Richard

I always go for unabridged if available because I prefer to decide for myself which passages (if any) to skim. But the abridgements I've read in the past have at least provided decent transitions and for the most part not chopped out essential passages. Not so with this butcher job. Suddenly John leaps from one school to another without transition. The formation of his first band is left out, so you are dumped immediately in the middle of his Quarrymen period. At that point, I gave up on the audiobook and bought the real book. I was, and remain, totally puzzled how this abridgement was permitted to be sold to us. It's really, really, awful. Insensitive, thoughtless, bizarre.