New Reviews: Classics

Baron Munchausen is probably best known to Americans as the hero of the 1988 Terry Gilliam film--but he has been amusing Europeans since 1785. This audiobook limits itself to the original text--to which other authors have been adding almost from the beginning--but fully conveys the absurdity that has made the baron an icon. Peter Wickham voices the baron with just the right mix... Read More

Scott's genial romance--mixing elements of comedy, adventure, melodrama, and mystery--presents difficulties that David Rintoul's skilled, heartfelt performance more than overcomes. To defects of its period (published 1816) such as slowness and verbosity, the book adds frequent Latin quotations--glossed-in asides--and conversations in the Scots dialect--sometimes impenetrable,... Read More

The interpretations of the five narrators who perform this collection of Mansfield's short stories, while varied, share a common understanding of her ironic approach to storytelling. They provide a helpful throughline to the twentieth-century New Zealand-born author's wonderful writing. Beginning with a not-to-be-missed introduction written and read by writer and audiobook... Read More

If you are a fly fisherman or have a fly fisherman in your life, this early Hemingway short story is a must-listen. Kyle Soller transports the listener to an out-of-the-way river in Michigan where one can practically hear the water flowing, the insects buzzing, and the wind whispering through the trees. Soller never tries to do too much with his narration of this brief story of... Read More

Spreading the gospel, partaking of a drink or two, and making a few bucks--what could be more American? Adam Sims gives a tour-de- force performance, evocatively capturing Sinclair Lewis's keenly observed satire of the evangelical Christian movement of the early- twentieth-century Midwest. The corrupt, manipulative, completely indiscreet Elmer Gantry starts off as a college... Read More

Caesar's history of his campaigns in Gaul, Germany, and Britain, while not colorless--it includes political strife, battles, ambushes, and acts of heroism--is brisk and dry. David Timson's sonorous voice and rounded tones don't mirror the spareness of Caesar's account, but instead enrich it, making it more approachable and easier to take in. He tends to turn groups of sentences... Read More

Fenella Woolgar gives an exemplary performance of this gentle comic novel, which skews the English class system. Ethelberta is a beautiful and clever young widow who is struggling to provide financial support for her nine siblings and invalid mother. When her efforts as a poet fail, her practicality impels her to consider marriage to one of her many tenacious suitors. Woolgar... Read More

Tony Award-winning actor Audra McDonald performs Emily Wilson's new translation of one of the world's oldest stories. The ten-year war between the Greeks and the Trojans nears its end, but Achilles, the mightiest warrior of his time, refuses to continue fighting after receiving a gross insult from Agamemnon. Without Achilles, the Greeks begin losing droves of warriors, and the... Read More

What a treat it is to listen to Clare Wille perform this engrossing narrative by nineteenth-century British travel writer and naturalist Isabella Bird. The audiobook consists of a series of letters that Bird wrote to her sister during Bird's travels throughout the American West in the late nineteenth century. Wille's wonderfully expressive tone, bright English intonation, and... Read More

Bill Homewood, a Shakespearean actor and narrator of many literary classics, turns his vast performing experience to Gaston Leroux's well-known horror story, originally published in 1910. While listeners may recognize the story from its Broadway musical adaptation or from films, Homewood's deep, melodious voice and flawless French accent offer a fresh perspective on the tale... Read More

The unofficial yet undisputed voice of all things Tolkien, Andy Serkis, revels in bringing the early history of High Elves, Dark Lords, and powerful jewels to life. J.R.R. Tolkien was first and foremost an academic, and his detailed and expansive fantasy universe was hugely influenced by larger-than-life Norse sagas, classic myths, and Old English chronicles. Serkis is... Read More