Tom

I tried very hard not to be annoyed by Frederick Davidson's narration. I mean, a stereotypical British accent with the affectation of the upper class should be perfect for a book on wine right? Not to this listener. Early on Matt Kramer writes about this book not being for "snobs" (my interpretation) and yet with every syllable uttered it screamed snobbery. His pronunciation of French wines and foods may be impeccable, but I could scarcely understand any of it. Such a shame too since this book is full of interesting and useful information. In fact I often came off appearing snobbish when making comments about wine which I gleaned from the book. This one is better read than listened to.

True, I could have paid more attention to the title, or read the reviews carefully, but I thought this book was going to explain how cooking "grew up" over the ages. What it accounts...over and over and over again is the anthropology not so much of cooking in itself, but how cooking exists in primitive cultures. Interesting in one sense, but not at all what I was expecting. This book had promise it just couldn't deliver.

As with all the Gabriel Allon series, "The Confessor" is a good read. Nevertheless I did have to wince at John Lee's pronunciation of Hebrew words. I can understand the slip on kipa with the short "i" sound instead of the "ee", but he repeatedly pronounced Haganah with the accent on the second syllable instead of the third. I even found myself audibly correcting him whenever he said it. Very irritating.