nitroglycerin's Reviews (952)

I feel like this book has suffered from mediocre voice actor and diverted attention syndrome. 

Initially I was confused as to what the hell was actually happening to this guy with a weird name and the town he ends up living in. Soon after I figured out the gist, (good vs evil, big disaster to avert), I felt I was missing important information. It wasn’t that the information wasn’t given, but that my brain was not paying attention. 

I have however continued to listen to the following books in the trilogy so it can’t have been that bad can it? 
Would benefit from a reread/listen which I often do with audiobooks more than physical reads. 

This was a surprise!

I got this book as my free bonus audiobook through audiobooks.co.uk (a great alternative to audible), because their free books are often bottom of the barrel weird stuff and this was recent and by a well known author! So I thought why not. 

Truly a surprise to have enjoyed it as much as I did. I don’t really know what I was expecting, but a story of a man thinking back to his first love, and the summer surrounding it, how it ultimately changed him was left me with a warm feeling and pretty much that’s all that matters to me. 

Hero’s was a delight to listen to. Fry makes these stories accessible while bringing them to life with such vigour, it’s hard to know whether to believe they happened exactly as described or not. 

Insanely relatable for someone in their early thirties. 

Even if plants and nature aren’t your thing, you can understand how clinging to something as simple as gardening can be the one thing that holds you together while everything else in your life is in flux. For many of us here on the storygraph it’s books, for Alice it was gardening. 

Ever wanted to know more about Greek myths but found the idea way to daunting? This is the book for you. 

Accessible, enjoyable and thoroughly entertaining, Fry narrates the audiobook himself bringing the characters to life in the way that only he can. 
While I can’t say I remembered everything, I’ll definitely listen again to enjoy Fry’s soothing voice while trying to retain more mythical knowledge. 

I wonder, now he’s finished his Greek myths trilogy, if he’ll move onto other mythologies... 

The award for most misleading title goes to this book. 
This book should be called “how I excuse all my MP mates of not really getting much done and what they do isn’t done properly”
I was fully expecting a critical book on the failings of leadership in the distant and more recent past too. There would be a lot of material there, but that is not what this book is. 

Don’t get me wrong, Hardman gives a very easy to understand overview of how the UK’s political system works, and indirectly impresses the desperate need for reform, especially with the House of Commons and the day to day work of the MP’s. They are busy. They are “normal” people elected to do a difficult job that never stops. They are so busy they make mistakes.
However I feel like Hardman excuses a lot of politicians for their mistakes, especially conservative MP’s. This could be my own negative bias, but this was my perception of the book. 
It didn’t therefore surprise me to find out that Hardmans parter is an MP. And while he is currently independent, he left labour and advocated for conservatives in recent elections, so her rather more scathing opinion of labour (and Lib Dem’s) didn’t surprise me, nor her scathing evaluation on how the MPs work-life balance is non existent. 
Either way, many people will find this a fascinating read, just be prewarned it is not the book you would expect based on the title. 

Ad/pr/gifted copy 

Memoirs are hard to review. How do you review someone’s life. 

Gospel of the eels is the memoir of a man and his relationship with his father. 
And Eels. 
I have learned so much about eels that it was 100% worth the book for that reason. Svensson had thoroughly brought so much research and history about eels together in one place, weaving the facts and historical stories in with his memories of his father. 

This is exactly the type of nature book I appreciate and have to thank Picador books for the gifted copy. 

The penultimate volume of GD and it broke my heart. 

100% must listen.

So much to absorb, process and accept. Fascinating, harrowing and disturbing.
We must do better and learning is only the beginning.

I do think Stamped was a much better listen however the two books go hand in hand. 

L