Lisa

I have loved this audio book since I bought it on tape in 1988 (1989 maybe?). I purchased the CDs when I wore out the tape. Now I have the electronic version. I own two copies of the book.

It is crazy how much I love this story, and how much I love Adams's narration.

Do yourself a favor and listen to it. You will thank me.

A few of the stories just didn't grab me, and that's to be expected as the editors need to appeal to a wide variety of listeners.

The stories I liked, I truly loved and continue to think about.

I bought the Audible version of this book without listening to the sample narration first. That was my first mistake, because the narration was not done well. Technically, I suppose it was fine, although in some chapters the narrator's voice sounded like he'd had a rough night. The accents were painful and cliche and when the narrator put emotion in his voice he just sounded corny and inauthentic.

My second mistake was continuing on after the prologue. An entire prologue of "I am not a man who cries" should have been a warning to me, but it was recommended by a friend as "King's best work ever", so I soldiered on. For 30 hours and 44 minutes I soldiered on, with only the briefest moments of being transported into the story, but hours of wondering when it was going to pick up already.

This book is really two books: an early-sixties romance set in Texas and a (not well done) thriller about the murder of JFK. If King had stuck to the time-travel romance angle, it would have been OK (and definitely better than The Time Traveler's Wife), not my cup of tea, but OK. If he had written a thriller about the assassination of JFK, and had ramped up the tension and uncertainty, well, I would have liked to read that book.

I wish the book used the same narrator as the other 4 books in the series, or at least that this narrator had taken the time to make sure he followed the pronunciation in the previous 3 books. It's frustrating to realize after listening for 5 mins to a new character to realize it's just a different pronunciation.