Ana Mardoll

The Six Wives of Henry VIII / B009PRIE2K

I gave "The Six Wives of Henry VIII" five stars when I rated the text version, and I'm happy to give this audiobook the same, or at least four-and-a-half stars. I don't care for Simon Prebble as much as for Weir's other narrators; in general I prefer narrators of the same gender as the author for non-fiction, and in specific to this case, I don't care for some of Prebble's pronunciations. I preferred Judith Boyd's ("The Lady in the Tower") smooth "Shap-we" (for Eustace Chapuys) to Prebble's "Chap-poo-we". But these are minor flaws that I'm prepared to forgive for the sake of the overall text.

If you're coming to the audiobook without having read the book, this is a solid scholarly look at the six wives of Henry VIII, from the childhood of Katherine of Aragon to the death of Anne of Cleves. I especially enjoy that this book really is about the wives and not about Henry, and I also highly recommend the following companion text "The Children of Henry VIII".

~ Ana Mardoll

A Distant Mirror / 9780307793690

I selected this book for a book club discussion, not realizing that it's ~700 pages long rather than ~400 pages long. Whoops! However, this is a completely awesome book and everyone had a ball reading and discussing it, even if several members weren't able to finish on time, and I recommend it highly as a fun and fascinating, as well as wonderfully researched and sourced, look into 14th century culture.

"A Distant Mirror" is a look at the 14th century and follows the life of Enguerrand de Coucy VII as a vehicle for examining every facet of life during this time period. If the idea of following the life and biography of a 14th century French lord you've probably never heard of turns you off to the idea of this book (as it briefly did me when selecting this book to read), don't let it! Tuchman is an absolute master at her work, and manages to make Enguerrand VII's life deeply interesting and entertaining, while using the larger narrative to talk about every aspect of 14th century life in griping detail.

Indeed, the first 8 chapters (of 27 total) deal largely with 14th century life before even really introducing Enguerrand VII, and while the entire book is 100% concentrated awesome, these opening chapters are definitely my favorite. Tuchman examines the 14th century ideals of religion and chivalry (as well as when and how and why the ideal diverged from reality), the social and political climate of the 14th century for France and some of her surrounding neighbors, the daily lives of both nobles and commoners (including their entertainments, their religious observances, and their access to medicine), and the impact of the Black Death and the Papal Schism in shaping history and social thought.

Tuchman is a truly entertaining writer, and I love how she shows her work as she goes along, and grounds sources before using them by warning the reader as to how accurate and/or unbiased the source is understood to be. (One terribly amusing anecdote of a brigand company shaking down the Pope for money is prefaced with the note that "it has been said of Cuvelier that 'the tyranny of rhyme left him little leisure for accuracy.'") And while this is absolutely a history book, it reads just as fluidly and fascinatingly as you could ever hope for -- I finished all ~700 pages and was left with nothing but admiration for this book and the feeling that Tuchman had made a really large and complex subject very accessible to the lay-person.

A note on the audiobook version of this book: There are currently two different versions of this book available on Audible, one narrated by Nadia May and one narrated by Aviva Skell. I tried listening to both books, and I recommend the Nadia May version. Her narration is a little slower than Aviva Skell's (indeed, there is a 2.5 hour difference between the two versions, and I think that's entirely pacing and not reflective of new/added material between the versions), and I found the pauses and slower pace necessary in order to adequately process all the material in this book. And Nadia May's pronunciations of the French names and places in this book are delightful to hear, so there's no need to worry that you might not be getting the full experience with her.

I absolutely recommend this book if you have any interest in the 14th century or in chivalry and its effect on nations when large sections of a privileged populace are armed and dangerous.

~ Ana Mardoll

The Children of Henry VIII / B008QYINQU

I gave "The Children of Henry VIII" four stars when I rated the text version, and I'm happy to give this audiobook the same. I still don't care as much for Simon Prebble as for Weir's other narrators; in general I prefer narrators of the same gender as the author for non-fiction, and in specific to this case, I don't care for some of Prebble's pronunciations. I preferred Judith Boyd's ("The Lady in the Tower") smooth "Shap-we" (for Eustace Chapuys) to Prebble's "Chap-poo-we". However, since this is a direct follow-on book to 'The Six Wives of Henry VIII", it's nice to have the same narrator for continuity.

If you're coming to the audiobook without having read the book, this is a solid scholarly look at the four heirs of Henry VIII: Edward, Jane Grey, Mary, and Elizabeth. The book follows the relationships between the heirs and not so much the reigns of the heirs themselves, which means that the book stops rather abruptly at Mary's death and Elizabeth's accession since there are no more inter-heir relationships to document at that point -- though you can continue from there with Weir's "The Life of Elizabeth I", which I do recommend).

