Audiobook Books

I must admit that when I first began listening to this audiobook I did not care for the narrator's voice. After I made it to the second disk I began to more fully realize what a talented voice actor he actually was, and the remaining 28 disks or so were a great joy. His narration is delivered in a clear and warm manner and each character is given an unique voice and inflection. I will never be able to imagine Fyodor Pavlovitch Karamazov sounding any other way (Father Zossima as well). As far as the content of the book is concerned, The Brothers Karamazov is hands down one of the finest novels ever written. If you have never read it, this audiobook is well worth your time.

I followed the instructions of doing a lesson every day but have to admit that the language is hard so I did one lesson in the morning on the way to work and then the next lesson on the way home - the next day I did the previous evenings lesson again - although this was only basic Czech I found that it was the perfect introduction for my first of many trips to the Czech Republic - This comes HIGHLY recommended for an introduction to the language.

I own language programs for French, German, Japanese, Spanish and American Sign Language, and the Pimsleur program for Czech is my favorite. I am not bored working through this auditory learning only program, and I find that even after going days without listening to the CDs, I have not forgotten any of what I have learned. For the first time, I really think I will finally be able to learn a second language and "keep" it. This is BASIC conversation with no books and reading or writing to mess with, yet I believe this program teaches you everything you would need to know if you were to actually go to Czechoslovakia. I bought the program as a marketing aid for me in my farmers market business because (1) I am half Czech and always wanted to learn the language and (2) there are many elderly Czech customers at our farmers market who may feel more comfortable with a vendor who speaks the language they grew up with. A very good buy at a reasonable price.

Not as good as some of the other products I have bought to help me learn Czech. I like to see what I speaking as well as hear it. No software just audio. I like to have both so I can speak and read it. My primary goal is to read and understand. As it will help me greatly to be able to translate my own Czech Documents for Genealogy.

I would not recommend this product for those wanting to be able to read it as well as to speak Czech.

I started listening to the cd's in my car on the drive to and from work, a total of 40 minutes a day and after the first week I was extremely confident in what I have learned so far. Having never spoken a work of Czech it's very easy to learn.

I can only recommend this product as a supplement to a written text. It really doesn't work well as a stand-alone product, largely because of the poor pronounciation in places. There are many places where it sounds like the speakers are adding whole syllables to the ends of words that aren't there, or they don't clearly enunciate other parts of words (I was hearing "ste" instead of "jste" consisently, "rozumima" instead of "rozumim", etc.)

It's a pity, because the slow pace and repetition really does work for building vocabulary. The pacing is such that it really only takes one or two listens to each roughly 30-minute lesson to build the vocabulary. I was hoping that this was going to be good enough for me to unreservedly go ahead and buy the big expensive set, but I'm strongly disinclined to do so with the problems with the recorded voices here.

Wayne Dyer again presents us with another piece of inspired writing that helps lift your soul from the shadows of darkness to the light of day. This book, Being in Balance is a tool needed for many to get their mind and attitude right. It empowers you to cleanse the negative and self-doubting thoughts that consistently prevent you from achieving your dreams and aspirations. In chapter six,"You can't discover light by analyzing the darkness", reinforces the dilemmas and barriers we place in front of us that prevent us from achieving prosperity, whether monetarily or spiritually.
If you are lost and looking for direction this book is a great guide to bring your life back into balance.

After 20 years, it shouldn't be hard for him to come up with this stuff, but nonetheless, this little gem is got all the right principles, in an easy to read and delicious to feel little book. Almost a mini-reference manual. I recommend it.

I am a firm believer that everything happens for a reason! This book fell into my lap through an incredible offer from a television home shopping network - one which whom I never pay any mind to. However, after reading and loving "The Power of Intention", which was my first real exposure to Dr Dyer, the message that he would be featured on the show piqued my interest and got me to tune in.

It doesn't end there though. I didn't dive in to the book immediately upon receipt - was I not ready for it yet? Hmmm...

So a few weeks went by and in the meantime I happened to see the recently released movie "The Secret". One word to describe it, "WOW"! I was and continue to be blown away!

