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Nothing Is True and Everything Is Possible
- Adventures in Modern Russia
- Narrated by: Leighton Pugh
- Length: 8 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged Audiobook
- Categories: History, Russia
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- SMInc
- 22-04-20
Narrator pronounced almost every Russian name and word wrong
It is really incredibly stupid of Audible to not hire a narrator who has at least studied Russian, or at the very least someone who is willing to ask Russians how to pronounce Russian words and names, when the text bristles with thousands of Russian people and places and phrases. His ghastly mangling of almost every single Russian word and phrase, even place names, common first names, and the surnames of quite famous people like Bulgakov made it excruciating to listen to. Why didn’t Audible get Pomerantsev himself to narrate it. It would have made far more sense. At times the narrator stressed the wrong word in a sentence and made nonsense of it, at least twice the text repeated where he had done a re-take and the first had not been edited out. Shoddy and very disappointing. A potentially fascinating listen totally let down by the wrong narrator for the task. He pronounced the German plural Krankenhäuser correctly, but by that stage it just felt like it added insult to injury. Do the editors imagine that someone who can pronounce German will just somehow manage Russian too??
7 people found this helpful
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- BigBear
- 02-08-18
A chilling insight .into Putin's Russia....
just read to Timothy Snyder's ' the road to Unfreedom." Got this book to get an inside pic of Putin's Russia. Fuck! a must read.
3 people found this helpful
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- Conor
- 06-01-18
A chilling and beautifully written account of modern dystopian Russia
Peter Pomerantsev outlines a perspective on Russia that was right on the creating wave that slammed into the public imagination with the annexation of Crimea and war in Ukraine. He gives an account of the characters which make up the Putin era - desperate models and gangsters-turned-billionaires, dead human rights activists and a London and European elite that has sold its soul to the new Russian money. This is a wake up call that everyone needs to read, but as the story suggests many of those who can make a difference have chosen Russian-financed wilful ignorance.
3 people found this helpful
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- K Clifford
- 04-05-18
Captivating book
Captivating book, but narrator mispronounces Russian names and words, and gets stresses wrong. You'd think he would've researched them beforehand.
2 people found this helpful
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- Sue
- 16-04-17
Clash of cultures within one civilisation
A fascinating look into how Russia has essentially used contemporary and western culture to reconstruct the same Soviet system. It's not so much an evolution but adaptation to bolster their former glory.
Peter Pomerantsev is a veteran reporter for Russia, and his tongue and cheek yet informative look into the country is engaging, concerning and at times just plain insane.
The book itself meanders through a variety of topics, mostly based on the writer's experiences of working on various television programmes for state sponsored networks, therefore doesn't strictly stick to the nitty gritty political system. It dabbles in the entertainment world as well as various corruption scandals making it not as heavy listen as expected. Worth the listen.
4 people found this helpful
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- Dominika Komender
- 05-07-18
Great book, terrible performance
Whoever approved doing voices while reading a non-fiction book should never produce an audiobook again. I cringed every time the narrator spoke in high pitched voice pretending to be a young Russian girl or did his impression of a Russian gangster. Why bother changing your voice when quoting Larry King, when it sounds NOTHING like Larry King? This was a very unnecessary exercise, which made listening to this amazing book really, really hard.
1 person found this helpful
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- Nick Drew
- 09-01-18
A fascinating grotesquerie of modern Russia
Any additional comments?
Peter Pomerantsev's account of today's Russia reads like a bizarre fever-dream of a world cut loose from all its moorings since the downfall of the Soviet Union, equally shaped by shadowy "political technologists", strange cults, corruption (at state and individual level), mysticism, nationalism and hyper-capitalism. Through a series of stories based on his life in Russia as a film maker, Pomerantsev gives an insight into how modern Russia works which will be strange and incomprehensible to most Western readers, but nonetheless a vitally important account of how this renewed superpower came to be and what it might mean for all of us. Read with characteristic vitality, engagement and vividness by the excellent Leighton Pugh.
1 person found this helpful
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- Kindle Customer
- 24-05-17
Very interesting, almost unbelievable
An entertaining, bizzare and often scary look into modern Russia. Originally I wasn't sure of the Narrator as his accents seemed very outlandish and comical but then when you listen to the stories, being outlandish and almost comical is exactly what this book's reader should be.
1 person found this helpful
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- AdamGR
- 13-02-17
post modern distopia
Convincing argument that Russia is a cross between a fuedal and post modern state. A nightmarish reality where even the wealthy can fall foul of the mafia like state. All in a country with an economy half that of California but with a nuclear arsenal to rival anyone. Scary stuff. Enjoyable and educational listen told through the experiences of different people.
3 people found this helpful
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- Wras
- 03-04-17
The aim, to own all forms of political discourse.
!984 and Brave New world were a warning, that Russia has developed into a lesson in how to rule by schizophrenia and is now spreading to the rest of the world, the west thinks itself immune to corruption, but all are corruptible given the right amount of money and Russia is pumping money into the west to legitimise the illegitimate the cleptocracy, the criminal government that rules by fear, murder and chaos, where the ignorant and the malicious can create ever more absurd conspiracy theories or twisted tales that contravene all logic and are repeated or recreated by media and government to suit the political and military gains of a degenerate government. If it sounds familiar it is because Trump is the retarded child of this new conflagration of megalomaniac rulers.
An excellent read that through the use of anecdotes and personal tales lets you glimpse into the world where corruption and abuse of power are and have been the norm for this country for nearly a century and now is a master of this form of social deception and manipulation that gives gain to the few to obliterate the many without any concern for morality or compassion, power for the sake of money in industrial quantities.
9 people found this helpful