Author: Shauna Niequist
Narrator: author
Length: 4 hrs 30 min
Publication Date: Released 28.11.07
Producer: Jeff Bowden
Publisher: Zondervan New Media
Synopsis:
COLD TANGERINES:
CELEBRATING THE EXTRAORDINARY NATURE OF EVERYDAY LIFE
Cold Tangerines is
a collection of stories that celebrate the extraordinary moments hidden in our
everyday lives. It is about God, and about life, and about the thousands of
daily ways in which an awareness of God changes and infuses everything. It is
about spiritual life, and about all the things that we have called nonspiritual
life that might be spiritual after all. It is the snapshots of a young woman
making peace with herself and her life, and trying to craft a life that
captures the energy and exuberance we long for in the midst of the fear and regret
and envy we all carry with us. It is both a voice of challenge and song of
comfort, calling us upward to the best possible life, and giving us room To
breathe, to rest, to break down and break through. Cold Tangerines offers
bright and varied glimpses of hope and redemption, in and among the heartbreak
And boredom and broken glass. - ©2007 Shauna Niequist; (P)2007
Zondervan
~~~~~~~~~ * ~~~~~~~
My thoughts?
*
"The world is
alive ...inviting us to get up and dance to the music that’s been playing since
the beginning of time...if you bend all
the way down and put your ear to the ground to listen for it."
*
One of the many
beautiful and inspiriting thoughts of this book's author, Shauna Niequist.
Niequist's book is a call to a life discipline of celebration -
a
collection of positive vs negative approaches to life.
"... to
choose joy, to choose to dance, to choose to love your life. It’s
much easier and much more common to be miserable. " The
author speaks of many personal experiences, including her responses to those
situations whereby we gain insight into her life and the basis for the
discipline to celebration she's promoting.
*
"Life is
painful and we carry with us so much disappointment and heartbreak , but
I’m
fighting to save some space inside me where I can create hope. "
*
Niequist describes how she's journeyed to these
conclusions.
“I wanted to connect with
God...I decided to go to the beach everyday at sunset. It was the most sacred thing I could think to
do...I wasn’t ready yet for church, but I was ready for God and I have always
believed that the ocean is one of the surest places to find Him...I started
praying a little bit more honestly and listening a little bit more
closely...there was something inside me – some hopeful, small , faltering voice
that said, ‘there’s room for you’. I don’t know why, but I trusted that voice."
*
Her internal contemplative journey leads her to reconnect with community and further recognition of the life choices within her power .
"... all I can see are the crumbs on the counter... I just
don’t want to live in only that reality because there’s another reality, a
better one. Hope and
redemption and change are real and they’re happening all around me,
so I choose
to act out of that reality "
*
"I can’ t live there in the disappointment anymore .
I’ve missed whole seasons of my
life . I didn’t love the
gift of life because I was too busy being angry about a life I was given. I
wanted it to be different, but being angry didn’t change those things it just
wasted time."
*
Furthering
her message of intentionality,
Niequist inspires listeners toward this
perspective when she states,
*
" I choose to do what I can do to create hope, to celebrate life and the act of celebrating connects me back to that life I love
... Live each day like it’s a special
occasion because we’ve been given a gift . We get to live in this beautiful world .
When I live purposefully and well, when I dance instead of sitting it
out... " adding her challenge, "What can I do today to bring more energy, more beauty,
more hope?" then concludes with her mandate, "Let’s echo His words and let our lives speak those
words, “It is Good”
*
Being a contemplative, I valued the instances where that played into Niequist's spiritual journey.
No doubt various aspects of content will resonate with listeners on other paths
as evidenced in the many Goodreads reviews.
*
I found the brief selections of material content to be excellent for audio listening,
though what I found to be a major loss was the performance of the author as narrator.
*
A trained and experienced voice would have added immeasurably to content and understanding,
with the outcome being an audiobook with impact.
*
The entire recording was a race to the finish. I was never given a chance to relish the creative aspects of the author's poetic wordsmithing. Basically, no rests between thoughts. As in music, the rest allows one to pause, both in playing and in listening, for the pleasurable benefit of both instrumentalist and listener. This audio would have benefited from such meaningful pauses.
*
Including careful enunciation and articulation of the actual written words. A narrator's enjoyment of the words spoken translates to a listener's enjoyment of those very words heard.
Clarity was non existent because Niequist was rushing out the words past a listener's capability of comprehension.
Considering the content, enjoyment of this audio would have increased by a leisurely pace, taking care to clearly articulate the words.
Which creates hearing space to comprehend the thoughts being presented.
*
Another frustration was the voice modulation. At once a normal volume, the next all but faded to non-existent, I found it hard to follow and sensed a loss of many points being presented.
Was this an error in production? Could it not have been picked up by the director/producer on playback before release? Sadly, I was not impressed with this audiobook production and wouldn't recommend without further recording improvements.
*
by Carola Dunn. 
I've continued the audio listening of EMMA which I'm really enjoying more than reading. For other Jane Austen fans, 
