Endurance: Shackleton’s Incredible Voyage by Alfred Lansing #AudiobookReview #ThrowbackThursday

in Arctic & Antarctica History

Rosepoint Publishing: Five Stars

Book Blurb:

Experience “one of the best adventure books ever written” (Wall Street Journal) in this New York Times bestseller: the harrowing tale of British explorer Ernest Shackleton’s 1914 attempt to reach the South Pole.

This is a new reading of the thrilling account of one of the most astonishing feats of exploration and human courage ever recorded.

In August of 1914, the British ship Endurance set sail for the South Atlantic. In October 1915, still half a continent away from its intended base, the ship was trapped, then crushed in the ice. For five months, Sir Ernest Shackleton and his men, drifting on ice packs, were castaways in one of the most savage regions of the world.

Lansing describes how the men survived a 1,000-mile voyage in an open boat across the stormiest ocean on the globe and an overland trek through forbidding glaciers and mountains. The book recounts a harrowing adventure, but ultimately it is the nobility of these men and their indefatigable will that shines through.

My Review:

I always seem to be attracted to the old sailing ships and their stories, probably because of my grandfather’s stories, paintings, and poems. So of course I jumped on this as soon as I saw it. It didn’t disappoint.

There were a number of occasions on which I experienced deja vu. Well, not of mine, but that of another sailing story read and loved, The Wager by Davis Grann. Hard put to say which I loved the most—loved The Wager. And while there were striking similarities, each were very different stories, each told with heart-thumping descriptions landing you right in the middle of the men struggling to survive.

The story of the men of the British ship Endurance follows the historical chronicle of her as she set sail in August of 1914, more than one-and-a-half centuries after the story of The Wager, also a British vessel that left England in 1740.

The Endurance had a whole nother mission—that of an early attempt to cross the South Pole. But timing is everything and it definitely went wrong when the ship was trapped in ice, then crushed. How do men live on ice flows, much less survive a voyage of 1,000 miles in an open boat to habitation?

I would wager physically impossible, if not psychologically, except for one minor detail. The Captain. Ernest Shackleton.

Some credit must go to his men—there were no mutinies.

And no deaths. They all survived? Under those conditions for over a year? Yes.

The man was more than an optimist. He was a brilliant strategist and sailor, and he had good, smart men (27 of them) under his command. But no matter the worsening conditions, no matter the horrible mind-numbing weather enough to drive men mad, he continued with unflailing confidence. And his navigator—unbelievably guiding them to civilization with almost pin-point accuracy. Back then–

First to lose the ship, then to be divided into separate ice flows, through starvation, illnesses, blinding psychotic provoking weather patterns, sleep deprivation, and predators. Good grief, to survive one of these would be hero-inducing visions of invincibility. They fought it all together and won.

This tale of the odyssey was kept in journals by a number of the men and researched meticulously, bringing the story together. A Morgan Stanley video was released seven years ago on PBS called Dare to Survive: Shackleton’s Voyage of Endurance 2002. You might wish to watch.

There are a number of cringe-worthy chapters certainly more monumental than the chapter that describes their tearful decision to kill and eat their dogs, after them having been more than working companions. Yes, I know, I know.

They were starving.

Still, amazingly creative (aside from the dogs) in discovering ways and means for their survival and one you shouldn’t miss. I particularly recommend the audiobook beautifully performed by the narrator. Another instance of what the human body is capable of enduring.

Book Details:

Genre: Arctic & Antarctica History, Expeditions & Discoveries World History
Publisher: Blackstone Audio, Inc.
ISBN-13: ‎978-065-58792
ASIN: B0018DNFY6
Listening Length: 10 hrs 21 mins
Narrator: Simon Prebble
Publication Date: April 08, 2008
Source: Local Library (Audiobook Selections)
Title Links: Amazon-US
Amazon-UK

The Author: Alfred Lansing (July 21, 1921 – 1975) was an American journalist and writer, best known for his book Endurance (1959), an account of Ernest Shackleton’s Antarctic explorations. Bio from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. [Amazon\

Born in Chicago in Chicago, IL, in July, 1921, Lansing was an American journalist who wrote for Collier’s, among other magazines and was later an editor for Time, Inc. Books.

