Gone with the Wind

I won't comment on the novel Gone With the Wind, because nothing I can say would do this great classic justice. I will say that Linda Stephens is perhaps the best audiobook narrator I have ever had the pleasure of listening to! She is utterly fantastic.

GWTW has been a favourite read of mine since my teen years, but I never realized before how much of the descriptions I tend to skip over in favour of dialogue. Listening to this book has made me hear every word and added a whole new dimension to the story. I thought the narrator was brilliant and the accents added an authenticity - its made me want to study more about the civil war.

I agree with another reviewer that this was one of the best credits I've ever spent, largely due to the excellent performance of the reader. Consistent and distinct characterizations were the highlight of this reading--I was actually brought to tears several times. I will listen to this audiobook over and over again, I'm sure.

I was reluctant to listen to this book because I thought it would be just a boring re-do of the great movie.

However, I think this book is spectacular. I have a personal rating system like Jacob's ladder. This is a five star book above the ordinary five stars. The narration is as good as the book and is what carried me along for several days straight, to the extent I neglected important personal duties...

Besides being a great love story with admirable characters, I learned more history in this book than I thought possible for a single volume. The author captured life in the South during, before and after the Civil War.

Gone With the Wind has been compared to War and Peace. I have listened to them both, and I say War and Peace was a duty to be fulfilled, and that Gone With the Wind an exciting pleasure and a true education, if you want it.

I had read the book a few times and have seen the movie, so I already knew I liked the story. This narrator does a fantastic job. The book is rather racist and rather sexist (at least with some of the views of women), but consider when it was written and the period in which it was placed. If it was politically correct it likely wouldn't feel as real. It is funny that such unlikable charactors can be so very interesting. It is a shame she only wrote the one book as she is really a great author. I highly recommend the book, don't be afraid of the length, long books are great if well written, and this one is very well written. She could have tacked another 40 hours to the end of it and I wouldn't have minded at all.

Okay, I'm not going to review the text of GWTW. It's been analyzed plenty. It's a brilliant book. 'Nuff said.

What I do want to review is the audio performance. When I saw that GWTW was available in audio format, I was dubious. I'm from the South. (Not the deep South -- Virginia). I speak with a Tidewater accent, which is different to my ear from a Georgia accent, which is different to my ear from a Charleston accent... You get the picture.

Ms. Stephens managed to get the nuances of the various accents well enough not to make me cringe. It sounds like a trivial thing, but since Mitchell, herself, made a big deal of differences of dialect in the actual novel, you need to have it in the performance. I'm so glad that the narrator did not go for that Eastern Tennessee accent that is so often touted as "Generic Southern".

If you love GWTW, get it. If you've never read it, this is a good way to enjoy the book.

I have read the book, seen the movie many times, but this was by far the most enjoyable GWTW experience. I heard things I missed or forgot in the read and that were totally not part of the film. For any fan of Margaret Mitchell's masterpiece - the Audio version is a must do!

sometimes a little drawn out but always character building and scene setting the reader was well chosen and kept a good flow i loved it and couldnt stop listening loved and hated the ending left me flabergsted for days.

It is difficult for me to understand how I could be so interested in such a long book filled with characters that I have such little sympathy for. But there you have it; I did enjoy it and would recommend it to anyone interested in the period. Well, not anyone, if you are offended by overt racist comments, this would call for some thickening of the skin. Scarlett did strain credulity with being so scatter brained in some areas and insightful in others.
Linda Stephens is wonderful. Character voices are clear consistent and enjoyable. I will look for more from her.

This was an absolute joy to listen to! The reader had such wonderful character voices that I could picture every moment in the book. I am so glad I listened to it before watching the movie.