The Mythology of Ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia, Greece and Rome

The 'good' is the material. All three stars are for the book. The author has made the information interesting and precise. The 'god awful' is the narrator. Alec Sand is deadly dull. Little or no inflection in his reading at all. He has a long list of audio books to his credit which I find amazing. I'll definitely avoid anything of his in the future. This is one where I recommend you read the book. Stay away from the audio.

It took me a little while to get use to the narrator, but after I did, I couldn't get enough. I have always be amazed at how much our modern world is still so influenced by Ancient Mythology. It is everywhere. I enjoyed this book very much.

I was sincerely interested in listening to this book and collection of stories. However, I tried, and tried but to no avail. I do not know what they were thinking when they allowed Alec Sand (someone I had never known till I looked at who narrated this book until after I could not listen to it) to narrate it. Aren't these people screened before they are allowed to read! Oh my goodness, I could not get any part of the story because his words were so choppy and I was so agitated, irritated and frustrated. Biggest waste of money, and please, do not let that man narrate another thing or teach him how read to a crowd, or let him read to himself.

Narrator reads text with as much passion as if he were reading directions on how one should fill out a tax form. Most information is delivered as a series of facts with very little "story" to make it interesting. Painful!

The content is very insightful and I could have learned a lot, but the HORRIBLE narration made listening to this for more than 5 minutes absolutely painful. If you need something to put you to sleep then you've found it!

I would not recommend this reading.

He can't put together a sentence without great jerky surges of words interspersed with pauses which are irritating to the max.

Get a better reader

I have tried many time to get through this book but have yet to be able to do so because he is such an irritating person to have to listen to.

More a series of short lectures than a book. The performance is fairly dry. Most of the time is spent telling the legends with only a little bit of analysis of the legends.

People have already mentioned the narrator, and he was awful, so I will leave it at that. The section on Egyptian Myth was pretty good. It was hard to follow at times, but overall informative.
The section about Mesopotamia eventually turns into a summery of the Epic of Gilgamesh.
The section about Ancient Greece is basically a summery of the Illiad and the Odyessy.

Also, I don't know if it was just poorly recorded or if there was something wrong with my download personally, but there were a lot of points in the book where it repeats what it just said. Then, at the end, it just kind of trailed off. There was no summery or ending, it just kind of stopped. It felt like there was a part that I wasn't getting.

There are better books for those interested in Ancient Mythology, but this has some good information. But I'm glad I didn't spend any more than I did on this

I bought this book for the love of mythology, and the material itself was wonderful. But even with the most interesting material, if your presenter doesn't do his job well, you lose the whole thing. Mr. Sand reads this like a weary college professor who is completely bored with his subject, and is just trying to get through it as quickly as possible.

The way that the narrator talks is quite akin to a certain current American President, and I will not lie, it bothers the crap out of me! i couldn't get through the first 30 minutes because he bothered me so much! Use your money elsewhere.