So out of the 10 or so books that I had on deck to read, this book "Being in Balance" kind of jumped off my shelf at me - Why? I didn't know, but I pick it up and started reading it.

One by one thoughts and concepts passed on by the author just seemed to resonate with me - Do you know that `popping' sound when something just clicks with you?

This was the quintessential "right book at the right time" for me. It not only solidified some concepts that I just picked up from "The Secret" but it simplified and expanded my understanding of them.

It became even more evident to me that Dr. Dyer is simply tuned in! I'm about to embark on another book by him called "Inspiration" and I'm just thrilled with anticipation!

I set this on the coffee table and pick it up periodically to read a chapter. It is short and to the point. Wish I had this a year ago.It helps me daily. Thanks you Dr. Dyer!

This is an awesome book. I have read it many times and it has had a profound effect on my life and wellbeing. I have given it as a gift to many friends and they all say "Bravo" also.

I agree that the sound of her voice is a big plus when studying her teachings. I have read "Start Where You Are" but I get so much more from her work when I hear her give her spiritual and practical advice.

These two CDs are nearly identical to sessions three and five in the "Noble Heart" set. If you have that great "self-guided retreat" already, these are unnecessary...but if you don't, I think this is an excellent introduction to the concepts (Maitri, root of happiness, root of suffering, meditation, and compassion) covered. I think I prefer listening to her read her books to the recorded retreat lectures (the one I get the most out of right now is: "When Things Fall Apart") but don't let that stop you.

Several of her (audio) books and lectures are getting a new release in the next couple months, so now is a perfect time to explore Tibetan Buddhism and the wonderful work of this great teacher.

Pema Chodron has a wonderful voice and way of "telling".
It is easy to follow her through this journey from fear to fearlessness.
She brings tremendous concepts back to the basic realities of life.

This 2-cassette set reflects the author's usual warmth, humor, kindliness, and down-to-earth approach to improving one's life through Buddhist means. This set focuses on the 4 Immeasurables or limitless qualities: Maitri (loving-kindness), compassion, joy, and equanimity. She points out where her master, Trungpa Rinpoche digressed from the literal meanings of these four in practice as well as certain modifications suggested by the great 14th century master, Longchenpa (Longchen Rabjam). For example, the latter suggested meditating upon equanimity to stabilize prior to sending out loving kindness etc. Embedded in the technique is to send these 4 out consecutively, but within each "sending" to first apply it to someone you care about, then a neutral, then someone you mildly dislike (building up to stronger feelings), and finally to everyone. For example, compassion is the wish that everyone be free of suffering and the cause of suffering. Trungpa Rinpoche's modifications include: joy being the appreciation of peoples' basic goodness. Ani Chödrön's (she is a Buddhist nun, thus the title Ani) wonderful turns of phrase include: "We look for strength in what weakens us," "We've gotten really good at making matters worse," and seeking happiness without a hangover. My only problem with this set is that it's too short! Also, since it doesn't include the practice of Tonglen and some of her other main teachings, I'd recommend the 6-tape "Awakening Compassion" or "Noble Heart" set over this one. It includes virtually all of this one plus much more-but then it's longer and costs more. If you haven't had the great uplifting joy of experiencing Pema Chödrön's tapes, this would be a fine one to start with. She's also written a number of fine books (e.g. "Places that Scare You") and has a terrific video entitled, "Good Medicine."

Pema Chodron presents meditation techniques that require very little experience with meditation and are easily accessible to anyone who wants to learn to transform pain into love.

In a world filled with suffering, it can at times be overwhelming to balance your emotions so you can affect change. By understanding our own fears, we can then address some of the root causes of our unhappiness. This CD introduces some intriguing concepts and solutions and presents the following topics for discussion:

Mindfulness and Maitri
What is the root cause of happiness and suffering?
Unlimited joy
Compassion
The Enemies of Compassion
Introduction to the Practice of Compassion

A guided Maitri session is included on both CDs. I love how Pema Chodron honors her teachers by giving credit where credit is due. She explains what she was taught and effectively translates ancient teachings and stories into methods for modern application.

