GoryDetails

I should say at once that Lord John Grey is my favorite character from the Outlander books. Here he gets an entire novel to himself. I enjoyed the book when I first read it, and liked it even better with Jeff Woodman's nicely nuanced reading. Granted, it may be a frustrating experience for Clare-and-Jamie fans, as they are barely mentioned here. Likewise, it might be a bit confusing for those who come to this book without having read the Outlander books at all, as they'll be wondering why Lord John keeps thinking about this Jamie character. But I've always liked John Grey best, so this is the perfect book for me - and I thoroughly enjoyed the period detail of some of the seamier parts of London.

While anyone who's read much about WWI will probably not be surprised by the events of the story, it's still touching and, in places, quite powerful. The characters are endearing, and Jeff Woodman's reading adds emotion to the text; recommended.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book (read wonderfully by Simon Vance); its mix of helpful (and not-so-helpful) hints and snarky humor reminded me a bit of a British Dave Barry - and I love Dave Barry so that's a good thing! From "How to Potter" to "How to Love" ["Men love women because they are the loveliest things on God's earth. Women love men because chocolate can't mow the lawn."], it addresses a great variety of topics - although I did not find anywhere in the book any bits about jellyfish, so the title remains a vague, almost Zen-like concept {grin}.

While I knew the rough facts about Doyle's life, I found a great many new bits of information in this biography, and came away with a greater appreciation of Doyle's body of work - though still very puzzled about his inability to be objective about the spiritualism movement. The book is full of wonderful anecdotes, and describes many of Doyle's less-well-known works in ways that made me want to dash out and read them. Narrator Robert Whitfield (aka Simon Vance) does a marvelous job here. Recommended.

I had only dim recollections of The Talisman as one of Scott's lesser-known works (as compared with Ivanhoe, anyway), but when I found this version, read by favorite narrator Robert Whitfield (aka Simon Vance) I had to give it a try. And I was delighted! It's a wonderful romp, with surprisingly liberal views of Saladin and his host; King Richard comes off rather poorly in comparison. The secret identities got a bit far-fetched, but it was all entertaining. Recommended!

I've re-read Dracula many times over the years and always enjoyed it, so I was delighted to find that one of my favorite audiobook readers had done an unabridged version. Listening to it was a new experience, as so many small details become noticeable when heard, and I became more aware of the structure of the story than I had been before. While Van Helsing's broken English was sometimes more funny than Stoker may have intended, overall I thought all of the characterizations held up well, and despite knowing the story backwards and forwards I found myself getting teary once or twice. Definitely recommended!

I loved the book when I read it, and enjoyed it even more through Jeff Woodman's vivacious reading. It's very funny, and sweet without being cloying - and if there are some wildly improbable bits, well, isn't that what fiction is for? Recommended!

This is a simply wonderful story, funny and heartbreaking by turns - and the audio version is just lovely. I've added reader Jeff Woodman to my list of "people to listen to"; he does a splendid job (and I was astonished to find that he's not really a 16-year-old boy {grin}). Strongly recommended.

Since the description of this item does mention that its format is really only at 1, I wasn't too disappointed at the rather fuzzy quality of some of the tracks, but I was annoyed to find that, although the item is described as "unabridged," my download was missing three of the stories listed in the site description: "The Small Assassin" by Ray Bradbury, "Yours Truly, Jack the Ripper" by Robert Bloch, and "The Words of Guru" by C.M. Kornbluth.

The rest of the stories are good ones, from M. R. James' classic "Casting the Runes" [a nice old-fashioned chiller with very little overt gruesomeness] to Brian Lumley's devastating "The Viaduct" [a modern tale with no supernatural elements, and all the more horror for that; this one's quite gruesome, though, so be warned]. I recognized some of the readers - Michael Gross and Roger Rees among them; they all read well, with a few, including Rees, turning in excellent readings. [A list of who read what would be a nice addition to the product description.]

So - this is a very good collection of stories, most of them read very well, and I'd rate it much more highly on content alone. Since the product description is misleading I'm knocking it back a bit, but the stories that ARE present are definitely worth hearing!

"Incredible Journey" has been one of my favorite books since I first read it as a child; I can always count on weeping happily by the end. This audio version was read decently by Megan Follows, but I found the occasional addition of musical tracks to be annoying and, in some cases, so loud that they overwhelmed the vocals. That's why I'm only giving four stars instead of five on this one, but it's a great story anyway...