Best Melville, Herman
This epic story, here presented in unabridged form, receives an equally epic reading from the outstanding American actor William Hootkins. The enthusiastic study of the parts of the whale contrasts with the darker innuendos on God; the colorful excitability of Stubb butts up against the diabolic indifference of Ahab's Fedallah.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"You know that thin, sixtyish, balding guy at the gym who still uses a disc-man? Thirty minutes on the treadmill, twenty-five minutes on the treadmill, a day-off, and then repeat the three-day cycle and that persistent old guy has powered through all nineteen discs in the Naxos Audio Book. For example, chapters 54, 55, and 56 are: "Monstrous Pictures of Whales", "Less Erroneous Pictures of Whales", and "Of Whales in Paint, In Teeth, & C." And a strong editor might have asked: Gee, Herman, isn't this padding? And the listener who endures such chapters and stays with the complete text will also encounter chapters 42, 47, and 48, which are the absolutely great: "The Whiteness of the Whale", "The Mat-Maker", and "The First Lowering". Then, the listener encounters Melville in his modes of profundity or great action writing."
"Hootkins did a really great job reading through this novel, doing his best to retain interest in even the most boring of chapters."
"A fantastic rendition!"
"There are many parts you must hear twice...or thrice, they are so beautifully written."
"Hootkins is very good at conveying Melville's insouciant tone, especially through many of the cetology chapters, where you intellectually understand that Melville is kidding but it just doesn't work. Well, Hootkins really brings Melville's irreverent tone to the fore. My only possible criticism of his performance is that, in the final act of the book, Hootkins frequently continues with this leisurely, almost jovial tone, even though Melville has gotten by then dead serious."
"I was thrilled to find this audio edition of a lengthy classic that I, like many Americans, doggedly plowed through in high school, when I was certainly much too young to appreciate its depth and meaning. Like Nathaniel Hawthorne, Melville is an author who speaks to the reader who has grappled with the universal questions about life and death, sanity and madness, revenge and forgiveness."
"I will be returning it - two of the CDs do not work."
This is an *ABRIDGED* reading of Moby Dick . Author Bio: HERMAN MELVILLE (1819-1891) was born in New York.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"Author Lance Stahlberg and illustrator Lalit Kumar Singh do a stupendous job at tackling one of the longest novels in American literature in graphic format. The book has a couple of informative pages about the sperm whale, the existence of the true Moby Dick, and whalers of the nineteenth century."
"Amazon asked me how many stars I would give Moby Dick. That said, for anyone who missed out reading this- it just never came up on a high school reading list, you were always too busy, you thought it was going to be some dull slog, the arcane whaling bits are no longer relevant...? Nobody needs anyone to remind them that Moby Dick is a GREAT book, but it bears mention, in 2016, it's still a FUN book and one, of all the classics you will and won't ever get to- the one not to miss."
"I'm obviously more of a nonfiction guy, so it figures that I read this book at the recommendation of Carl Jung, of all people."
"It's a great choice to read on a Kindle or other e-reader because (sadly) in our modern times many of us do not have the vocabulary skills to understand Melville's mid-19th century language. I would recommend Moby Dick to anyone who has grown tired of the spy / thriller / adventure genre for a change of pace."
"Unless you are a naval historian or a Melville scholar, you probably won't have a rewarding (or even comprehensible) time with much of MOBY DICK at this remove unless the edition you're using comes with a good set of footnotes. Generous and highly useful footnotes right on the page, covering lexical, allusional, and cross-referential items. Two disadvantages: you may at times feel put upon by Feidelson's interlarded interpretations, and the thing is totally out of print. The footnotes for the most part are skimpy and confined to obscure vocabulary, not cultural and literary allusions, but there is a good dictionary of sea terms. by Bentley, although the American publisher, Harper & Row, was already in possession of the MS. Melville took that MS and made many corrections, and this became the British edition! Melville's corrected MS was additionally bowdlerized by Bentley's editors, so the final product does indeed contain many differences from the Ur-text (the one published later, by Harper & Row). Sleuthing this out is in fact the foundation of most Moby Dick textual criticism, a field that, incidentally, has seen better days. This would be an easy question to resolve if we found that MS corrected in Melville's hand. In cases where it's not clear whether it was Melville or the censors, there'll be a little sidebar at the bottom of the page. THESE HAVE A FOOTNOTES SECTION IN THE BACK OF THE BOOK: * The "Oxford World Classics" edition. Note that recent printings of this have been including the famous illustrations by Rockwell Kent, which are often deemed never to have been surpassed. ISBN: 0-14-03-9084-7 (This is their paperback edition, which looks totally different but is exactly the same as the previous entry. Penguin previously came out with an identical-looking but much thicker version annotated by Harold Beaver: the notes for that edition were copious, but on the whole too fanciful and self-indulgent to be of much use.). Note there are also maps and an impressive glossary of nautical terms, making this final incarnation a worthy purchase. For example, when Melville writes, "send Lazarus that he may dip the tip of his finger," the footnotes -- the incidence of which is not marked in the running text -- merely says "Luke 16:24". So I would characterize the footnotes as sparse and taciturn: they'll clue you in to the source, but as for the exact wording of something and its accumulated historical connotations, you've got to come up with those yourself. In any event, the following publishers have decided you'd prefer your white whale raw. * The handsome “Fall River Press” edition, found often in the B**** & N**** discount bin. In addition to being cheap, it can boast the following advantages: the text shows up clean and seamless on your Kindle, without a lot of blank lines, words running together, or other ills consequent upon certain publishers scanning in public domain works. Big problem with this edition is that the explanatory links aren’t hyperlinked to the text, meaning that, at least with current Kindle technology, you’ll have to manually re-search the text to get back to where you started from."