With warmth and wisdom Pema Chodron shows the way to a more flexible, open life filled with love and compassion. She says that often we look for strength in what weakens us. An intriguing concept!

Through mindfulness and meditation practice (more like a visualization than complete solitude and she guides you through the process), you can more attuned and receptive.

I love her idea about using words and actions to make things better, but it isn't always easy. Patience is one of the qualities you have to develop to follow these teachings and to get to a place of peace, there is suffering. Even after peace, there is some suffering, but you may be able to turn the suffering into creativity and make it an energy you use for good. It can be a very empowering moment when you start to turn negativity into healing.

You can start to use the meditation techniques immediately in daily life and they have many applications. In a fight with someone you love or even in a disagreement with a stranger - Learn how to calm the situation and take back control of your emotions.

What is the root of suffering?
What causes happiness to grow?

The answers make perfect sense, but take time to put into practice. I can highly recommend this CD set to anyone who is making meditation a part of their life. Pema Chodron is an American Buddhist nun, but her wisdom has universal appeal. This seems to be the recording from the session on DVD called: Good Medicine. I can recommend both and you may also enjoy watching the DVD to learn more about Tonglen meditation.

~The Rebecca Review

I like Pema's books because they are full of simple, no nonsense advice for daily living, but when I hear her voice which was how I was initially introduced to her on PBS t.v. something magical takes place for me. She has so much compassion and humor and a deep empathy for the human condition that comes across in a very embracing way when she speaks. Her words resonate for me and every time I replay one of her CDs I hear something new or I hear an interpretation I hadn't heard the last time. You'd think a CD would grow old but hers don't, for me. Maybe it's that I'm a 52 yr. old single career mom with a love of nature and a drive to find balance in my world that draws me to her. Whether she's speaking about getting along with coworkers or on how to handle depression, I'm right there soaking up her wisdom and kindness. Learning to love myself has been a focus of mine for a few years and her teachings are instrumental on my path...I always find a new teacher JUST when the timing is perfect. Many of my friends have started listening to her as well.

Sacks books are enjoyable and informative reading, but this one just didn't tell me what I bought it to learn. Uncle Tungsten, by contrast, made my friends ask "WHY are you reading THAT?!?" Well, I'm a chemist, but the anecdotes made that book a delight.
I had hoped Musicophilia would give more insight as to the interplay between musical melody and lyrics, that occipital-temporal thingy. Maybe we just don't know the answers to why people must sing along while others are annoyed by it, why relative or perfect pitch work, and what elicits the emotional response to chord structures and dissonance.
Instead, I found the book to be rather clinical (no faulting Sacks on that one) and entainingly anecdotal (why his work is popular) but not insightful with regard to musical and amusical issues.
Still worth reading this and all his books! This one didn't move me.

Sacks looks at music and the neurological basis for music within the mind. He presents a variety of case studies.

People who are obsessed with music, some born so and others becoming so late in life. We read of victims of dementia who have lost all mental functions but somehow keep a sense of self through music. We read of an amnesiac man with no memory stretching beyond the moment yet who can play long pieces from memory. Victims of Williams syndrome who have very low IQs but are highly social, very outgoing, and genuine lovers of music.

And we are told of people with odd conditions but who are otherwise perfectly normal. A woman with perfect pitch, who can play instruments well, but who doesn't care or emotionally react to music at all. A woman for whom music has absolutely no meaning: any tune is to her no different than the clanking of pots and pans thrown on the floor. A man who cannot stop musical hallucinations from coming unbidden. People with synesthesia who see colours whenever music plays and who associate specific colours with specific notes.

Sacks presents all his case studies in such a way as to convey what these people feel like. Here and there he sprinkles slightly technical concepts, such as the location of the brain's speech centers behind the left ear, how lesions in this or that area can release musical activity, how blindness can induce strong auditory hallucinations because the now unused visual areas of the cerebral cortex are taken over by auditory functions. Through these technical details we come to discover hints of how our brain creates our mind and how music in most of us is deeply embedded in our sense of self.

