Rita

I don't want anyone to be put off by the negative review of the narrator given previously. Professor Hopkins is a very effective reader of this book, because he understands thoroughly what he is reading. The only really bad narrator I've experienced while a member of Audible was the actor who read "Lonesome Dove," who clearly didn't pay attention to the words most of the time and faked the intonation. The title of this book makes it sound a bit like a lightweight self-help book, but it's really a wonderful, clear exposition of emptiness and Buddhist philosophy, as one comes to expect from His Holiness. I highly recommend it.

Anne Tyler's work is delicate and subtle. Suzanne Toren's narration was so un-subtle it totally destroyed the book. It made the situations and the characters seem absolutely inane. A much better narrator of Anne Tyler's work is Elisabeth Rodgers, whose performance of Earthly Possessions is nuanced, at times ironic. I have been a very active Audible listener for many years, and I can remember only one other book I was unable to finish because of the narrator.