Ishmael, a sailor, recounts the ill-fated voyage of a whaling ship led by Captain Ahab.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"Author Lance Stahlberg and illustrator Lalit Kumar Singh do a stupendous job at tackling one of the longest novels in American literature in graphic format. The book has a couple of informative pages about the sperm whale, the existence of the true Moby Dick, and whalers of the nineteenth century."
"Amazon asked me how many stars I would give Moby Dick. That said, for anyone who missed out reading this- it just never came up on a high school reading list, you were always too busy, you thought it was going to be some dull slog, the arcane whaling bits are no longer relevant...? Nobody needs anyone to remind them that Moby Dick is a GREAT book, but it bears mention, in 2016, it's still a FUN book and one, of all the classics you will and won't ever get to- the one not to miss."
"I'm obviously more of a nonfiction guy, so it figures that I read this book at the recommendation of Carl Jung, of all people."
"It's a great choice to read on a Kindle or other e-reader because (sadly) in our modern times many of us do not have the vocabulary skills to understand Melville's mid-19th century language. I would recommend Moby Dick to anyone who has grown tired of the spy / thriller / adventure genre for a change of pace."
"Unless you are a naval historian or a Melville scholar, you probably won't have a rewarding (or even comprehensible) time with much of MOBY DICK at this remove unless the edition you're using comes with a good set of footnotes. Generous and highly useful footnotes right on the page, covering lexical, allusional, and cross-referential items. Two disadvantages: you may at times feel put upon by Feidelson's interlarded interpretations, and the thing is totally out of print. The footnotes for the most part are skimpy and confined to obscure vocabulary, not cultural and literary allusions, but there is a good dictionary of sea terms. by Bentley, although the American publisher, Harper & Row, was already in possession of the MS. Melville took that MS and made many corrections, and this became the British edition! Melville's corrected MS was additionally bowdlerized by Bentley's editors, so the final product does indeed contain many differences from the Ur-text (the one published later, by Harper & Row). Sleuthing this out is in fact the foundation of most Moby Dick textual criticism, a field that, incidentally, has seen better days. This would be an easy question to resolve if we found that MS corrected in Melville's hand. In cases where it's not clear whether it was Melville or the censors, there'll be a little sidebar at the bottom of the page. THESE HAVE A FOOTNOTES SECTION IN THE BACK OF THE BOOK: * The "Oxford World Classics" edition. Note that recent printings of this have been including the famous illustrations by Rockwell Kent, which are often deemed never to have been surpassed. ISBN: 0-14-03-9084-7 (This is their paperback edition, which looks totally different but is exactly the same as the previous entry. Penguin previously came out with an identical-looking but much thicker version annotated by Harold Beaver: the notes for that edition were copious, but on the whole too fanciful and self-indulgent to be of much use.). Note there are also maps and an impressive glossary of nautical terms, making this final incarnation a worthy purchase. For example, when Melville writes, "send Lazarus that he may dip the tip of his finger," the footnotes -- the incidence of which is not marked in the running text -- merely says "Luke 16:24". So I would characterize the footnotes as sparse and taciturn: they'll clue you in to the source, but as for the exact wording of something and its accumulated historical connotations, you've got to come up with those yourself. In any event, the following publishers have decided you'd prefer your white whale raw. * The handsome “Fall River Press” edition, found often in the B**** & N**** discount bin. In addition to being cheap, it can boast the following advantages: the text shows up clean and seamless on your Kindle, without a lot of blank lines, words running together, or other ills consequent upon certain publishers scanning in public domain works. Big problem with this edition is that the explanatory links aren’t hyperlinked to the text, meaning that, at least with current Kindle technology, you’ll have to manually re-search the text to get back to where you started from."