Alfred Lansing served in the US Navy from 1940-46. He received the Purple Heart for his wartime service.

Later he attended North Park College, 1946-48, Northwestern University, 1948-50.

Lansing became a member of the Scott Polar Research Institute, Cambridge, England in 1957. [Goodreads]

#ThrowbackThursday

Gone to Dust by Matt Goldman – #AudiobookReview – #TBT

Book Blurb:

Set in Minnesota, Gone to Dust is the debut private-eye murder mystery from Emmy Award-winning Seinfeld writer Matt Goldman.

A brutal crime. The ultimate cover-up. How do you solve a murder with no useable evidence?

Private detective Nils Shapiro is focused on forgetting his ex-wife and keeping warm during another Minneapolis winter when a former colleague, neighboring Edina Police Detective Anders Ellegaard, calls with the impossible.

Suburban divorcée Maggie Somerville was found murdered in her bedroom, her body covered with the dust from hundreds of emptied vacuum cleaner bags, all potential DNA evidence obscured by the calculating killer.

Digging into Maggie’s cell-phone records, Nils finds that the most frequently called number belongs to a mysterious young woman whose true identity could shatter the Somerville family – but could she be guilty of murder?

After the FBI demands that Nils drop the case, Nils and Ellegaard are forced to take their investigation underground, where the case grows as murky as the contents of the vacuum cleaner bags. Is this a strange case of domestic violence or something with far-reaching, sinister implications?

My Review:

Okay, yes. I was looking for an audiobook, a nice mystery, and the blurb sounded interesting. And of course, dropping the Emmy Award-winning Seinfeld writer’s name helped. (As it happens, however, that show was not one I watched.)

The setting is Minnesota in the winter and I was reading it in the upper Midwest before we slowly ground into spring, so thought I might identify. Only so far though. Minnesota is a whole nother winter.

I’m not sure what it was. Yes, you have to say covering a body in vacuum cleaner dust patiently gathered from hundreds of vacuum cleaner bags is unusual. Even Nils Shapiro, the “Scandinavian Jew” might have been considered an unusual character, certainly considering he still pined after his ex. (I often wondered why then she is an “ex.”)

Just not one that really grabbed me. Nils is a contradiction alright. He was trying for the police department when there was a change in the budget, so he managed to create a private detective agency. I guess he found a modicum of success as he is called by a police detective buddy to help him with his vacuum dust case.

For one, there are too many degrees of coincidence. Small town—okay—I get it. Everybody knows everybody or is a relative. There are red herrings, twists, and the plot involves Nils the man as much as the case. It isn’t too hard to figure out the perp. An easy read (or listen) and entertaining but it just didn’t have the tension sufficient for me to get excited.

I downloaded a copy of this audiobook from my local well-stocked library. These are my honest thoughts.

Rosepoint Publishing: Three point Five Stars

Book Details:

Genre: Jewish Literature, Private Investigator Mysteries
Publisher: Blackstone Audio, Inc.
ASIN: B074G4TM97
Listening Length: 7 hrs 24 mins
Narrator: MacLeod Andrews
Publication Date: August 15, 2017
Source: Local Library (Audiobook Selections)
Title Link: Gone to Dust [Amazon]

The Author: Matt Goldman is New York Times Best Selling author and Emmy Award-winning TV writer. He has been nominated for a Shamus Award and is a Nero Award Finalist. His TV credits include Seinfeld, Ellen, and The New Adventures of Old Christine.

#ThrowbackThursday

The Last Camel Died at Noon: The Amelia Peabody Series Book 6 by Elizabeth Peters – #Audiobook Review – #throwbackthursday

“…Emerson would have been the first to proclaim that we were a partnership, in archaeology as in marriage.”

Book Blurb:

The last camel is dead, and Egyptologist Amelia Peabody, her dashing husband, Emerson, and precocious son, Ramses, are in dire straits on the sun-scorched desert sands. Months before, back in cool, green England, Viscount Blacktower had approached them to find his son and his son’s new bride, who have been missing in war-torn Sudan for over a decade. An enigmatic message scrawled on papyrus and a cryptic map had been delivered to Blacktower, awakening his hope that the couple was still alive.

