Ten Days in the Hills

De: Jane Smiley

Narrado por: Suzanne Toren

On the morning after the 2003 Academy Awards, Max—an Oscar-winning writer/director whose fame has waned—and his lover, Elena, are in bed, still groggy from last night's red-carpet festivities. They are talking about movies, talking about love, talking about the just-begun war in Iraq. But their house is full of guests demanding attention.

Gathered downstairs are ex-wives, daughters, agents, lovers and a coterie of others. Over the next ten days they share their stories of Hollywood past and present, their fears provoked by the Iraq war; they watch films in Max's luxury screening room; they gossip by the swimming pool and tussle in the many bedrooms, as the tension mounts and sparks fly...

©2007 Jane Smiley (P)2007 Recorded Books LLC

Reseñas de la Crítica

"Archly sexy and brilliant." (Booklist)

"Scintillating....Smiley delivers a delightful, subtly observant send-up of Tinseltown folly, yet she treats her characters, their concern with compelling surfaces, and their perpetual quest to capture reality through artifice, with warmth and seriousness." (Publishers Weekly)

worst ever

Ill never buy before reading reviews again! I gave up after 5 hours. Please dont waste your money.

Smiley strikes out

I often list Jane Smiley as my favorite author. She is able to inhabit diverse environments from the world of realtors to Iowa farmers to horse racing to the life of a university research pig as though she spent a lifetime in each environ.

With Ten Days in the Hills she seems to have lost her authority. Unlike anything I have ever read of Jane Smiley's this book does not sound authentic. Smiley usually takes unsympathic characters and gives them a humanity that makes them seem real. These characters remain unappealing.

I thought that some of the reviews that I read before purchasing Ten Days were biased against Smiley because she is very liberal. Well, so am I and I find the politics in this book to be almost a caricature of what a neo-conservative would think of a liberal.

In addition, I find the narration grating. So much so that perhaps I wouldn't find the book to be so poor if I didn't have the narrators horrible voice characterizations in my head. Nearly unlistenable.

I anxiously await Jane Smiley's next book. She is so good that I can imagine that this one is just an aberration.

Boring

This was the most boring book I have ever read or listened to. On and on and on with no real story. The author tries sending some political left wing messages but even they are boring.
I listen to these books to be unbored but this one put me to sleep.

"anyway...... yada, yada, yada.."

Where was the editor of this book?
I'm curious to know how many times the word "anyway..." was used in this book.

Don't waste your money....

Or your time! The material in the book was as useless as what you find in tabloid newspapers...but not nearly as interesting. SKIP IT!!!!!!!!!