Happy Helena

Great in small doses

Revisado: 11-16-18

Kemper is certainly funny, but this is not really a book I enjoyed having with me on a long drive, as I would enjoy Tina Fey’s— Sorry Ellie. It’s just too loud, with too much over the top stuff to have in a big chunk of time. I’d recommend the book for dipping into and not for a long read. She’s endearing, but I OD’ed on her.

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Kind of dull for what must have been an exciting life!

Revisado: 09-04-17

Found this very long book a slog, even tho I was actually a fan and eager to hear Robertson's story. He could have shortened this by 1/3 easily. He's no Bob Dylan or Graham Nash, both of whom wrote compelling memoirs of their music and careers, without trashing anyone. And with élan! Yet Robertson wrote wonderful memorable songs and inspired his fellow band members to great work. Robertson writes workmanlike prose, but without giving us much sense of WHY he became famous or what the music meant to him. Why was "Big Pink" album so revolutionary and influential? He TELLS us it is and was, but maybe the book needed the album attached to SHOW this, among other things. Guess I wish Robertson himself narrated it--maybe there would have been more spirit in the voice? Finished it because I did want to read this saga, but he came across as a boring guy--and he can't be, because how would all those interesting folks have wanted to hang out with him (Joanie Mitchell, David Geffen, & and esp. Dylan)? I won't be inviting Robertson to a dinner party any time soon, although he was swoon-worthy in the 70's! His duties besides song-writing seemed to be herding cats, as his fellow band members are presented as screw-ups, while talented. Guess you could just watch "The Last Waltz" again and close this book.

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Why no MORE Barbara Pym books on Audible?

Revisado: 10-31-16

Any additional comments?

This is a marvelous book and a terrific introduction to Pym's vision of female life in post-war Britain--not all dark, but greyed. She always leaves a shred of dignity or hope for her women characters, but if you are expecting a romance-happy-ending, forget it, even tho' the set-up here seems to promise that kind of arc to the story. Unforgettable and deftly written. I only wonder why there is only this ONE Barbara Pym on Audible, when she was short-listed for the Booker Prize, and is so widely beloved?

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Love Rendell's psychopaths!

Revisado: 05-21-16

What did you like best about this story?

This is another great Rendell, and actually got a bit surprising, as I did not think there would be more than one crazed person, but there were actually a handful. The character of Lizzie got lost somehow towards the end, and that's the flaw in the book for me; the one who was so amoral and weird in the beginning seems to have faded from sight at the end. That loose end needed some tying up--how did she deserve a decent boyfriend when even her FATHER knew she was a sneak and a liar? Oh well, still an interesting read! And wish there were going to be more Rendells--just ONE more Wexford?

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Stunning book, well-performed and rich

Revisado: 05-21-16

What did you love best about Tender Is the Night?

I guess I thought I had read this book, and then when I began the story, WOW, it was new and fabulous. How had I missed this book so far into my life? So well-crafted, individual sentences and phrases should be savored. And its story, so compelling and memorable. Hard to put down, but wish I were still reading it!

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Small book about small town with narrow horizons

Revisado: 05-14-15

What made the experience of listening to The Bookshop the most enjoyable?

This book did not have the expected ending, where things get wound up and a kind of justice is established for the bookshop and its owner. The novel unfolds more as life does, disappointing us on many levels, but we manage. An absorbing story, yet without any shattering events. A town is created that might exist, although we book-lovers hope it does not. Highlights the little life-changing setbacks of characters in its landscape, and the small tragedies that are depressing on the whole, while the current of life in the town does go onward into the future--but a less life-affirming future--without the bookstore and its plucky owner.

What does Donada Peters bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?

Lively and clear voice; most enjoyable to listen to, and does dialect well.

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Kept unfolding more twists and turns

Revisado: 02-08-15

This was one of the best Ruth Rendell mysteries I have read (of many). Somehow, even though you know both the crime and the culprit from the first chapter, the unveiling of the lives of all the senior citizens affected dozens of years after the event is absorbing. While things are tied up more or less neatly at the end, you will not find what you thought will happen has happened. Rendell gets the reader into the psyche of several characters who met as children during WWII, and how life has warped or injured them, and how they have survived when they all re-meet much later in life. While you don't necessarily like the characters, Rendell has made you care about what they will do. Really enjoyed this long book, and as ever, the map of London in front of you always helps with Rendell's excellent evocation of scenery.

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Tries hard, but only a B-

Revisado: 12-07-14

I wanted to like this book, because a strong woman comic is so wonderful, but Poehler tries too hard. The quality is uneven, like her comedy, and some was fun, some just self-serving and fell flat. She's on a roll in her career, and it makes me glad for her, but I just don't want to hear so much how much everyone loves her and she loves everyone. Really a kind of in-crowd/out-crowd story. And, all the complaints on how hard it is to write a book. Earning money is usually hard, isn't it? What a surprise that writing might be hard! Tina Fey's book was superb, as was Steve Martin's. Martin and Fey showed us how they worked, without saying "I worked so hard." We did not see them break a sweat. Poehler seems to want to impress us with how hard she worked and how now she's just a part of Hollywood, but it does not come across as well as Martin's or Fey's did. She's not humble, and while it is sweet that she loves her children, enough already about how nice they smell. Yuk. Other people's children are just not interesting unless they are Mozart or you can make the stories about them funny, as Dave Barry has on occasion. Keep it to yourself. Some parts of it are funny, occasionally a great line or insight. Mostly I could not wait for it to be over, and never laughed out loud. I read it all, hoping that I'd just like her better, but she just sounded kind of brittle.

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Long, predictable, but could not stop listening!

Revisado: 11-21-14

The reader, Juliet Stevenson is superb, and gives this only medium-level book the touch of class it needs. It is not ART, but a decent story and made my commute go far better! The author has provided excellent period detail and the story moves slowly through the budding lesbian relationship of a love-starved, increasingly impoverished and depressed post-War woman and her beautiful newly-married tenant ("Paying Guest"). At each turn of the narrative, the work felt predictable (except for the toss-up over how the ending would go, and even that was only a choice of two possible endings), yet the voice of Stevenson made the book really more interesting than I would have found it as a paper-book, because she has the variations of lower and educated British accents down cold, adding enormously to the pathos of the book's main character's (Frances) fall into poverty from gentility. Not entirely "believable"--but who cares about that in fiction? I was glad I stuck with it and would recommend this book as a long, slow read--not a page-turner. But an entrance into a world created by the author that one is glad to have had a chance to inhabit, yet you are equally glad that you do not have to live in the grim no-win situation of the main characters, or any of the other characters, for that matter. The choices Frances makes for love, however, are not far from those impulses we all have, that we later find out may have far-reaching consequences.

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Understand his success: work, work, work.

Revisado: 04-12-13

Martin's success in the world of comedy and show business is marked by his unrelenting perfectionism and practice, practice, practice. While this slice of his autobiography is revealing of his hard work and of his decency, one does not hear too much of his private life now (which is perfectly OK). He seems a real intellectual, artist, and person who's curious about life, which is what makes him interesting. What makes him funny we've all seen. This book goes a long way to showing what makes him tick. Liked it a lot.

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