Vincent Poirier, Tokyo

Oliver Sacks has written many books for lay people. As they all are, this book is informative, interesting, funny, personal. It shows how important music is to humankind. In case vignettes and in discussion Sacks shows how music affects us positively and sometimes, alas, negatively. It is throughout very compelling.

I received the book I ordered very promptly. It was in excellent condition just as stated by the seller. Thank you for such good service.

Whenever my daughter has a tune in her head that she can't shake, she has an interesting solution. "Turn on the radio," she says, "I gotta hear some different music." In effect, she tricks her brain and diverts it from one musical function to another. In this his tenth book, Oliver Sacks, Professor of Clinical Neurology and Psychiatry at Columbia University, explores how the brain processes music. As in his other books, Sacks compiles dozens of "clinical anecdotes." These are informal, inherently fascinating, and deeply human case histories of his patients. In addition, he shares at length from letters that he has received, scientific studies, the results of brain imaging techniques, and his own personal experiences.

Rooted in his own deep love for and skill in music, Sacks examines how music impacts "almost every aspect of brain function." If that sounds far-fetched, consider the range of his topics. There's musical imagery, whereby you "listen" to a tune in your mind even though there is no sound. As experience shows, this can be either voluntary or involuntary, sometimes an obsession or even something like a "possession" by the music. A long chapter explores "musical hallucinations." There are forays into amusia, dystimbria, dysharmonia, perfect pitch, and musical savants. He analyzes the relationship of music and blindness, music and color, music and speech, Parkinson's disease, Tourette's syndrome, dreams and dementia. Sometimes musicophilia results from a seizure; at other times music induces a seizure.

Sacks's book is an extended case study of the brain-mind relationship. And most mysterious of all is the question whether music even has any meaning. "While [music] is most closely tied to the emotions, music is wholly abstract; it has no formal power of representation whatever. We may go to a play to learn about jealousy, betrayal, vengeance, love -- but music, instrumental music, can tell us nothing about these. Music can have wonderful, formal, quasi-mathematical perfection, and it can have heartbreaking tenderness, poignancy, and beauty. . . But it does not have to have any 'meaning' whatever" (37). Such is the mystery of music, that although it conveys no inherent meaning, no one would question its power.

Nicholas Sparks is one of the few writers that make you stop and savour his words, his sentences....He is an amazing writer that grabs you from the very beginning. The Notebook is one of those books that you can read over and over again...It is a classic and a must have in your book shelf. JUST AMAZING!!!

I read the book before seeing the movie. My daughter had advised me not to attend the movie in the theater, but to wait til it was on DVD because she felt it would be too emotional for me. Though the story is a bit thin at places and the characters are sometimes a bit cliche, I still loved the book and the movie. I cried through both of them because my mother died with Alzheimer's Disease. My father was a devoted caregiver to her throughout her illness. For someone trying to cope with the effects of this disease on the family, this movie can be very moving. It reminds you of what you have lost, but it also stirs up those happy memories from the past.

The book The Notebook was very good. it had a very good message to it which was to listen to your heart. When you are stuck in a situation that needs solving, you listen to your heart and do what you think is best. When Allie went and visited Noah, and became close to him, she didn't know what to say to her husband, Lon, about it.

What was Nicholas Sparks thinking when he wrote this book?

*Let me tap into the minds of lonely heartbroken women all over the world.

*Let me add a new age man who reads poetry and pours out his feelings in letters.

*Let me re-create the classic lovestory with a dose of Bridges of Madison county (which should have been shorter, as in should never have been written in the first place)

I loved the movie and was dying to read the book. It is AWFUL. Sugary sweet with no real story or depth.

How can any one read this shallow garbage and cry?

I am shocked that the author signed a $1 million publishing deal and then went on to write more sugary sweet garbage. His only half decent book is 'Message in a bottle' but there is only so many times you can write a boy meets girl, boy and girl fall in love, boy loses girl, boy or girl die love story before its gets ridiculous.
Sparks wants the 'pulitizer prize' now. How?
He writes nothing more than trashy chicklit.

I think the 'Horse Whisperer' by Nicholas Evans is so much more classy, now there's a male author who can write a love story.
Not everyone would agree with me.

