreign vocabulary. I know she made mistakes on the Spanish so I can only imagine how she butchered the other languages.

As I said, don't waste your money on the audio. If you are at all interested, buy the book.

OMG!!! I was asleep at the switch!! I bought an ABRIDGED edition of The Fountainhead. I swore I would never buy another abridged title and I was suckered in by the sale. I wasn't paying attention. No wonder I hated it. And what a waste of a sale credit!!!!!!

Two stars overall because it is abridged--and abridgements are an abomination. They chopped away 3/4 of the book.

Three stars for the story--one extra for what it could have been

Five stars for Edward Hermann because he is always five star.

This is what I know about cars: _____________________________________________. I can't tell you how a combustion engine works. I can't t talk to you about the relative merits of this vehicle or that--nor would I want to. I drive a car because I have to. All that said, I LOVED this book. I could not put it down (which was really great for flying coast to coast).

Ingrassia is insightful and he has written a book not just for car enthusiasts but for history buffs, psychologist, sociologists and those who are fascinated by advertising voodoo as well. You don't need to know anything about cars to learn a lot from this book about American history and American society during the 20th century.

You won't be bored. Ingrassia doesn't just pontificate about cars. He tells a story--actually many stories. He tells us how the cars he has chosen to write about came into being; we go behind the scenes meeting the people who were instrumental in the design and creation. Then he tells us why he thinks these particular cars are significant milestones or turning points -- what changes they wrought -- or were wrought from -- and their ultimate affect on life in America. It is a fascinating look at who we are from a new perspective--and if you aren't interested in the history, the stories are still fascinating.

This is definitely one that I will read again.

I read Nevil Shute when I was in high school--On the Beach, A Town Like Alice and a couple others I can't even remember. I am so sick of today's fiction that I've hopped on the way-back machine to try to find something that isn't full of graphic violence or someone else's angst or dysfunctional families or other utterly depressing subject matter. I found Shute in the $4.95 sale pile and scarfed him up. Before I was finished the book, I added everything else I could find by him to my Audible wish list. It is hard finding the older authors, other than classics, in audio format--and just as hard to remember their names (so thank you to the regular sales that Audible has that highlight some of these less popular titles). This was Shute's last book; it was published posthumously.

Trustee from the Toolroom is a heart-warming adventure story. I can't really think of a better way to describe it. At first, you wonder where this story is going to go, especially as you meet the protagonist, a married but childless, self-employed toolmaker/engineer who works out of the basement of his two-family house in a blue color, post-war suburb of London. Then, the story takes off and I'm just not going to say any more about it, because why spoil it.

What a naughty, bawdy romp! I loved it. I read it just three weeks before I went to see King Lear on stage at Trinity Rep and it was the perfect appetizer.

The Audible edition also includes an interview with the author and that just added to the pleasure of the read. Don't skip the interview.

What a hoot! I don't usually read fantasy and when I do, I prefer something with whimsy. I think that the only reason I bought this title was because I needed a third title from the sale list and this is the only one that had even the slightest bit appeal. Well, I don't regret the choice. In fact, I actually want to read this one again (which I don't think I can say for the other titles I bought that day). I might even go as far looking into other titles by Gaiman and/or Pratchett.

I suppose that we will attempt to dominate extra-planetary life much as the Europeans conquered the "New World." What a depressing thought. We don't stray from our DNA, do we?

Fuzzy Nation is sci-fi right up my alley. I am not a devotee of the genre; I read it every now and then when something strikes my fancy and really prefer it to be rather tame on the graphic violence (because it is really hard to simply skim over those paragraphs when you listen on audio). So, what I have read so far by Scalzi has been perfect.

Thank you, John for choosing to update a well told tale and thank you Wil for the excellent narration.

What else can I add to the conversation? What a thoroughly enjoyable romp through space aliens and Hollywood. Wil Wheaton is a fantastic narrator--and no, you won't be haunted by Wesley Crusher.