Neither Amelia nor Emerson believes the message is authentic, but the treasure map proves an irresistible temptation. Now, deep in Nubia’s vast wasteland, they discover too late how much treachery is afoot (and on camelback)…and survival depends on Amelia’s solving a mystery as old as ancient Egypt and as timeless as greed and revenge.

My Review:

Well, mercy! Wasn’t this an exercise in going back—way back?! We’re talking the 19^th Century with brilliantly minded Amelia Peabody who possesses a superior knowledge of Egyptology and archeology. As if that weren’t enough, she managed to discover Professor Radcliffe Emerson, a prominent Egyptologist in his own right and they married. Together, they managed to produce a son, Ramses, also another Mensa candidate, too smart for school and sometimes his own parents.

Apparently, twenty episodes in this series, I managed to come in on Book 6, main characters well established (although this could be read as a standalone), and superior child about ten(?). Written in very stilted English, appropriate for the period in style and moral practices (clean read), these two are a hoot.

Well, most of the time.

I must say I did tire of the disdain often laid on those whose IQ didn’t conform, but I did enjoy the intelligent and often educational descriptions of Egypt’s history. Such a vast knowledge deserved to be shared and was usually in an engaging and entertaining fashion—not as dry textbook info dump.

It’s written in a journalist style as if she were speaking to her readers. Indeed, she often stops to speak directly to her readers.

In this entry to the series, they cruise the Nile to Nubia to find an old acquaintance long since lost at the behest of the father. They’ll combine the expedition with the opportunity to explore or excavate new sites.

Along the way, however, they are tricked and abandoned after discovering the last camel was poisoned. They are quietly rescued to a lost city. Oh, the deliciousness! The atmospherics, discovering an ancient people, their way of life, and of course that two half-brothers are vying for the exulted high position. (Oops!) Obviously, there is a keen wit involved in the prose—just reread the name of the title—and the banter between husband and wife is priceless. Otherwise, it’s a long one and there are a few slow passages pocked here and there in an otherwise well-plotted and paced narrative.

I must mention a shout-out, however, for the narrator, Susan O’Malley, who neither stumbled nor slowed over 22 syllable words and pronunciations. Excellent job, and saddened to see both narrator and author now deceased.

I downloaded a copy of this audiobook from my local well-stocked library. These are my honest thoughts.

Book Details:

Genre: Historical Mysteries, Historical Mystery
Publisher: Blackstone Audio, Inc.
ASIN: B0001O34AI
Listening Length:
Narrator: Susan O’Malley
Publication Date: February 26, 2004
Source: Local Library (Audiobook Selections)
Title Link: The Last Camel Died at Noon [Amazon]

Rosepoint Publishing: Four stars

The Author: ELIZABETH PETERS, whose New York Times best-selling novels are often set against historical backdrops, earned a Ph.D. in Egyptology at the University of Chicago. She also writes best-selling books under the pseudonym Barbara Michaels. She lives in Frederick, Maryland.

[Goodreads]Elizabeth Peters is a pen name of Barbara Mertz. She also wrote as Barbara Michaels as well as her own name. Born and brought up in Illinois, she earned her Ph.D. in Egyptology from the University of Chicago. Mertz was named Grand Master at the inaugural Anthony Awards in 1986 and Grand Master by the Mystery Writers of America at the Edgar Awards in 1998. She lived in a historic farmhouse in Frederick, western Maryland until her death (August 2013).