~ Ana Mardoll

The Lady In The Tower / B003D1RUCE

I gave "The Lady In The Tower" four stars when I rated the text version, but I'm happy to give this audiobook a full five stars. The narration is superb; Judith Boyd captures the text so perfectly that it sounds like we're listening to the author read her own work, which is really the gold standard for narration in my opinion. What faults I had with the book -- such as long snippets of quoted source material that sometimes broke up the flow of the writing -- have been fixed here by the superb narration, and everything sounds deeply harmonious and works together as a whole.

If you're coming to the audiobook without having read the book, this is a solid scholarly look at the last days of Anne Boleyn. Weir starts with the last time Anne saw her husband Henry, follows the coup that brought down Anne and her faction at court so swiftly, analyzes the trial in close detail, explains the finer details of the execution, and ultimately follows with a quick overview of how Anne has been historically portrayed, depending on era and religious inclination.

I highly recommend this audiobook, and have already listened to it from start to finish at least three times since I bought it. My only regret is that Boyd doesn't narrate all the Weir non-fiction books available on Audible.

~ Ana Mardoll

Invasion of the Body Snatchers / B002VACTHE

I bought this audiobook on the recommendation of a friend and I'm still uncertain how to rate it, especially as I haven't rated the book text itself elsewhere. I'll try to address both here, the book content and the quality of the audio book.

The audiobook itself is quite good. The narration is strong and does a lot to flesh out the narration voice -- indeed, I think the narrator manages to make an otherwise forgettable or even unlikeable character very sympathetic. The wry humor and deep weariness of the narrative voice comes through loud and clear, and it does a lot towards creating the atmosphere that this book is trying to evoke: when a major plot point is that the weary heroes cannot sleep or all will be lost, it's a plus to have a weary-sounding narrator. And it works very well as a whole.

The book itself I'm less enthused over. I recognize that this is a book from the 1950s and was revolutionary in its own way, but sometimes it doesn't feel like it has aged well. There's some casual misogyny here that may be distracting to the reader, and the heroes don't always face their apocalypse very sensibly. Readers will figure out major plot points long before the characters do, which makes them sometimes seem willfully obtuse. (This is one of the unfortunate side-effects of modern readers being genre-savvy to this form of literature, I suppose.)

Early in the stages of the apocalypse, the reasons given for why the heroes can't go to the authorities for help seem sort of flimsy, culminating at a point where they manage to call someone in Washington in order to register concern only to be talked out of it because, meh, it all seems kind of silly so nevermind. I get that this is supposed to be a commentary on the inefficient authorities against internal threats, but you'd think once you got through the phone lines, you'd at least TRY to register that stuff is about to go very, very badly.

Overall, if you already know you enjoy this book, I think you'll be pleased with the audiobook version. If you've heard of the book because it was groundbreaking for its time, and if you don't mind some of the usual flaws of 1950s science fiction -- genre-ignorant characters and sometimes very slow pacing -- then you may well enjoy this book. I give it 3 stars for the text and 5 stars for the narration itself.

~ Ana Mardoll

Nickel and Dimed / B002V1BOFQ

I cannot praise highly enough "Nickel and Dimed"; it's one of those few books that I honestly think pretty much *everyone* should read. It's depressing and heartbreaking to see, first-hand through the on-the-ground journalism of Barbara Ehrenreich just how hard it is to get by in America as a member of the working poor, even with the numerous starting advantages that she began with.

The audiobook maintains the same high quality of this book by providing perfect narration. Maybe I'm unusual in this respect, but the ultimate goal for me as a reader is to hear what the author intended -- the humorous inflections, the wry disappointments, the sarcastic quips -- as though the author were reading hir own work to the reader. Cristine McMurdo-Wallis nails this novel perfectly, to the point where it's almost difficult to remember that this isn't the author we're listening to. For me, that's pretty much the Holy Grail of narration.

If you enjoyed reading "Nickel and Dimed", I can pretty much guarantee you'll like this unabridged audiobook version of the same. And if you haven't read the book before, I think you'll still get a lot out of this audiobook, and I recommend it highly.

~ Ana Mardoll

World War Z / B002V8DH36

I love Max Brooks' "World War Z", and I heartily recommend the book to anyone who is interested in zombie tales, particularly world-building after the apocalypse. The only complaint I have with this audiobook edition -- and the only thing keeping it from being a full five-stars -- is that it is an abridgement. In order to keep the narrative flow, they kept in the "essential" stories, but I feel that it was the "flavor" stories that brought so much originality and creativity to the text. I understand why they had to go, but I am sorry for it.

The cast of voice actors here are superb, and even if you don't like abridgements (I usually avoid them, myself), I think most people will get tremendous enjoyment out of this one.

