Bruce Nichols

Great historical story-telling.

The central character, Joe Stilwell

Any time he was speaking truth to power

God, send us more of such men

Barbara Tuchman is a gifted teller of history, as everyone familiar with her work knows. But the narrator, identified by Audible as Pam Ward, who I think narrated Tuchman's Guns of August, is a perfect reader. Too often, narrators' voices, habits of speech, lack of interest and over-acting make Audible's books hard to listen to. Ms. Ward combines clear interpretive reading with just enough acting. She

It must be really difficult to hire and coach people who read books for recording. I don't know how well I would do. But it's sad, whatever the cause, when a good book suffers because the voice and delivery on the recording are not appropriate. I've run across several instances. This book is another example. The reader is too slow. Way too slow. So you speed him up on your IPOD, and that's not entirely satisfactory either. I would listen closely to the sample before buying this book. If you can stand the style of the reader, buy it. If not, don't. You are wasting your money.