REBEL with a CLAUSE: TALES and TIPS from a ROVING GRAMMARIAN (audiobook) by Ellen Jovin
Published by HarperAudio in 2022.
Read by the author, Ellen Jovin.
Duration: 7 hours, 38 minutes.
Unabridged.
Ellen Jovin had a fun idea. She sat up a table near a New York City subway entrance with a sign that said "Grammar Table" and within 30 seconds someone came to ask a question. She doesn't just take questions, though. She also takes complaints, comments, and observations as well.
This worked out so well that she and her husband decided to take it on the road and visit all 50 states and make a documentary (he is the cameraman, she is the talent.) However, they only made it to 47 states due to the intervention of Covid-19.
Jovin has a great way of speaking with people about grammar and she has the training to back it up. Most people are defensive and/or nervous about their grammar skills. Jovin sets them at ease and gives them explanations that are easy to understand. I literally have no problem with that aspect.
That being said, this audiobook was kind of a chore to finish. Jovin's reads her own book and does a good job, but the text was grammatically correct but not necessarily inviting for long-term listening.
Each of these chapters would be a great weekly 3-5 minute segment on an NPR radio show but were not necessarily fun to listen to back to back to back they got to be be quite repetitive.
A typical chapter would include the description of the people asking, the location of the table for this question (South Bend, Indiana or wherever) and a literal transcript of their conversation. This could take a while and rarely revealed anything particularly interesting and if properly edited could have knocked at least an hour off of the book. At first, this aspect to the book was charming - it felt sort of welcoming and homey. But, by the time we had worked our way up to the twentieth question, it was getting a bit old. If this were broken up into weekly segments on NPR I am sure I would have loved it.
A reader may be wondering at this point why I didn't do just that very thing and listen to this book in bits of pieces over a long period of time. The answer is simple: I checked this book out of the library as a digital download and only had it for a limited amount of time to listen to it before it went back to the library and on to the next person on the waiting list. So, I listened to it over the course of 10 days or so and it was a bit too...a bit too much.
I rate this audiobook 3 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: REBEL with a CLAUSE: TALES and TIPS from a ROVING GRAMMARIAN (audiobook) by Ellen Jovin.
Read by the author, Ellen Jovin.
Duration: 7 hours, 38 minutes.
Unabridged.
Ellen Jovin had a fun idea. She sat up a table near a New York City subway entrance with a sign that said "Grammar Table" and within 30 seconds someone came to ask a question. She doesn't just take questions, though. She also takes complaints, comments, and observations as well.
This worked out so well that she and her husband decided to take it on the road and visit all 50 states and make a documentary (he is the cameraman, she is the talent.) However, they only made it to 47 states due to the intervention of Covid-19.
Jovin has a great way of speaking with people about grammar and she has the training to back it up. Most people are defensive and/or nervous about their grammar skills. Jovin sets them at ease and gives them explanations that are easy to understand. I literally have no problem with that aspect.
That being said, this audiobook was kind of a chore to finish. Jovin's reads her own book and does a good job, but the text was grammatically correct but not necessarily inviting for long-term listening.
Each of these chapters would be a great weekly 3-5 minute segment on an NPR radio show but were not necessarily fun to listen to back to back to back they got to be be quite repetitive.
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A reader may be wondering at this point why I didn't do just that very thing and listen to this book in bits of pieces over a long period of time. The answer is simple: I checked this book out of the library as a digital download and only had it for a limited amount of time to listen to it before it went back to the library and on to the next person on the waiting list. So, I listened to it over the course of 10 days or so and it was a bit too...a bit too much.
I rate this audiobook 3 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: REBEL with a CLAUSE: TALES and TIPS from a ROVING GRAMMARIAN (audiobook) by Ellen Jovin.
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