Lynn

Definitely not

The script of Dr. Strangelove: they're both brilliant satire.

excellent, excellent, excellent

Published four years before the Cuban Missile Crisis, this is a brilliant, very funny cloak-and-dagger about a vacuum cleaner salesman enlisted into British intelligence. The so-called agent reports on unidentified military emplacements that, coincidentally, look a lot like vacuum cleaners. What's real, what's not, and what becomes real are in the mix of this great send-up. Jeremy Northam is a superb reader. The producers, however, got carried away with their own importance and tried to gussy this up with a repetitive snippet of carnival music that works against Graham Greene's straight-faced telling. Even so, it's terrific and well-worth listening to. Let's hope the producers don't come close to wrecking too many other audio productions.

This skillful historical novel vividly portrays 17th century Cambridge: Stourbridge fair, Venetian glass, drafty university life, the plague, alchemy, and the young Isaac Newton. The 20th century love and detective story that frames the earlier history also works well. The characters from both periods are engrossing. Even the spooky goings on in the contemporary story are plausible enough in the novel's context. A pleasure to listen to.