Ranch Life and the Hunting Trail

By: Theodore Roosevelt

Narrated by: Christopher Romance

Length: 7 hrs and 7 mins

Publisher's summary

Theodore Roosevelt Jr., (1858-1919), 26th president of the United States, from 1901 to 1909, was also a conservationist, naturalist, and writer. From 1884 to 1886, he established his ranch in Dakota Territory, which involved much hardship and toil. Ranch Life and the Hunting Trail - published in 1888 - is the account of his labors and adventures as a cowboy, hunter, herder, and even a stint as a deputy sheriff. The narrative comes alive with engaging descriptions of the inhabitants of the Badlands: the buffalo hunters, Indians, cowboys, and mountain men, as well as the changing environment as the area became more populated in that period.

Public Domain (P)2018 Museum Audiobooks

Narration

The narrator's pronunciation was horrible. Good story, but a painful listen, maybe with another narrator it would be better.

Poor Pronunciation

Roosevelt’s story is interesting and ties closely to familiar history. The narrator pronounced quite a few words incorrectly. Examples:

butte is frequently pronounced “but”
Helena is pronounced “hull-n-a”
Coeur D’Alene should be pronounced kore-duh-LANE

These errors were annoying.

Narrator

Narrator mispronounced the names of many locations. An example would be consistently vocalizing the s at the end of Arkansas.

Interesting Stories But Annoying Narration

I found the narrator's cadence and pronunciation to be quite annoying. It was full of detail about life out there back then, but at times became too much the notes of a scientist.

like listening to a kid who's learning to read

I disliked the narration as much as all the other reviewers. I was looking forward to a story by Teddy Roosevelt. I should have read it myself instead of listening to this one.

Mehhh

It was cool yo hear a former President talk about the wilderness and western life but it was also a bit drawn out like I’d expect from a book written about a cowboy 100 years ago

Terrible narrator

Get a different narrator. Mispronounced many words. Very choppy, halting style of narrating made it difficult to keep my attention.

Read this one for yourself.

I probably would have liked this one better if anyone else has narrated it. The reading halted and jerky. Pronunciation changed as the narrator tried different things, while pronouncing words he was obviously not comfortable with. Sometimes common words like, "dragged or wagon" were pronounced so awkwardly that I had to take a mental pause to figure out what was actually being said. Normal hunting, riding, and wilderness words were often mispronounced.
I hate to be so negative, but the narration ruined the material.

TERRIBLE

I was really looking forward to this one after listening to “The River of Doubt” but this narrator is awful. Way too fast, no emotion, monotonous, terrible. I turned it off after 5 minutes. Don’t waste a credit on this. I guess I will have to read it myself.

Returning

Very poor production. Mispronounced words, unnecessary pauses, poor sound quality. Hard to go wrong with T. Rosevelt but this does.