Sparks seems like a great guy but he is a terrible author.

This book was so beautiful, I couldn't put it down. If only we all could find a love like this once in a lifetime, and hang onto it!

The book has its moments , but overall the humor is too contrived. The jokes are obvious and predictable. I think the writers at The Onion do a much better job of political satire/humour. You should read "Our Dumb Century" which is far more humorous and insightful.

Fantastic book! I'm a huge fan of Jon Stewart (I hope he reads this!!).
The professor's comments were interesting, necessary, but could have been more 'in line' with the text, that is, more humorous. Sometimes they were too long, in my opinion.
Love the picture on the cover too. Overall, this book must be read.

This book is hilarious satire, and it reminds me of why I used to love the Daily Show. The show always did a great job of satirizing current events, and this book picks up where the show left off, satirizing things that don't fall so neatly into the "current events" category. It is probably funnier if you have at least some knowledge of American and World history, because you just won't get some of the jokes if you don't. Also, I'd like to add that you can enjoy this book even if you aren't a left-leaner, because it was written before the 2004 election - in other words, before Jon Stewart sold out his comedic integrity for partisanship and changed his show from picking on America to picking on Republicans.

I'll make it quick. It is a book, which makes you at least giggle, or laugh aloud from the first to the last page. It is a great satiric masterpiece, on the american policy, of the new century !!! Do not forget to buy two dice. That is the only thing NOT included in this book. Have fun.

Just like a book from Barnes & Noble. Perfect Quality. No issues. No complaints. Delivered before it was supposed to be and arrived early. Great!

Hearing the Little House stories in audio bring them to life. I noticed things in the stories I didn't catch by just reading them. I can listen to them anywhere now.

The 15th Club is an excellent book for players at any level.
It will definately help your score and your ability to enjoy the game.

JR Cash was one of the most fantastic men to ever live, and he gave the world the gift of his voice; through song, tv and now this: an audio recording of the NKJV bible.
I got this for Christmas and it really helps make reading the bible easier. Cash has the perfect voice for this, and it isn't all flashy, Johnny makes it fantastic without all that Hollywood crap.
I never thought I would own an audio bible until i saw this, and now I will never even have to think of getting another!

No one can read the Word like Johnny Cash! This is not Easy Listening Music, but it is easy listening! Thank you Johnny Cash!

This is a great audio Bible. No distractions, just the Word of God being read aloud. I find it odd to have a Bible that is covered with pictures of Johnny Cash - I got it because I wanted an audio Bible that was not dramatized and did not have music. All the other voices I previewed sounded really annoying to my ears. Johnny Cash had an excellent reading voice and is easy to listen to.

Here's what absolutely amazes me about Johnny Cash -- and the reason that, after more than 30 years in journalism, I have to admit I still have such an emotional reaction to this country singer -- is that his famous struggles with temptation and faith have directly crossed over to the next generation.

There's something as honest as a razor blade about Cash. His "man in black" garb clearly wasn't merely a costuming choice for his stage act. His concern for the poor and marginalized clearly wasn't just another star's hobby. In fact, I went back and purchased DVDs of some of Cash's TV shows, because I'm so intrigued by this man, this artist, this man of faith.

I own dozens of Bibles and a half dozen audio Bibles -- but it's the Cash disks that keep winding up in my van with me when I'm traveling. There's nothing flashy in this recording, which was done back in the 1990s and doesn't have any of the Hollywood special effects that are popular in current audio Bibles.

This is the New King James Version so some of the phrases sound a little stilted to our ears, unless we've stayed with this majestic old rendering throughout our lives. But that's not a bad thing. I'm not a King James reader, on a regular basis, but there's something about the poetry of this particular translation -- coming to my ears in that voice of The Man in Black, knowing some of the incredible spiritual journey that he pursued through these years -- and the overall effect is mesmerizing.

My husband received Johnny Cash Reading the Complete New Testament for Christmas. He has been enjoying it very much. He no longer has trouble falling asleep at night. He just turns a CD on and falls asleep within minutes. I would recommend this product to others.