Carl Cravens

If this book's a classic, it's only for its novel thinking of the time
and not for any literary merit. It barely has a plot, there are no interesting discoveries, and the characters are annoying and unbelievable. I hung on through the whole thing, thinking "real soon now, something interesting is bound to happen." When they finally encounter what may be an intelligent being, they run away! The only real conflict is between the characters and their manic-depressive mood swings, and that conflict is boring. The climax is anticlimactic, and the characters survive their trip more by sheer luck than by ingenuity.

The recording is of very poor quality, and periodically changes in pitch enough to be very annoying. I presume that this is caused by using low-quality source tapes to make the digital copy.

I wanted to like this, but these stories were just boring. Maybe they were exciting to the readers when the authors were alive, but only one story even came close to being spooky. The first story is very long compared to the rest and is flat predictable, *almost* reaching "spooky" but falling short every time. One of the stories isn't even about the "occult" nor is it meant to be scary. And the majority of them are read by a narrator with a noticable northeastern US accent. Not only was his accent inappropriate, but his reading was dry and dull... the stories might have had more zing if he'd read them with more enthusiasm.

It wasn't quite what I was expecting, but I enjoyed it. It was just a little bit creepy, and the ending was a bit surprising, though somewhat anti-climactic. Nothing is ever explained. It's more a study in character than a horror novel, I think. There were bits of horror, but they were infrequent. The conversations between the characters bordered on surreal at times, and the relationships were strangely fickle.

The narrator was adequate, but with the number of character changes without any indication in the text, his character voices weren't differentiated enough to reliably follow who was talking. I got very confused about the speaker many times. They style of his narration was well-suited to the genre, though.

An interesting tale, but it was a tad predictable. A "what if Dracula set up shop in a small American town." A fun read, but it wasn't really scary. When one of the major characters got bit, it was a bit, "Ho-hum, saw that coming" and it didn't really move me much. The characters did a couple things that didn't quite make sense, failing to destroy vampires when they could have. King has frightened me before, but he failed to do so with this one.

The narration on this book was very good, and the narrator's range of voices made it easy to tell who was speaking.

He's been where I've been. At every turn in the book, I see reflections of myself and my doubts about God. He gave me permission to doubt, and to express those doubts to other believers. Instead of undermining my belief, it's strengthened my faith! This book is a must-read for anyone struggling with doubt about the Christian faith. (Which is all of us.)

The book is well-read, and the narrator is always pleasant to listen to.

Audiofile may think that the performance is "tired", but Peck's reading of the New Testament is exactly what I wanted. No musical score, no cast of thousands; no overblown, Shakespearean dramatization. Just God's word, read clearly and simply. Gregory Peck was a fine choice, and I never tired of hearing his voice.

My only problem has been that the Bible doesn't seem to lend itself well to the audio format. It's too slow for casual listening in the less interesting parts, and it's too fast for serious contemplation.

The only reason I rate this 4 stars instead of 5 is that I would prefer the NIV or even the NKJV over the KJV, but this is the only version that Audible carried at the time. The KJV is especially difficult in audio because the unclear language often requires some time to work through.

A great selection of stories, read by a great selection of narrators. Well worth the time to listen.

Published in 1902 by the author of "The Wizard of Oz", this story is rather entertaining. While "Twas the Night Before Christmas" predates this story by nearly 80 years, "The Life..." doesn't subscribe to the common mythology that our American culture has derived from the poem. It relates Santa's origins and the tale of how he became the guy who gives all the children toys on Christmas, but this isn't the Santa Claus that you're familiar with. It's a delightful tale, and a wonderful departure from the usual mythology.

The narrator does a great job of telling the story, but the recording was way too quiet. I listened to it with my family on the way to Grandma's for Christmas and I couldn't turn it up loud enough for everyone to hear clearly... the hum of the tape adapter and the stereo system was too loud in comparison.

This book held my interest up until the "main character" changed, with the original main character never really resolving any of his issues. The new main character was annoying and the ending didn't do anything for me. It didn't make me happy, sad, introspective... nothing but, "what was the point of that?" It was a great buildup, but the ending fell flat.

I love biographies, and this one didn't let me down. Not only was it an interesting view into one of the most interesting mathematical minds of our time, it also provided an interesting view into the beginnings of some of today's mathematical institutions.

The author does a fine job of translating very complex mathematical concepts into language the everday reader can understand well enough to follow the story. You don't have to be a math major to understand and enjoy this book.

I saw the movie before reading the book, and the movie just doesn't do Nash justice. It was a good movie, but it really wasn't Nash's life story. Nash was a much more interesting and sometimes bizarre person than the movie showed.

Throughout the book, I couldn't help but feel sympathy for Nash. This biography really had me feeling sympathy for Nash and the lives he affected. The story is perhaps even more interesting because Nash isn't history, he's part of my world today, and he's beat the disease and is still doing mathematics at Princeton.