Annie Oakley

By: Shirl Kasper

Narrated by: Laura Schreiber

Length: 11 hrs and 29 mins

Publisher's summary

"Nothing more simple, I assure you.... But I’ll tell you what. You must have your mind, your nerve, and everything in harmony. Don’t look at your gun, simply follow the object with the end of it, as if the tip of the barrel was the point of your finger.” (Annie Oakley)

Annie Oakley is a legend: America’s greatest female sharpshooter, a woman who triumphed in the masculine world of road shows and firearms. Despite her great fame, the popular image of Annie Oakley is far from true. She was neither a swaggering western gal nor a sweet little girl. Annie Oakley was a competitive woman resolved to be the best, and she succeeded. In this comprehensive biography Shirl Kasper sets the record straight, giving us an accurate, honest, and compelling portrait of the woman known as “Little Sure Shot.”

Now updated with a new afterword, this account illuminates the life and legend of Annie Oakley, including her start as a comedienne, her later life with Frank Butler, and her final years and struggles.

The book is published by University of Oklahoma Press. The audiobook is published by University Press Audiobooks.

©1992, 2023 University of Oklahoma Press (P)2023 Redwood Audiobooks

A Solid Tribute to an Iconic Figure

As a fervent enthusiast of historical biographies and an avid listener of audiobooks, I found "Annie Oakley" by Shirl Kasper, narrated by Laura Schreiber, to be an enlightening and engaging portrayal of one of America's most legendary figures. The book does a stellar job of dispelling common myths and offers a nuanced, researched view of Annie Oakley’s life, her prowess as a sharpshooter, and her endeavors in a male-dominated sphere.

Regarding the narration, while another listener pointed out issues with the audio quality and pronunciation, my experience was largely positive. Laura Schreiber, whose work I am familiar with, delivers a commendable performance that captures the essence of the narrative. Although there were a few minor pronunciation errors, these did not significantly detract from the overall experience for me.

For those deeply interested in the life of Annie Oakley and the era she influenced, this audiobook offers a comprehensive look that is both informative and entertaining. I would recommend it to anyone looking to gain real insight into her fascinating life and achievements.

Excellent book. Unacceptable "narration".

I was eager to read this book, reputed to be one of the best biographies of Annie Oakley now available. With a long commute every day and little time to read physical books anymore, I was excited to discover that this book was recently released in audiobook form. Audiobooks allow me to enjoy many more books than I otherwise could. Since 2006, I have amassed a collection of several thousand audiobooks read by hundreds of different narrators of various skill levels. I have even listened to other audiobooks by Laura Schreiber, the narrator of this book, and have had no complaints so far.

However, even though Laura Schreiber is credited as the narrator of this book, the "person" narrating this audiobook sounds like an AI-generated imitation of Laura Schreiber. The first red flag appeared early in the book when the word Winchester (the legendary rifle manufacturer) was misread as "Wine-Hester" with the letter "c" being mistaken for the letter "e". It's unthinkable that any professional narrator living in the English-speaking world would NOT know how to pronounce the word Winchester even if he/she knows nothing about firearms. It's as unthinkable as not knowing how to pronounce Steinway or Cadillac even if you know nothing about pianos or cars. However, one can easily see how a computer-based text-to-speech program could mistake the letter "c" for "e" to arrive at a pronunciation as ludicrous and meaningless as "Wine-Hester". Even if the word is misprinted in the book as "Winehester", a real human with any knowledge of English would know that it's a misprint and correctly read the word as Winchester. A computer would not, and would simply plow through with an absurdly wrong pronunciation, as is the case here.

Over time, it became impossible to believe that I was listening to a real human narrator. Besides the aforementioned misreading of the word Winchester, the narrator seems to have no sense of the cadence of normal human speech, often leaving unnaturally long gaps between words, and stressing words or syllables in an unnatural, non-human way, as if he/she does not understand English and is merely reading phonetically. That is not the case with the real Laura Schreiber who has 20 audiobooks on Audible at the time of this writing, all of them in English.

By the time I was 45 minutes into the book, I realized that I had comprehended almost nothing of the story being told because my mind was so distracted by the so-called narrator. To make matters worse, there are various editing errors such as false starts in which a sentence is begun, stopped abruptly, and then begun again. Editing errors of this kind happen from time to time in the audiobook profession, but not often as human editors usually catch these mistakes before the audiobook is published. By itself, the rare false start in audiobooks is a forgivable thing, if momentarily distracting. But combined with the distinctly non-human cadence of the narrator's speech, this audiobook is unlistenable in my opinion. It's a shame because what little I could discern from the story suggests this is an excellent book worthy of its good reputation among Annie Oakley biographies. I suppose I will have to find time to read the physical book, or hope the audiobook is redone by a real human narrator.

It seems likely that someday (if that day is not already here), AI will replace real human narrators in the audiobook profession. As sad as that is, I could live with it if the finished product sounds convincingly human and allows me to digest the book as well as if read by a real person. However, if this title is a realistic example of the capabilities of AI in the field of audiobook narration, I would say that the technology still has a long way to go before it can replace human narrators. Quite a long way!

If anyone in Audible management is reading this, please pull this book from circulation and have it redone by a real human. It deserves good narration by a real human narrator. It also reflects badly on Audible quality control, and audiobooks in general.