Anonymous

Flat Performance

Reviewed: 20-03-24

Neither story nor narration worked for me. Even significant moments lacked drama. I was expecting a deeper story.

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Engaging Ideas and Story

Reviewed: 07-03-24

This is an enjoyable experience, well read by Juliet Stevenson. From different character angles, the book explores an interface between science and spirituality. The characters are engaging and sometimes eccentric. Well researched.

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Disappointing

Reviewed: 28-12-23

The performers did their best with an unsatisfactory narrative and a set of characters which were difficult to know and to be interested in.

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5 people found this helpful

Eye Opening

Reviewed: 06-12-23

The small and significant details of Israel’s oppression of Palestinians are generally not spoken about. This book is refreshing in that it reveals these State behaviours and their impact on the lives of Palestinians.

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Disappointing

Reviewed: 21-08-23

For a writer I normally enjoy, this book was disappointing. She did not make good use of an original idea, i.e. reversal of the black and white roles in slavery. I don’t think anything new was said about slavery, which any decent person knows is and was wrong, regardless of the perpetrators. Ben Arogundade reads well and with a dignified tone. Charlotte Beaumont’s reading is too flat.

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Disappointing

Reviewed: 07-07-23

Having read some reviews, I was looking forward to this book. However it has proved to be very disappointing. I had problems following the story and it seemed very confused. It was difficult to empathise with any of the characters. I think the reader did his best, but the material is hard to work with.

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The Sun Never Rises

Reviewed: 12-03-23

Several dull American men go travelling in Paris and fishing in Spain. They spend lots of time “having another drink” but rarely say or do anything of import or interest, beyond trivial talk about people they know, including their equally dull English friend and travelling companion, Brett (female) who also features in the novel and frequently enjoys “another drink”. They attend a bullfight and Brett falls in love (at first sight) with the young and handsome bullfighter, with whom she temporarily elopes. The relationship lasts several days and she decides to return to the lacklustre man she started with.

Having endured this book, I cannot understand how Hemingway achieved the reputation for good writing. “The Sun Also Rises” is prosaic and lacks insight and poetry. It is tiresome, misogynistic, boorish, racist, anti-Semitic and homophobic. Even the Spanish fiesta fails to come alive. Rather than being a “sunrise”, this novel is for me, grey and overcast.

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2 people found this helpful

Strikes The Right Balance

Reviewed: 26-02-23

This is a very enlightening book, written with a lot of humour and, at the same time, making some very serious points about men and our friendships. It is well researched but does not come across as a heavy text book. The author is very honest and open about his own friendship struggles and he has spoken with others who have investigated the issue academically. Authors rarely read their own work well, but Max Dickins is an exception (final pages of ‘messing about’ excepted). His is an expressive voice and one that lends itself to the confessional nature of the book.

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Rubbish

Reviewed: 21-01-23

I gave up in the first chapter. Life is too short for sticking with this trite and meaningless rubbish.

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Preconceptions

Reviewed: 21-01-23

I enjoyed this book and it’s reading by Julie Teal. While being historical and well researched, it is not a traditional historical account. It focuses on one small village in southern Germany, during the Nazi period and the Second World War. It goes into detail about the lives of various individuals in the village - some, ordinary people and others, officials in the Nazi party. It is not clear if this is a snapshot of the rest of German society during this period and, the writer makes clear, that it is impossible to know.

The book challenged my thinking and made clear that many of the issues of this time and place; like most matters in life; are not straightforward, but are instead complex and multi-dimensional.

How can seemingly “good” people do horrifying things? How can seemingly “bad” people do honourable things? How do some people make compromises with an evil regime, while others stand firm knowing all the attendant risks involved?

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