The Narrator: [Goodreads] Susan O’Malley (1976–2015) was an internationally exhibited artist and curator based in the San Francisco Bay Area. As curator and print center director at the San Jose Institute of Contemporary Art, she worked with hundreds of artists and organized more than fifty exhibitions and public programs. As an artist, she made work that brings a sense of interconnectedness into our lives, from conversations with strangers to installations in public places. The impact of her work has traveled far and wide. O’Malley’s artwork has been exhibited in public projects across the United States—San Francisco, New York, Nashville—and around the globe in the United Kingdom, Poland, and Denmark. She exhibited at alternative spaces and cultural institutions including, in California, the Montalvo Art Center, Kala Art Institute, and Palo Alto Art Center, as well as the Contemporary Art Museum (Houston, TX), and the Parthenon Museum (Nashville, TN). Her participatory installation Finding Your Center, a collaboration with Leah Rosenberg, was recently featured in Bay Area Now 7 at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, and her project A Healing Walk is permanently installed at Villa Montalvo. The powerful optimism of her work lives on.

#ThrowbackThursday

Lies She Told by Cate Holahan – #Audiobook Review – #TBT

Lies She Told by Cate Holahan

Book Blurb:

Sometimes the truth is darker than fiction.

Liza Cole has 30 days to write the thriller that could put her back on the best-seller list. In the meantime, she’s struggling to start a family with her husband, who is distracted by the disappearance of his best friend, Nick. With stresses weighing her down in both her professional and her personal lives, Liza escapes into writing her latest heroine, Beth.

Beth is a new mother who suspects her husband is cheating on her while she’s home alone caring for their newborn. Angry and betrayed, she sets out to catch him in the act and to make him pay for shattering the illusion of their perfect life. But before she realizes it, she’s tossing the body of her husband’s mistress into the East River.

Then the lines between fiction and reality begin to blur. Nick’s body is dragged from the same river, and Liza’s husband is arrested for his murder. Before her deadline is up, Liza will have to face up to the truths about the people around her, including herself. If she doesn’t, the end of her heroine’s story could be the end of her own.

My Review:

EEK! Not one unreliable narrator but two? Wait a minute…A book within a book?

Maybe my fault, as I normally listen to my audiobooks while performing another task; gardening, cooking, cleaning, shopping. Big mistake here as the story begins at a rather slow pace, easy to fade in and out, and the narration by two similar voices wasn’t wholly easy to separate out which character was speaking.

First, Liza. She’s an author in a slump, on deadline, and sweating it. Beth is the main character of the book she is struggling with and it doesn’t help both are experiencing somewhat parallel stories. So each chapter alternates between the author and the MC in the book she’s writing and pretty soon it gets tougher to keep up with whose story we are currently following. Confusing.

Perhaps it’s just me, but I thought Beth was over-the-top whiney and got tired of her fighting tears all the time. Okay, she’s a new mom—there is such a thing as post-partum depression. But she’s just psychotic. This lady was in full-on post-partum separation and there were times when I feared for her infant.

Liza was still trying to get pregnant and scheming on how to get hubby in the sack for the next go-round with fertile timing. Enter unresponsive (cheating) husbands, the bast…ds. As I didn’t care all that much for either MC though, I couldn’t whip up sufficient empathy.

Lots of twists and turns took me half the chapter to sort out whose voice I was currently listening to when suddenly I became quite alarmed at what was happening. GEES, what had I missed??! I couldn’t believe it! Well, that got my attention and was also the point at which the lazy rhythm began to speed up.

I paid close attention then through the conclusion, but still my head was swirling, trying to separate the two storylines—make sense of it. And I wasn’t satisfied. Were all threads closed? I don’t think so.

It was a weird, often bewildering ride and I must admit to being hooked, entertained, and engaged. An unusual thriller for me—perhaps for you as well.

I received a copy of this audiobook from my local lovely library. These are my honest thoughts.

Book Details:

Genre: Psychological Thrillers, Suspense
Publisher: Blackstone Audio, Inc.
ASIN: B073WHSPC4
Listening Length: 9 hrs 54 mins
Narrator: Amy McFadden, Lisa Larsen
Publication Date: September 12, 2017
Source: Local Library (Audiobook Selections)
Title Link: Lies She Told [Amazon]

Rosepoint Publishing: Four stars

The Author: Catherine “Cate” Holahan is the USA Today bestselling author of The Widower’s Wife (August 2016), Lies She Told (Sept. 2017), Dark Turns (November 2015), and One Little Secret (July 9, 2019). An award-winning journalist and former television producer, her articles have appeared in BusinessWeek, The Boston Globe, The Record newspaper, and on many web sites. She is a graduate of Princeton University and lives in New Jersey with her husband, two young daughters, and sometimes-good dog.