Best Morrison, Toni
Staring unflinchingly into the abyss of slavery, this spellbinding audio transforms history into a story as powerful as Exodus and as intimate as a lullaby. I can’t imagine American literature without it.” —John Leonard, Los Angeles Times. “A triumph.” —Margaret Atwood, The New York Times Book Review. “Toni Morrison’s finest work. [It] sets her apart [and] displays her prodigious talent.” — Chicago Sun-Times. An extraordinary work.” — The New York Times. Resonates from past to present.” — San Francisco Chronicle. “A brutally powerful, mesmerizing story. “Toni Morrison is not just an important contemporary novelist but a major figure in our national literature.” — New York Review of Books. “A work of genuine force. Beautifully written.” — The Washington Post. “There is something great in Beloved : a play of human voices, consciously exalted, perversely stressed, yet holding true. a glorious book.” — The Baltimore Sun. A profound and shattering story that carries the weight of history. rich, provocative, extremely satisfying.” — Milwaukee Journal. Toni Morrison has become one of America’s finest novelists.” — The Plain Dealer. A lasting achievement.” — The Christian Science Monitor. “Written with a force rarely seen in contemporary fiction. One feels deep admiration.” — USA Today. Morrison shakes that brilliant kaleidoscope of hers again, and the story of pain, endurance, poetry and power she is born to tell comes right out.” — The Village Voice. “A book worth many rereadings.” — Glamour. “In her most probing novel, Toni Morrison has demonstrated once again the stunning powers that place her in the first ranks of our living novelists.” — St. Louis Post-Dispatch. “Shattering emotional power and impact.” — New York Daily News.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"My least favorite Toni Morrison work, but she's so amazing that it's still good."
"How can one say anything except you do not know whAt you are missing if you do not read her."
"Great book."
"Toni Morrison's writing is beautiful, complex and a treat to read."
"This is the first book I have read by Toni Morrison."
"Draws you in from the first chapter."
Best McCaffrey, Anne
Never had there been as close a bonding as the one that existed between the daring and adventurous young Lord Jaxom and his extraordinary white dragon, Ruth. Anne McCaffrey, the Hugo Award-winning author of the bestselling Dragonriders of Pern® novels, is one of science fiction’s most popular authors.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"As for the Kindle Edition of this book, I am sorely disappointed in the typographical errors. The Kindle Edition is a sad disservice to the readers and fans of Anne McCaffery."
"The Dragonriders of Pern sets the example for a different kind of Science Fiction adventure, in fact, you will begin by thinking it is Fantasy, but it isn't. Millennia pass and the descendants of the humans begin learning the truth about everything except why this planet, with so many dangers, was chosen...Parallel Earth, Resources Negligible."
"I really enjoyed the story of the teen Jaxom and his unique white dragon Ruth as Jaxom came to terms with his status of one day being the Lord of Rutha hold, a dragon rider but not in the same capacity of other dragon riders."
"Her world-building, characters, animals, etc., are also just so magical that you can get lost in the stories, which is a good reason to read in this stressful world of ours."
"In addition, it was, at the time, a novel and interesting combination of fantasy set-up with good sci-fi world building and characters with some depth."
"The first of the Pern books does an excellent job of setting the scene and the environment for the Pern series."
"I am starting again at the beginning and Ann Mccaffery still transports to another world just like the very first time."
"The relationships between the dragons and their riders are wonderful and deep, and the greatest dangers they face together during Threadfall (the spores) stem as much from centuries of lost lore as the actual Threads themselves."
Best McMurtry, Larry
Riding with Call are an Eastern city slicker, a witless deputy, and one of the last members of the Hat Creek outfit, Pea Eye Parker, now married to Lorena -- once Gus McCrae's sweetheart. Accompanied by an inappropriate railroad accountant from Brooklyn, a reluctant Texas deputy and gangling, awkward Pea Eye Parker (who is trying to give up the Ranger life and settle down to farming and family with the lovely ex-whore Lorena), Call sets off, roaming the border country in his competent, unassuming fashion. As in some great 19th-century saga, the story has more than its share of improbable coincidences--people meeting fortuitously in thousands of square miles of empty territory, hearing vital news at appropriate and inappropriate moments--but these seem only mild contrivances to shape a story packed with action, terror, humor and pathos.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"Next to Lonesome Dove, this one comes second. I felt the love that she and Pea shared in a way that Gus could never have had with her."
"I would have awarded five stars, but there was so much background given to each character that really wasn't necessary to the story."
"But, I must say, because of McMurtry's masterful style it was a satisfying read; and if one did not read LD this novel would be easily an excellent achievement."
"BUT it also makes you think to remember how each character was in book 2 and 3. some times it did not make sense but still worth the read."
"I loved Lonesome Dove - McMurtry is an excellent writer taking the reader inside of the action where emotions, pain, fury all can be felt."
"It just doesn't measure up to the other three."
"Of all McMurtys books on Lonesome Dove the original is the best as in most sequels later I wish I had not read but this one is the best of the bunch My recommendation read this and go no further His further writings are disgusting imagery and violent."
"My next read is Telegraph Days, and I'm sure I will get the same enjoyment out of it as all the other McMurtry books."