What are we listening to? (audiobooks) - Page 120

booklover6 · 08-25-2016, 10:27 AM

I finally finished Battlefield Earth. Now I know why fans of the book didn't like the movie, and conversely, why I did like the movie. The book was way too full of STUFF. Politics and a never ending sequence of events. I skipped possibly close to 20 hours out of the middle of the audio book. IMO the author should have made this one book into a trilogy. Where the movie ended would have been a good place to stop the book (or the first of the should-have-been trilogy).

The cool thing about this edition was that whoever narrated Johnny sounded just like the Johnny in the movie. I really appreciated that.

Now listening to The Tide by Anthony Melchiorri. So far, so good.

melmac · 08-26-2016, 08:45 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by copyrite

I think the series gets better as it goes on.

from my Galaxy S6

I really enjoy the characters in this series and agree that each book is better than the previous.

Recently finished Invisible Prey by John Sandford and enjoyed it as i have all his others so far. Now reading Ill Wind by Nevada Barr.

Audible is having a sale containing 200 previous daily deals I currently have these in my cart

My Sister's Grave By Robert Dugoni
Bad Country By C. B. McKenzie
The Life We Bury By Allen Eskens

Has anyone here listened to then? any comments would be appreciated

WT Sharpe · 08-26-2016, 11:10 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by melmac

...Audible is having a sale containing 200 previous daily deals I currently have these in my cart....

I know. It lasts until the end of August, and I've got a list of 14 books out of that 200 to whittle down to an affordable few I can justify to my wallet!

CRussel · 08-26-2016, 12:10 PM

yeah, I just looked and there are some good ones in there!

Catlady · 08-29-2016, 05:10 PM

I listened to Baby Doll, a first novel by Hollie Overton. This is marketed as a thriller, but it isn't even close. It's about what happens after a young woman escapes the man who held her captive for eight years. She and the daughter he fathered return to her family (mother and twin sister) and ... adjust. That's about it. It's not about a hunt for the bad guy (who is known and arrested immediately), it's not about making the case against him stick, it's not about twists or surprises or authorial sleight-of-hand--it's not really about anything thriller-ish. It's about characters adjusting, and, unfortunately, none of the characters is particularly interesting or relatable.

Overton set up an interesting premise but then didn't seem to know what to do with it. Quite a disappointment.

WT Sharpe · 08-31-2016, 04:22 PM

I just started listening to The Prince by Machiavelli. This was another one from Librivox. They have four versions, and two were rather difficult to choose between, but I went with version 2, which is expertly read by Paul Adams. I'm ninety percent certain I've read the book in my pre-ereader days (I know I started it more than once), but it's one of those classics that's always good for a re-read.

ApK · 08-31-2016, 04:31 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by WT Sharpe

I'm ninety percent certain I've read the book in my pre-ereader days (I know I started it more than once), but it's one of those classics that's always good for a re-read.

Was that the one with the thing about the ends justifying the...something or other?

WT Sharpe · 08-31-2016, 04:49 PM

It's one of the first books to describe political maneuverings not as how they should transpire in a perfect world, but as how they operate in real life, and what their consequences are.

Catlady · 09-04-2016, 11:00 AM

Latest listen: The Couple Next Door, by Shari Lapena. Like Baby Doll, this was a first novel; it was well plotted and, yes, a page turner, but the writing style was pedestrian and clunky, and the characters mostly unsympathetic.

A couple leave their six-month-old baby at home alone while they have dinner next door with their neighbors--they are armed with a baby monitor, and the two parents take turns checking on the baby every half hour. But when they finally return home, the baby is gone. The story of the kidnapping offers a satisfying number of twists and revelations.

The author uses present tense (which worked well enough for the story) and multiple points of view. I disliked the sections featuring the detective investigating the case, which often seemed to offer little more than some variation of "someone is lying, and he is determined to discover the truth." Yeah, we know. The multiple POVs also sometimes meant there was unnecessary repetition of information.

I'm a bit baffled by the title, which seems to promise more of a focus on, well, the couple next door.

Overall, I enjoyed it--I'm a sucker for a twisty plot, and this one hung together without requiring more than the usual suspension of disbelief for this kind of domestic thriller.

badgoodDeb · 09-06-2016, 02:41 PM

I have no idea about this book, but perhaps "the couple next door" is the couple that has the baby, not the couple they were dining with?

Catlady · 09-06-2016, 11:31 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by badgoodDeb

I have no idea about this book, but perhaps "the couple next door" is the couple that has the baby, not the couple they were dining with?

I thought about that, but the title implies, to me anyway, that there will be two couples who get roughly equal time. E.g., a POV couple will be swept up in some drama involving their neighbors. But here, one couple is both the POV couple (for the most part) and the ones most involved in the story. Which isn't to say the people next door are unimportant, but I can't go further without it being a spoiler.

It's not a big deal, bit I find it an odd choice for a title.

ApK · 09-07-2016, 01:02 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Catlady

I thought about that, but the title implies, to me anyway, that there will be two couples who get roughly equal time.

Funny, I got nothing like that from the title. I thought of "the boy/girl next door" and figured the title suggested the couple in question, presumably the one the story is about, was seemingly ordinary and wholesome.
A significant involvement of an actual neighbor would never have occurred to me.

Catlady · 09-07-2016, 10:11 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ApK

Funny, I got nothing like that from the title. I thought of "the boy/girl next door" and figured the title suggested the couple in question, presumably the one the story is about, was seemingly ordinary and wholesome.
A significant involvement of an actual neighbor would never have occurred to me.

Well, your interpretation doesn't match the story either. Neither couple is ordinary and wholesome.

ApK · 09-07-2016, 10:37 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Catlady

Well, your interpretation doesn't match the story either. Neither couple is ordinary and wholesome.

