MMM: Uranium, Escape, Ninja Warrior
Late again, I know. But it's still Monday Morning somewhere!
The latest audio book I've listened to is Uranium: War, Energy and the Rock That Shaped the World, by Tom Zoellner. It's a really fascinating story, and the audio book is fairly well done. My one real quibble with it is the decision of the narrator to use "authentic" accents when reading quotes from interviews with the various figures in the story.
His accents are mostly okay, although his German tends to get mixed with a bit of Russian/Czech. The only powerfully bad one is his Aussie accent. Admittedly, it's a tricky accent to do, and I once knew a guy from Australia who had trouble keeping his own accent straight (of course, he moved to the U.S. when he was seven, so there's no question that he was faking it).
My thinking is, it's a nice idea to do the accents to break up some of the monotony of a narrator's voice, but if they're not really well executed, it detracts from the narrative. I don't call myself an expert on accents (though my friends say I'm quite adept), but I usually find that less is more.
By the way, it's an interesting book, especially if you're interested in the history of The Bomb, and what it means when a nation is "enriching" uranium, and that kind of thing.
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I've just read an early favorite for my Favorite Book of the Year, and it's my magic Number 30 for the year. There's just something nice about cresting that number. The book? Escape From the Deep: The Epic Story of a Legendary Submarine and Her Courageous Crew, by Alex Kershaw.
I'd heard that a film is in the works, and being a bibliophile, I just had to read the book first. It was utterly riveting. I stopped reading everything else and took it with me wherever I went. Couldn't put it down. I can't say enough about it. And I can't say any more without spoiling it, so if you read on, it's on your head.
Basically, the book covered the fourth and fifth (final) patrols of the USS Tang, the most decorated submarine of WWII. On the fifth patrol, the sub sank a number of enemy ships, but their final torpedo malfunctioned. It circled back and exploded on impact with the after section of the sub. The 300-foot sub sank in 180 feet of water (meaning it was at an angle for some time). A group of men escaped from the bridge, and another group escaped from the ocean floor after filling the ballast tanks to sink the boat the rest of the way. They were the only sailors to escape from a submarine during the war. To put that in perspective, some 3500 sailors were lost in subs during the war.
Of course, they escaped into enemy waters and were soon picked up by the Japanese. They spent nearly a year as POWs, albeit without being officially listed as POWs (in other words, the Japanese didn't play fair in their handing of them).
Like I said, it's just a completely riveting story. Tragic in parts, of course, since very few men escaped the sub at all. But the story of survival is amazing.
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Ethan and I have become fans of Ninja Warrior on G4. We spent quite a bit of time yesterday watching it (the Mariner's game wasn't coming through on FIOS, and then it was). If you're a fan of Wipeout, you'd probably love Ninja, because it's just way cooler. The challenges are larger in scale, and the competitors tend to be a step up from what you'll see on Wipeout (although the average Joe thing does make Wipeout interesting).
The best part, of course, is listening to the hyperactive Japanese announcer giving the play-by-play (as opposed to the snarky-American-doofuses on Wipeout). I like to think I could give Stage 1 a good run, but I probably couldn't. And Stage 2 would probably be the death of me. Fun to watch, though.
June 27th, 2009 - 10:08
This sounds really interesting. Something my husband would enjoy. Will put it on our wish list.