A wonderful production on Audible. Great narration. It’s always a bit weird though, because I wonder how abridged it is, if at all, and they almost never seem to say.

I had no idea this book was even coming and yet as soon as I did I had more anticipation than the much lauded Greenlights of last year. And no disrespect to that, but in all the ways that memoir is shallow, this one is not.

Incredible. I’d listen to Byrne narrate anything at all, let alone his memoir. He speaks with the diction of the source material he’s consumed his whole life, almost inadvertently turning a profound phrase.

Structurally, it’s very engaging too. Rather than strictly chronological, we sift through memories that feel like they springboard off one another but pay no mind to time whatsoever. And I like that a lot. We know, more-or-less, where he is now. This is no Hollywood story; every memory is steeped in honesty and the sum feels like an Irish catholic confessional.

He is literally stalked by a supposed fan after speaking about alcoholism. The fear of the stage and the death of a mother. Hope and a dream that his parents are alright. The connective tissue is a story in of itself. The roles he has taken, if you know some that are never even mentioned, make a lot more sense, even.

What must playing a psychiatrist years later after witnessing someone subjected to electroshock therapy be like.

Byrne says he had heard that all songs you love in youth break your heart when you’re old enough. What is a real haunting, if not that?

I can’t tell if this brought him any peace. It does seem he can sit in his dark room, at least.

You should, of course, listen to him narrate his own story. I feel like that goes without saying. He’s a stage actor. Just sit down and listen. You won’t regret it.

2 stars for the book, which, while different than the movie was interesting, also had more issues than the movie in other respects. However, Hathaway narrating it was incredible. I’d listen to her read anything. Wide range of voices and breathes life into even the lifeless.

Absolutely gorgeous prose. I don’t think I’ve read anything like this I could compare it to Nor have I even heard of “mountain literature”. I doubt I’ve ever witnessed any locations like this whatsoever, let alone have the diction to convey it, if I did. Will look at more of her work.

The whole time I somewhat imagined if there was any sort of Lord of the Rings-type fantasy that intersected with something like this. That would really be something. I haven’t read any fantasy that conveyed an ecosystem and land in this kind of way.

This is a little better, but is extremely tropey. It’s somewhat interesting that the main character works to interrupt tropes… if that is on purpose. But the byproduct of that is that the killer is just a caricature. It deflates tension because you know nameless will intervene. And though we are told he can only “sometimes” stop these bad things, just this premise alone means that traditional structure doesn’t work that well. The only question I have as a reader was: Will Nameless succeed? And that question enters near the end of the story, at the climax. Feels like everything is rather perfunctory.

Pretty fun little adventure. The show adapted it well, staying close to the material. Narration was good. Just an all around decent read.

Audible gave out an audiobook of the entire series on one book. I found this one to be pretty boring. Koontz’s description is better than I recall, while the premise is a bit interesting, it’s certainly nothing new. Kind of reminds me of the movie Next, with Cage. An amnesiac has some measure of clairvoyance and there’s some corrupt cops that get entangled with his storyline.

I’ll keep going because the entire thing is not long at all, but we will see how I get. If it weren’t free I’d definitely be out.

Exquisite interiority and prose that absolutely fly when spoken aloud. I dont have anything new to say about this but am very glad to have finally gotten to it.

I tried to find a version with the correct narrator: Jessie Buckley, but couldn’t find one. Must be an exclusive thing for the Virginia Woolf collection I purchased on there. It seems to be new as of March of this year only. Anyway, Buckley is a fantastic narrator. I just got my second covid shot yesterday and it knocked me on my butt. I’ve been layed up in bed since noon listening to audiobooks. Can’t believe they finally released 4 books, unabridged, for one credit. Lucked out.

Okay, it just got too stupid for me. A Stereotypical depiction of a woman, a twist that was dumb, and an uninteresting premise with this one. I’m not going to continue with this.