The Founding Father: The Story of Joseph P. Kennedy

I must agree with another reviewer that the narration on this book is ghastly. I couldn't get through the first section. The content is fascinating, but after the 500th "quote/unquote" , I had to turn it off. Really awful and a shame. Authors to stick to being authors and let professional readers do the readings of their books.

Provides an intimate portrayal of a complex man who fathered a dynasty of American politicians. In addition, the activities of Joe Kennedy, and the background from whence he came are finely yet enthrallingly revealed. I learned much more depth about this period of American history, from the treatment of the Irish immigrants, to the stock market, to his inside experience in England, to the nurturing and care of his 9 children. Stimulating and engrossing read. Highly recommended!

This audiobook was read by the author. He has a soothing grandfatherly story-teller voice that is easy to listen to. This book was written in the 1960s so the language is of that era. This book explains in great detail the life and times of Joe Kennedy from when his grandparents immigrated to America up to JFK's short presidency. After finishing this book, I got a good sense of the drive and ambition of this man to create a family dynasty that goes beyond just amassing wealth.

No matter which side of the political divide you hail from, I believe you will enjoy this work immensely. It gripped me from the start.
Mr.Whalen's narration is warm and easy.

I highly recommend this reading,especially to political and/or 20th century history buffs.

The author is the worst narrator I have ever heard. He speaks painfully slowly. You can hear him turn the pages. I really wanted to read this, but I couldn't bear the narration.

The ponderous delivery of his own work ruins this otherwise worthwhile "listen". The needless and constant repetition of "quote" "end quote" simply adds to the misery. The only way I managed to finish the book was by speeding up the play back which the makes the rendition bearable.

I hate to be petty about it, but this bookConte, whatever its merits, is significantly harmed by the author's choice to read his own work. He is halting and his pacing is inconsistent. It's extremely hard to listen.

There ought to be a law against an author narrating his own work. There is no doubt that the author was quite scholarly in his research, but the narration is beyond bad. I finally had to give up on it. I just couldn't stand any more of the choppy speech and background noise.

Apart from the narration, which leaned toward the upside of boring,
this book was incredible. It's well written, thouroughly organized, understandable, and solidly informative. I highly, highly recommend it. It'll be worth your time-- and may be worth paying full price. It's that good!

I've read just about anything and everything Kennedy related that I can get my hands on. So, I was thrilled when this selection popped up on Audible. The book includes some bits of information I haven't read in others, but I found the narration horrendous. There were mispronunciations and worse, in my opinion, the ghastly and inconsistently applied (and oh so irritating over the long haul) usage of "open quote", "quote", and "end quote." I'm usually pretty impervious to the individual idioscyncrasies of readers, but I've got to say those seemingly erroneous blats of "quote!" followed by mumbled, "endquote" peppered throughout really messed up the flow of the narrative for me. With few exceptions, I haven't been impressed when authors read their own works.