Jeffrey

This is more audio drama than just reading of a book. Multiple actors and voices led even more interest to an already well written story. Although a "kids book", our whole family (including teenage boys) enjoyed this as we traveled.

Mauldin explains principles of macro-economics in a way that gives great depth of understanding and yet is comprehensible to a non-economist. Additionally, Pratt voices the book at a perfect pace and speaks clearly and carefully, making complex passages easy to follow.

Maudlins "just-the-facts" no hype approach makes a very convincing argument that we will have to face the costs of past excess and foolishness soon.

Silva offers a compelling and believable story line with well developed characters.

The poor audio quality makes Gigante sound like and synthesized reader. Gigante does little in his performance to change this impression. He attempts voicing for various characters but it is weak.

I listened to a newer work by Silva and loved it. So I went back to the beginning and was horribly disappointed.

Sliva uses constant profanity to try and demonstrate the tough grittiness of his characters. Simply showing us who they are would be much more effective. The constant use of "F***" as well as the excessive sexuality distract from and weaken the story line to the point that I finally quit listening half way through.

George Guidall gives a fine performance and is easy to listen to. He is one of the better readers I have heard. His voicing for various characters is appropriate, consistent and well done. Silva's story lines move rapidly from character to character and Guidall's voicing of various characters makes the action easier to follow.

I am glad that I listened to a more recent Silva novel first. Silva has learned how to richly develop a hard, gritty character without resorting to trite use of profanity and obscenity. Unfortunately he didn't learn this early enough in life to save this book.

Complicated data and ideas are presented in the context of stories about the researchers who discovered them, making what could be tedious, very enjoyable.