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Thank you George Pelecanos

Reviewed: 01-11-22

George Pelecanos wrote a novel entitled The Man who Came Uptown. I thought I would take a punt on it.

That story was entertaining . Story of a convict who is turned on to reading. Northline was one of the novels the prison librarian recommended. I thought I would take a punt on it.

It's been one of the best novels I've listened to in years. A great story of survival, of yearning, of hope, of fresh starts and of people determined against many odds to survive and live their lives wherever they fetch up.

Willy Vlautin is a lyricist. This short novel sparkles with sparse, fresh prose.

Listen to this novel. While it might not be life changing for you; it is life affirming.

I confess now I welled up at the end.

Thank you Willy Vlautin and thank you George Pelecanos

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A delicious story of a crab in a bucket

Reviewed: 06-05-22

Some of us likely will sail through life never once having met a crab in our bucket. Others of us are not so fortunate.

Now a bunch of crabs in buckets are interesting. One of their number might see the need and desireability to escape the bucket, but sadly never figure it how. Why? Because there is always another crab in the bucket ready to pull them down. Crabs in buckets haven't and will never cotton on to the concept of teamwork. Just as one crab is looking up to see the stars - out will come a claw and bring the potential escapee promptly back to the bars. And in turn another crab will reach out a claw and pull others down. So it goes. No crab ever escapes buckets.

Sometimes it's a teacher, or a parent, or sibling who is the crab in the bucket of our lives. In the fictional world Nina Stibbe created for us it was a 'friend': Susan meet Norma.

While perhaps not Stibbe's 'best', I found it an entertaining read with droll asides and wonderful observations of the everyday. Central to my enjoyment of One Day I Shall Astonish the World was the study of the relationship between Susan and Norma.

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Crooked world; straight world...

Reviewed: 19-12-21

Harlem Shuffle is a novel of contrasts: love, power, envy, greed, attitudes, Everyone hussles. Everyone ends up playing the game of life; a game where the rules can change in a heartbeat. Though a few rules remain constant - one being everyone has their hand out to someone else. (Cashed filled envelopes are often present). Another rule is life is cheap, and as the author observes - 'when things start getting expensive, it gets cheaper still'.

Colin Whitehead's novel is a story of Ray Carney, a good man going to bad while still wanting to do good things. Carney's focus is on himself and his furniture business, his family and his friends and their survival. He endeavours to navigate being the son of a man gone to bad, being a cousin to a man gone to bad and wanting to ensure his children don't go to bad by giving them better opportunities including the family car, housing and furniture. Poor Carney has so many 'Daddy or Chips' decisions to make - because his past won't go away and well, bills do need to be paid, revenge needs to be sought, and he wants to climb the ladder of life. Even more Carney wants to climb two ladders: neither ladder is a straight ladder. And the reader might conclude that one or both ladders are up against the wrong wall. Yet, Carney wants to be Known. He is proud that his name is above a furniture store in Harlem. He is a good fence. Daddy or chips - who is going to get the wish.

It's a novel where bad things happen (heists, murders, shakedowns), but I didn't feel there were too many 'bad characters'. Memorable ones, yes.

Among the many joys of this novel (in addition to Dion Graham's performance), were the number of pithy observation Carney makes either in his mind or to other people. I especially enjoyed his sideways remarks about the home furnishings of the late 1950s and early 1960s.

A wonderful listen.

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1 person found this helpful

Too much noise in the channel...

Reviewed: 18-12-21

When I download an audiobook I want to listen to speech. I want to attend to the words the writer wrote. Listening is a skill and as such is an active process. I didn't welcome its poor narration, the manipulative music or dull witted sound (noise) effects of seagulls. Sadly the Audible book has all three. The book was not published with noise effects or tinkly piano music. What a great shame this version didn't just keep to the words of the story. Was I suppose to listen to the words, the music, or the sound of seagulls? Dunno. To use a marketing term - for me there was too much noise in the channel. Maybe Audible titles might come with music and/or 'noise effects' warnings for those of us who want just the speech.

