A Tale of Two Cities

i've read almost every dickens novel and enjoyed them all. dickens, like no other author i've read, breathes life into his characters.

the one problem i've had is that i read his stories with my american paradigm. i am incapable of experiencing his stories through dickens' own context.

with the narration done on this audiobook, i feel i've been able to hear the proper characterization of his characters and have felt more in tune with the story. the narrator skillfully articulates the voices of the french and english characters, women and men, in a way that absolutely makes them come alive.

i've listed to this audiobook about five times in its entirety over the past year, and love it each time.

This left me cold. I should have followed another's advice and listened to the unabridged version of this classic. I fear in cutting out so much of Dickens' work, the story line and flow suffered.

This book needs no review, but I simply could not resist the oportunity to lavish praise upon it and Sir Ian Richardson's narration. The story is superlative. The characters are so memorable. The characterization by Sir Ian is so entirely consistent with each of them. And the moral is so enduring. This Dickensian masterpiece for all ages boasts one of the best first paragraphs in literary history and one of the best last paragraphs, too. It is the best of books and the best of performances I have been privileged to listen too. I could listen to it again, now.