TV Netflix Series Pieces of Her vs #Audiobook Pieces of Her by Karin Slaughter and Kathleen Early (Narrator) – #thriller

TV Netflix Series Pieces of Her vs Audiobook Pieces of Her by Karin Slaughter

Best Mystery, Thriller & Suspense

Intro

After having listened to the audiobook that I then learned would be a Netflix original, I patiently waited for this one to debut, which it did on Friday, March 4. Again, I’m flummoxed by the difference between the original story and the Netflix series.

So if it’s well-received as a book title or audiobook, did it also translate well to the small screen? If you’ve caught a few of my previous audiobooks versus Netflix series, you’ll note my continued bewilderment. Is this actually better? Or worse. A radical departure from the Virgin River while a faithful reproduction of Longmire. (And I really loved the characters on Longmire.)

As you’ve no doubt read or heard by now, Pieces of Her is the story of a daughter who is just discovering that her mother hasn’t always been the person she thought was her mom.

Pieces of Her the Netflix thriller was developed by Charlotte Stoudt and Lesli Linka Glatter. The director for all episodes (and there are eight in the first series) is Minkie Spiro who directed Downton Abbey and Better Call Saul and while I’ve not watched the former, a solid fan of the latter, so I was excited.

Netflix Series

Pieces of Her (in the co?) leading role is Toni Collette as Laura Oliver with Bella Heathcote as Andy Oliver (her daughter). There are a number of other actors, of course, my favorites being Omari Hardwick as Gordon Oliver and Gil Birmingham as Charlie Bass. There is a lineup of actors portraying Laura as a child and as an adolescent.

The series is adapted from the novel (same name) by Karin Slaughter who is also acting as a producer on the show.

Andy (Andrea) is celebrating a 30s birthday out with her mother, Laura, in beautiful coastal Belle Isle when the quiet serene atmosphere suddenly turns tragic. While Andy freezes in horror, Laura springs to action in the protection of her daughter and is soon forced to make a deadly decision.

That split-second automatic reaction to the situation changes their lives immediately and forever.

Laura is hurt but following triage medical attention clams up and refuses to speak to anyone; not to the police, her ex (Gordan), or to Andy. To Andy, however, she barks quick instructions to speak to no one and leave. She is handed some money, a burner phone, and car keys but no explanation. YAY! So far, so good.

Well, but Andy hasn’t been doing so well with her life though; aimless, living off her mother’s generosity in her mother’s garage apartment. So I’m not sure how she can be trusted to follow the instructions.

And she doesn’t.

My Thoughts

But now, is it just me? Or did the Netflix version veer into it’s own interpretation? The constant flashbacks crippled somewhat the timeline from Laura’s childhood to the present situation, introduction of all the backstories, new characters and twists that spins wildly with 70s US history. Indeed, at times spun completely out of coherence, forcing the viewer to catch up and make connections in later scenes.

While Toni Collette (Laura) made a heroic effort at portraying a horrific history and her effort at escape, her wretched persona got a bit tiresome. Andy, what can I say about poor, dear Andy; not the brightest daughter ever to be delivered from a pseudo-protest child.

3 stars three stars

Audiobook (Blurb)

The number-one international best-selling author returns with an electrifying novel of devastating secrets and hidden lives that probes the fraught relationship between daughters and mothers and the lengths we go to protect those we love.

What if the person you thought you knew best turns out to be someone you never knew at all? Andrea Cooper knows everything about her mother, Laura. She knows Laura has spent nearly her whole life in the small beach town of Belle Isle, Georgia; she knows Laura’s never wanted anything more than to lead a quiet, normal life in this conventional community; she knows Laura’s a kind and beloved speech pathologist who helps others; she knows Laura’s never kept a secret in her life. Andrea knows that Laura is everything she isn’t – confident, settled, sure of herself. Feeling listless, with no direction, Andrea, unlike Laura, struggles to find her way.