~ Ana Mardoll

The Complete Stories of Sherlock Holmes, Volume 3 / B004LOPYW0

I really enjoy the Sherlock Holmes stories and books, so I was happy to find this available in audiobook form. The narration isn't as great as I'd like -- the narrator speaks a little too quickly for my tastes and some of his voices (particularly for female characters) sound a little distractingly silly -- but overall this is a solid compilation and I'm happy to have it. Note that while it's the "complete" stories, they're spread across three volumes, so you'll have to buy all three to have the total collection. Speaking of, I really wish the Audible application could show which track corresponds to which story (rather than just Chapter 1, Chapter 2, etc. for the whole kit and kaboodle) but that may be a technical limitation they couldn't get around.

Volume 3 consists of the novel "The Valley of Fear", and the stories in "His Last Bow" and "The Case Book of Sherlock Holmes".

"His Last Bow" contains the following stories:
- The Adventure of Wisteria Lodge
- The Adventure of the Red Circle
- The Adventure of the Bruce-Partington Plans
- The Adventure of the Dying Detective
- The Disappearance of Lady Frances Carfax
- The Adventure of the Devil's Foot
- His Last Bow

"The Case Book of Sherlock Holmes" contains the following stories:
- The Adventure of the Illustrious Client
- The Adventure of the Blanched Soldier
- The Adventure of the Mazarin Stone
- The Adventure of the Three Gables
- The Adventure of the Sussex Vampire
- The Adventure of the Three Garridebs
- The Problem of Thor Bridge
- The Adventure of the Creeping Man
- The Adventure of the Lion's Mane
- The Adventure of the Veiled Lodger
- The Adventure of Shoscombe Old Place
- The Adventure of the Retired Colourman

~ Ana Mardoll

The Complete Stories of Sherlock Holmes, Volume 2 / B003FCIORQ

I really enjoy the Sherlock Holmes stories and books, so I was happy to find this available in audiobook form. The narration isn't as great as I'd like -- the narrator speaks a little too quickly for my tastes and some of his voices (particularly for female characters) sound a little distractingly silly -- but overall this is a solid compilation and I'm happy to have it. Note that while it's the "complete" stories, they're spread across three volumes, so you'll have to buy all three to have the total collection. Speaking of, I really wish the Audible application could show which track corresponds to which story (rather than just Chapter 1, Chapter 2, etc. for the whole kit and kaboodle) but that may be a technical limitation they couldn't get around.

Volume 2 consists of the novel "The Hound of the Baskervilles", and the stories in "Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes" and "The Return of Sherlock Holmes".

"The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes" contains the following stories:
- The Adventure of the Silver Blaze
- The Adventure of the Cardboard Box
- The Adventure of the Yellow Face
- The Adventure of the Stockbroker's Clerk
- The Adventure of the "Gloria Scott"
- The Adventure of the Musgrave Ritual
- The Adventure of the Reigate Squires
- The Adventure of the Crooked Man
- The Adventure of the Resident Patient
- The Adventure of the Greek Interpreter
- The Adventure of the Naval Treaty
- The Adventure of the Final Problem

"The Return of Sherlock Holmes" contains the following stories:
- The Adventure of the Empty House
- The Adventure of the Norwood Builder
- The Adventure of the Dancing Men
- The Adventure of the Solitary Cyclist
- The Adventure of the Priory School
- The Adventure of Black Peter
- The Adventure of Charles Augustus Milverton
- The Adventure of the Six Napoleons
- The Adventure of the Three Students
- The Adventure of the Golden Pince-Nez
- The Adventure of the Missing Three-Quarter
- The Adventure of the Abbey Grange
- The Adventure of the Second Stain

~ Ana Mardoll

The Complete Stories of Sherlock Holmes, Volume 1 / B002V0RHKS

I really enjoy the Sherlock Holmes stories and books, so I was happy to find this available in audiobook form. The narration isn't as great as I'd like -- the narrator speaks a little too quickly for my tastes and some of his voices (particularly for female characters) sound a little distractingly silly -- but overall this is a solid compilation and I'm happy to have it. Note that while it's the "complete" stories, they're spread across three volumes, so you'll have to buy all three to have the total collection. Speaking of, I really wish the Audible application could show which track corresponds to which story (rather than just Chapter 1, Chapter 2, etc. for the whole kit and kaboodle) but that may be a technical limitation they couldn't get around.

Volume 1 consists of the novels "A Study in Scarlet" (which is very long), and "The Sign of Four", as well as the stories in "The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes". That collection contains the stories "A Scandal in Bohemia", "The Red-Headed League", "A Case of Identity", "The Boscombe Valley Mystery", "The Five Orange Pips", "The Man with the Twisted Lip", "The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle", "The Adventure of the Speckled Band", "The Adventure of the Engineer's Thumb", "The Adventure of the Noble Bachelor", "The Adventure of the Beryl Coronet", and "The Adventure of the Copper Beeches".

~ Ana Mardoll