Birdseye: The Adventures Of A Curious Man (2012) - Plot & Excerpts
I'm a fan of Kurlanski's work, so when I saw this audio at my library, I snapped it right up. This particular audio is a perfect example of how bad narration can ruin a perfectly adequate book. The narrator has the oddest narration style I've ever come across, with short bursts of fast words followed by long, long pauses. Sentences of more than 5 words are incredibly difficult to make sense of. The emphasized words are inexplicable. It was really uncomfortable to try to puzzle out what Kurlansky had to say underneath all that, and when I did, well, it's a pretty slim collection of known facts that is wrapped around with interesting related and semi-related information. Had I read it with my eyes instead of my ears, I'd probably content myself with calling it discursive. 3 stars for the content, negative 4 stars for the narration.The final piece of inexplicability is the tacked on preview of some other book that is narrated a little better but which opens with a fairly graphic sex scene. This may be a downloaded library book glitch (my library has some issues with missing bits and extra bits sometimes) but it was certainly startling. Food. History. Two of my favorite topics. This was an incredibly interesting book and a peak into the mind of the naturally curious and bright Birdseye. The food industry took a huge leap forward with the benefit of his development of fresh, frozen foods. But the story goes far deeper that that. This was a guy whose brain never slowed - he was always experimenting, testing, studying and tweaking and many, diverse areas leaving a bunch of successful patents in his wake. He was a foodie, to be sure and served very local foods. He was an incredibly fascinating character. This book does not disappoint.In fact, it's one of my favorites.
What do You think about Birdseye: The Adventures Of A Curious Man (2012)?
Relatively interesting account of a man who changed a lot but isn't that well known.
—Bobby
Interesting in parts, but I found it easy to put down.
—pingkee