I wanted to revisit this book in order to figure out what zeitgeist Richard Bach seized and why this book was so popular in the early 1970s. I gave up after less than five minutes when I realised - by skimming through it - that the piano music was not going to away.

I'm glad to read that other reviewers enjoyed their experience. I'll read their reviews instead.

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6 people found this helpful

Thank you Mr Black

Reviewed: 28-11-21

This has been a humdinger of a series. Great hooks and cliffhangers, memorable characters, just the right amount of humour, lively dialogues, And what a sense of place, Over the series we've been in frozen northern waters, the Atlantic, the Caribbean and now finally the Indian Ocean, the Malacca straights and other south sea locations. Harry and Co have a serious job to do for they're now up against the Japanese.. And so once again the listener is led into WW2 submarine life, complete with the cramped quarters, the entertainments, the enemies, the friends, the losses, the loyalites, the disloyalties, the maps, the charts, the smell of diesel, the weight of water, the food, the sweat, the reunions, the partings, the romances, the dances and the actions of a mad dog. And in most every moment the spectre of death lurks.

Thank you, thank you Mr Black for a most rewarding series of novels.

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I whooped with joy ...

Reviewed: 29-04-21

... when I discovered Gore Vidal's Creation was available on Aubible.

I had read Creation back in the Olden Days of the early 1980s and remembered what height, depth and breadth of a canvas of Ancient Hisory Gore Vidal had created for his lucky readers.

It's a novel set in the 6th and 5th centuries BCE and focuses on the diplomatic career of the fictiional career of Cyrus Spitama a Persian and the grandson of Zoraster. He is raised in the Persian court where he is acquainted with Darius and his son Xerxes. Cyrus Spitama is sent on a mission by the Persian king to study various philosophical and religious practices of his known world. He meets Aristotle, the Buddha, Confucius. He also meets beautiful women, savage generals, kings, merchants, concubines and commoners.

Cyrus' sponsors might have given him one assignment, but Cyrus himself is interested in learning about the Creation of the world and so sets about asking many people including those great phiosophers and religious leaders - how was the world created.

Vidal's history might not be totally accurate; his imagination and scope is tremendous. And every so often the reader/listener is rewarded with a zinger of an aside which only Vidal could have written. Delicious.

Vidal also reminds us that history is often written by the victors and victors have an agenda. Nothing changes and yet everything does.

I wonder has there every been a historical novel with such scope as Creation?

Why isn't this novel better known?

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Never argue with a confident man

Reviewed: 29-04-21

I'm sure I'm not David Black's target demographic, However (for in life there are many howevers) a male friend strongly recommended the Harry Gilmour series to me. He recommended it more than once. I don't often argue with confident men and so after the third recommendation, I took the plunge. I'm so glad I did.

Engaging characters, realistic action, cramped conditions, rest & recuperation, challening human relationships, reunions, depatures, green eyes of jealousy, shallow waters, deep waters, freezing waters, moonlight, starlight, love, romance, parting, parents, evacuees, cliffhangers, torpedos, technology, triumphs, tragedies.

David Black's Harry Gilmour novels really pack a punch.

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There's a 'Kinder surprise' . . .

Reviewed: 14-02-21

.This is a book about movement. It’s enlightening, evocative, impactful.

The success of Testimonies of Transition is three-fold: the theme, the interviewer/editor and the voices of the immigrants/emigrants themselves. I wasn't expecting that when I first started listening to the book we get to hear the immigrants' own voices. Wonderful. That's the 'Kinder Surprise'.

Humans have immigrated for millennia. In hunter gatherer societies it was straightforward you followed a food source. In more settled agrarian and industrial societies reasons for immigration became more nuanced. Not all immigration is by choice: poverty, religious or ethnic differences, conflict, natural disasters are not uncommon 'motivators'.

In Marjory Harper's volume reasons included the Scottish climate as well the the 'gray-ness' of post-war Britain, educational opportunities, my best friend was leaving, my spouse got a job in X or Y, as well as more opportunities for children.