But Andrea’s certainty is upended when a visit to the mall is shattered by an act of horrifying violence that reveals a completely different side of Laura – a cool woman who calmly faces down a murderer. It turns out that before Andrea’s mother was Laura, she was someone completely different. For nearly 30 years she’s been hiding from the woman she once was, lying low in the hope that no one would ever find her. But now she’s been exposed, and nothing will ever be the same again.

The assailant was a mentally troubled, teenaged scion of Georgia law enforcement royalty, and now the police want answers about what really happened in those terrifying moments at the mall. Though she’s being scrutinized at every level of the criminal justice system and her innocence is on the line, Laura refuses to speak to anyone, including her own daughter. She pushes Andrea away, insisting it’s time for her to stand alone and make a life for herself. To save her mother, Andrea embarks on a desperate journey following the breadcrumb trail of her mother’s past. Andrea knows that if she can’t uncover the secrets hidden there, there may be no future for her mother…or her.

Filled with intriguing turns, surprising revelations, and a compelling cast of characters, Pieces of Her is Slaughter’s most electrifying, provocative, and suspenseful novel yet.

My Thoughts

Okay, by now the well-plotted storyline has been laid out more than once. When Andy witnesses her mother in action, she is both stunned by her actions and also suffering from the disastrous circumstances that forced her mother’s reaction. She is not capable of applying what she knows about her mother with the person who so deftly ended the appalling scene. It’s shocking.

I was hooked by those opening scenes, narrated well by Kathleen Early. I quickly compared many of the headlines of the 70s to the circumstances dibbled out in little dabs, building the tension and whipping the listener from mother to daughter. As the old saying goes, make no conclusions until all the facts are disclosed, but mercy, that could be sooo slow sometimes.

Mainly told in Andy’s POV, there are the backstories, flashbacks revealing another tiny morsel of truth. Or was it the truth? Who can you trust?

The truth, the reveal, when it finally came, came as a knowing relief and combined several theories in the complex plot meant to throw the reader/listener off.

The setting is beautiful, the characters’ depths varied, most not wholly sympathic, the dialogue often blue. I listened to False Witness last year, my introduction to the author and her graphic writing style, but had to try one more. Perhaps I’ll try one in her signature series next time, rather than a standalone thriller.

4 stars

Overall Impression

While I enjoyed the book, the tension, drama, and thrill of discovery, there were times when I lost all faith in Andy, finding her making questionable decisions more than once. I had too early formed an opinion of the circumstances, having lived through those years and headlines, and was shocked at the jaw-dropping reveal when it came. Still, I questioned some of Laura’s early handling of Andy and wondered how that might have been better.

The Netflix series, usually following their well-received formula, took a slightly different tack this time, throwing in Andy’s quick romantic interest (not unusual), but making a hash of the flashbacks. They generally work to create an equitable R-rated series, but missed building the tension this time like the book did.

This time my vote has to go to the author’s book—and it’s been out for some time–and can be found at your favorite retail outlet.

Book Details

Genre: Women Sleuth Mysteries, Police Procedural Mysteries
Publisher: Blackstone Audio, Inc.
ASIN: B07CLKPDWL
Listening Length: 16 hrs 5 mins
Narrator: Kathleen Early
Audible Release: August 21, 2018
Source: Local Library (Audiobook Selections)
Title Link: Pieces of Her [Amazon]

The Author: Karin Slaughter is one of the world’s most popular and acclaimed storytellers. Published in 120 countries with more than 35 million copies sold across the globe, her 21 novels include the Grant County and Will Trent books, as well as the Edgar-nominated COP TOWN and the instant NYT bestselling stand-alone novels PRETTY GIRLS, THE GOOD DAUGHTER, and PIECES OF HER. Slaughter is the founder of the Save the Libraries project—a nonprofit organization established to support libraries and library programming. A native of Georgia, she lives in Atlanta. Her stand-alone novel PIECES OF HER is in development with Netflix, starring Toni Collette, and the Grant County and Will Trent series are in development for television.