Great book, poor performance

This is an important and helpful book. I recommend it highly for the contents. The narration of the audio book, however will be very distracting for anyone who cares much about words. He reader seems not to have been familiar with much of the author’s terminology, and the producers of the audiobook seem not to have wasted much energy editing the performance. It really is a disappointing flaw in an otherwise valuable book.

50 people found this helpful

Great content! Confusing narration.

I found the information in this book incredibly useful in my practice. I enjoy Peter Levine's approach and all of the insights into trauma.
My largest critique is of the narrating. I much prefer the books that Peter reads for himself. It adds great texture to the experience.
Ed is not a mental health professional, therefore made some confusing interpretations of the words "viscera" and "id" (from Freud's id, ego, super ego theory). Each time he made the mistake, I had to double take, rewind, and internally correct the mispronunciation so I could understand the content. I recommend a revision that corrects these mistakes. They are significant.

32 people found this helpful

Great story. Needs a new narrator.

Who would you have cast as narrator instead of Ed Nash?

someone that can pronounce the words. He read to fast like he wasn't even reading the book. It was hard to listen to. Esp. every time he mispronounced Visera. It's almost on every other page and It was painful.

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

no

29 people found this helpful

Ed Nash shouldn't be reading audio books

...and who ever directed this reading was out to lunch at the very least. What a mess!

Viscera. Say it: vis·cer·a, emphasis on the vis. This word is used almost every page in this book and he never figures out how to say it. And viscera is not the only bizarre mispronunciation.

Then there is punctuation. Mostly ignored. Headings? Just run them into the next sentence. Comas? Ignore or treat as periods.

I will never buy another book read by Ed. Ed need to find another line of work. He almost manages to ruin this otherwise brilliant book. There were a few sentences where he did so much creative pronunciation that I wasn't sure it was English.

96 people found this helpful

Excellent, in-depth

This work beautifully builds on Peter Levine’s book ‘waking the tiger’ with new insights and latest research. He provides an excellent review of our brain’s evolution and function and how we adapt and struggle with the effects of trauma as well as the stresses of disconnection in modern life. By trusting our body’s innate intelligence and guidance, we can come back to feeling whole again - there is hope for all sorts of trauma through working with the body. Very inspiring !

The audio version is challenging in places where the narrator struggles with medical and foreign words that are spoken can’t be recognized—it would be nice to fix that so the listener can understand the message.

Overall a great book!

12 people found this helpful

Beyond Exceptional

I'm now reading every single book that Levine has published. The Body Keeps Score is still my favorite book of all time, but I think that Levine's books (at least those I've read so far) and absolutely incredible. These should be required reading for everyone.

21 people found this helpful

Constant Mispronunciations a Distraction

The constant mispronunciation of words that are central to the subject addressed in this book was done to distraction!
It was blatantly careless on the part of the reader. Don’t these recordings get edited?

6 people found this helpful

Remarkably thorough

I’d say I have more background knowledge than the average bear, but this book left me a) filled with new knowledge, and b) wanting MORE. There are a lot of sections where I replayed repeatedly in order to really understand, because I’m highly visual and would need to reread if I were reading a textbook. That being said, I believe this is THE textbook on trauma. I went and purchased Trauma and Memory in paperback just to keep my learning going. I anticipate listening again and again. I only wish I had the print version of this too.

3 people found this helpful

Going deep in understanding body and reactions

This book has an AMAZING content! It is powerful, deep, truthful, relatable. I will study this book over and over (in print, though).

The audio voice is awful! The reader is not connected with the content, he sounds soo superficial and like he doesn't understand what he is reading. He may work for other superficial books, not for this type of book. I literally listened to this book twice at least because even the way he was reading was so hard for me to understand mainly because it felt sooooooo disconnected and foreign. It was almost like re-traumatizing for me because I had to listen about 4 times to be able to get over the voice and just focus on the content. I was sooooo easily tuning out with this voice, and I had to repeat and repeat forever every chunk. Also, he makes no pauses and it hard when he is starting a new topic.

2 people found this helpful

Dr. Levine's healing insight is long over due.

I have to praise Peter Levine for his insight of relating human trauma to other species. Obviously there would be a link; evolution can only build on structures already available. Add this to the understanding that the human body is a complex system within systems. That is, the body-mind relationship is just as important as knowing what a condition is or how to treat it. While this book does not read in an entertaining manner, it was not designed to do so. This is a learned man explaining a big discovery. I read and listened to it because I want to know more about a baffling, confusing, and scary "dis-ease". Now that we know what the condition is we can fix it. And that powerful message is shared by Mr. Levine. I will always be grateful to him for opening a gate to freedom.

2 people found this helpful