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The unabridged version is ridiculously expensive (unless you get it free when you sign up for gold) but I'd recommend A People's History of the United States by Howard Zinn if you want a solid chunk of rather depressing history. I'm only a few chapters in, but I'm finding it quite riveting so far. Also, because  here is the one star review:quote:I do not care for Zinn's bias. He seems to be in the blame America crowd. He wants to tell the story of every malcontent. To air the view of American society from the perspective of convicts on death row would give a horribly mangled impression of our culture. The greatness of America is not diminished by the evil acts that have occurred in our experience. The overall impact of the United States is one of profound greatness. We are a shining city on a hill. I do not desire to obsess on the thorns, I would rather appreciate the beauty and blessing of the rose. It's even funnier because the last half of the first chapter is Zinn specifically talking about the fact that the book is biased towards the downtrodden, and why he feels like they have an important perspective to offer. I am America and So Can You was a lot of fun too, though I'm not sure if the abridged version is worth it. Colbert's delivery holds up pretty well. The same is true of America: The Book. Also, seconding anything by David Sedaris.
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Apr 29, 2010 19:10
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pizzapotamus posted:The last time I took a road trip I listened to Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States read by Matt Damon (Will Hunting). This version covers only the 20th century, so it is abridged in that it skips 1492-1900, but there is also a new section appended which covers through the Clinton years. It's about 8 hours long. The full version read by Zinn's son is on audible, but it's sort of ridiculously expensive if you don't get the new membership discount.
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Jun 11, 2010 01:39
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Norm's book is good. I mean, if you like to hear Norm ramble. He can be an acquired taste. I'm mainly just pointing it out here because comedy books read by the authors are almost always great. No need to worry about getting the delivery wrong in your head and missing a joke.
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Sep 26, 2016 16:54
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Books 1-2 and 4-6 have excellent narration. They couldn't get the regular guy for book 3 and by all accounts the replacement sucks, but luckily enough they're actually re-recording three with the original one and expect to have it out in a couple months (E: 'by march' according to the tweet.)
NmareBfly fucked around with this message at 01:43 on Feb 15, 2017 |
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Feb 15, 2017 01:41
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I concur on Locke Lamora. Just finished it a few days ago. Not only does the narrator do a good job of giving everyone a distinctive voice, some of them get multiple accents! When they're running a con while posing as merchants from X or Y fantasyland, the narrator just rolls with it and gives people different diction.
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Apr 17, 2017 19:40
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Malazan works great for a RE read but I wouldn't recommend the audiobooks for a first time through. Too many weird names to keep track of. Fine in text when you can backtrack a little or check the list but in audio it'll all just mush together into apostrophe word salad. It's good for a second read though because it forces you to pay attention to everything including all the danm poems. On the other hand if you listen to the audio books second you'll realize you've been pronouncing literally everything incorrectly in your head for hundreds of hours. NmareBfly fucked around with this message at 18:16 on Aug 6, 2017 |
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Aug 6, 2017 18:14
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luscious posted:Should I listen to the first in the series or just jump into the sentient plants? Fire Upon the Deep is the first, Deepness in the Sky is a prequel and... mostly unrelated. They're both really good. Never did read Children of the Sky, maybe I will one of these days. How does FUtD work as an audiobook? It's been a long while since I read it but I recall there's a lot of galactic usenet posts with long headers that might be weird when read aloud. Similar to Excession by Banks, IIRC.
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Sep 24, 2018 13:52
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precision posted:The Third Policeman Does this work well with all the footnotes? It's an amazing book and holds a very special place in my heart -- a conversation about it at a bar is literally the reason my parents met (and hence kinda why I exist) but there are lots of footnote digressions that might not play well in audio?
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Jan 6, 2019 16:08
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