Of course not, they never are.

orlok · 09-07-2016, 12:26 PM

Just finished Dark Places by Gillian Flynn. A three star rating - not bad, but as I've said elsewhere, the characters are so unsympathetic or down-right dislikeable that it is hard to care what happens to any of them. Competently read by Lorelei King.

Just about to start The North Water by Ian McGuire and narrated by John Keating. A grim read, by all accounts.

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08-25-2016, 10:27 AM	#1786
booklover6 Grand Sorcerer Posts: 6,545 Karma: 14008730 Join Date: May 2008 Location: PA (USA) Device: Kobo Clara, 2E, Libre 1, PW4, PW5, 2022 Kindle, Kobo Libre Colour	I finally finished Battlefield Earth. Now I know why fans of the book didn't like the movie, and conversely, why I did like the movie. The book was way too full of STUFF. Politics and a never ending sequence of events. I skipped possibly close to 20 hours out of the middle of the audio book. IMO the author should have made this one book into a trilogy. Where the movie ended would have been a good place to stop the book (or the first of the should-have-been trilogy). The cool thing about this edition was that whoever narrated Johnny sounded just like the Johnny in the movie. I really appreciated that. Now listening to The Tide by Anthony Melchiorri. So far, so good.

08-26-2016, 12:10 PM	#1789
CRussel (he/him/his) Posts: 12,296 Karma: 80074820 Join Date: Jul 2010 Location: Sunshine Coast, BC Device: Oasis (Gen3),Paperwhite (Gen10), Voyage, Paperwhite(orig), iPad Air M3	yeah, I just looked and there are some good ones in there!

08-29-2016, 05:10 PM	#1790
Catlady Grand Sorcerer Posts: 7,418 Karma: 52613881 Join Date: Oct 2010 Device: Kindle Fire, Kindle Paperwhite, AGPTek Bluetooth Clip	I listened to Baby Doll, a first novel by Hollie Overton. This is marketed as a thriller, but it isn't even close. It's about what happens after a young woman escapes the man who held her captive for eight years. She and the daughter he fathered return to her family (mother and twin sister) and ... adjust. That's about it. It's not about a hunt for the bad guy (who is known and arrested immediately), it's not about making the case against him stick, it's not about twists or surprises or authorial sleight-of-hand--it's not really about anything thriller-ish. It's about characters adjusting, and, unfortunately, none of the characters is particularly interesting or relatable. Overton set up an interesting premise but then didn't seem to know what to do with it. Quite a disappointment.

08-31-2016, 04:22 PM	#1791
WT Sharpe Bah, humbug! Posts: 39,072 Karma: 157049943 Join Date: Jun 2009 Location: Chesapeake, VA, USA Device: Kindle Oasis, iPad Pro, & a Samsung Galaxy S9.	I just started listening to The Prince by Machiavelli. This was another one from Librivox. They have four versions, and two were rather difficult to choose between, but I went with version 2, which is expertly read by Paul Adams. I'm ninety percent certain I've read the book in my pre-ereader days (I know I started it more than once), but it's one of those classics that's always good for a re-read.

08-31-2016, 04:49 PM	#1793
WT Sharpe Bah, humbug! Posts: 39,072 Karma: 157049943 Join Date: Jun 2009 Location: Chesapeake, VA, USA Device: Kindle Oasis, iPad Pro, & a Samsung Galaxy S9.	It's one of the first books to describe political maneuverings not as how they should transpire in a perfect world, but as how they operate in real life, and what their consequences are.

09-04-2016, 11:00 AM	#1794
Catlady Grand Sorcerer Posts: 7,418 Karma: 52613881 Join Date: Oct 2010 Device: Kindle Fire, Kindle Paperwhite, AGPTek Bluetooth Clip	Latest listen: The Couple Next Door, by Shari Lapena. Like Baby Doll, this was a first novel; it was well plotted and, yes, a page turner, but the writing style was pedestrian and clunky, and the characters mostly unsympathetic. A couple leave their six-month-old baby at home alone while they have dinner next door with their neighbors--they are armed with a baby monitor, and the two parents take turns checking on the baby every half hour. But when they finally return home, the baby is gone. The story of the kidnapping offers a satisfying number of twists and revelations. The author uses present tense (which worked well enough for the story) and multiple points of view. I disliked the sections featuring the detective investigating the case, which often seemed to offer little more than some variation of "someone is lying, and he is determined to discover the truth." Yeah, we know. The multiple POVs also sometimes meant there was unnecessary repetition of information. I'm a bit baffled by the title, which seems to promise more of a focus on, well, the couple next door. Overall, I enjoyed it--I'm a sucker for a twisty plot, and this one hung together without requiring more than the usual suspension of disbelief for this kind of domestic thriller.

09-06-2016, 02:41 PM	#1795
badgoodDeb Grand Sorcerer Posts: 8,550 Karma: 64462893 Join Date: Jan 2008 Location: Harrisburg outskirts Device: Palms, K1-4s, iPads, iPhones, KV, KO1	I have no idea about this book, but perhaps "the couple next door" is the couple that has the baby, not the couple they were dining with?

09-07-2016, 12:26 PM	#1800
orlok Close to the Edit! Posts: 9,797 Karma: 267994408 Join Date: Jan 2011 Location: UK Device: Kindle Oasis, Amazon Fire 8", Kindle 6"	Just finished Dark Places by Gillian Flynn. A three star rating - not bad, but as I've said elsewhere, the characters are so unsympathetic or down-right dislikeable that it is hard to care what happens to any of them. Competently read by Lorelei King. Just about to start The North Water by Ian McGuire and narrated by John Keating. A grim read, by all accounts.