Marjory Harper, who travelled the world to interview Scots who had lived or were living abroad, is everything you'd want in an interviewer: unobtrusive, impartial, a good listener. Like a good chair of a meeting she is both an enabler and catalyst. She sat back and gave her subjects voice. There was clearly a great rapport between the narrator and her subjects. None of the interviews 'fell flat'.

The voices crossed generations, crossed continents, crossed professions, crossed experiences. We heard of their own or their adopted country's changing values and enduring values; enduring cultures and changing cultures; accepted norms and changing norms. And their own conflicted feelings of which society do I belong to? Most of the interviewees remained abroad. Some did return to Scotland.

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Walter Scott's finest novel ... in forty minutes

Reviewed: 25-12-20

It's a bold attempt to abridge such a powerful story in 40 minutes.

Heart of Midlothian is a story of an assumed infanticide at the hands of the bairn's young mother who was herself condemened to die, a sister who would not perjure herself in a court of law and yet walks to London to plead before the Queen for her sister's life. In this she was successful.

I believe Heart of Midlothian was based on a true story.

It's a story about values-led decision making. Too often we make our decisions based on who is right and not what is right. The sister (the heroine) would not perjure herself (what is right) and yet walked to London and saved that same sister's life (what is right). What is right; not who is right.

I think it's Walter Scott's finest novel. In this abridged 'shrink-wrapped' version not only is there a powerful speech before the Queen, but the heroine of the novel makes a good case against capital punishment. There is a historical subplot, but the action is centred on how we might live our lives. What is right -not who is right.

It would be wonderful to have an unabridged recording of Heart of Midlothian available on Audible.

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Believe!

Reviewed: 18-11-20

Have you ever felt that your life might have just gone up an octave?

Callum and the Mountain is not your run of the mill book for children.

Callum and the Mountain is a book perhaps aimed at children who’ve crossed the bar of age 9 but have yet to enter the choppy waters of adolescence. I left that demographic more decades ago than I care to remember and I thought this book delightful and thought provoking. It’s unusual; yet accessible. It can be read with pleasure by young and old alike.

It’s written at a brisk pace. Not breathless, but brisk. You’ll not be bored. The opening pages of the book get off to great start: with the 'explosive' destruction of the local school - a dream I'm sure every child has engaged with at some point in their young lives. Be careful what you wish for Callum because off we go.

The pace is ‘helped’ in the audio edition by sound effects which personally I don’t care for - I would call them ‘noise effects’ - but they’re a bit unobtrusive and do help drive the action.

Mr McClure’s use of the written language is sublime. There’s not a word wasted. Jargon alert: Everyone in the book speaks ‘age appropriate language’. None of the children sounded like 35 year old school pupils. The author understands how children speak to each other and how the old speak (or not) to each other and how the generations speak to each other.

Callum the protagonist is friends with or meets in the course of the narrative characters we the reader soon come to care about. Even some of the characters I might not wish to invite to my birthday party - still, I cared about them.

We want to know - what’s going to happen next?

At parts of this book the author will take us by the hand and lead us all into an unreal, but yet very real other world. Using visual language (and a good smattering of guid Scots wirds) he helps all to expand our minds to believe in Callum and his friends and fellow tounsfolk. Believe, that strong imbedded command, is always waiting in the wings and by the half way point I was a believer. Believe, believe, believe.


Believe in Callum and the Mountain. There’s action; there’s suspense. There’s storm; there’s drama. There’s death; there’s life. There’s decay; there’s renewal. There’s an old way; there’s a new way. It’s a story which teaches us about diversity in life and balance in nature as well as love and acceptance. It’s a great story of love across the generations.

It’s certainly got me thinking more about what we don’t see and what we think we see. What we hear and what we don’t hear. And to use the Aberdeen dialect expression ‘Fit’s important and fit’s nae’.

Callum and the Mountain is a marvellous book. I commend it to you and I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

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2 people found this helpful