Io Vagabondo

Stories from Abroad

By: Michael Rosebush

Narrated by: Jackson Friend

Length: 5 hrs and 21 mins

Publisher's summary

Io Vagabondo: Stories from Abroad is an autobiographical collection of short stories dealing primarily with the author’s post-college graduation train trip through Europe in the summer of 1997. The trip spanned 14 countries and nearly 25 cities in a period of about 3 months. It includes some very bizarre and gripping tales of romance, adventure, intrigue, and some extremely picturesque and historical locations.

All told, five continents and some 20 countries are visited, and Rosebush describes his - sometimes planned, oftentimes improvised, but always fascinating - experiences in Australia, Africa, South and North America. He completes the mystical and unusual route with a sampling of his dreams during this period the book covers from 1996 to 2003.

So, come and take this journey across the oceans and the world with your curious and daring narrator, and locate your next exciting destination on planet Earth!

©2009 M. Erez Kats (P)2019 M. Erez Kats

An Amazing journey!!

I really enjoyed this book because of how unique it is. The author describes events that are rarely ever experienced by most of us, and he does a great job of mixing in comedy and a light sense of humor, with some truly philosophical thoughts and emotions, as well as vivid descriptions of places like museums in Amsterdam or Madrid, or the Vienna Opera Houses or the Arc de Triomph in Paris. Love stories are everywhere in this journey through many countries in Europe, and it’s easy to tell that the author is being absolutely truthful and authentic in his telling of the tales. Nothing is made up here, even though much of it is unbelievable!

The narration does throw you for a bit of a curve though, I have to say, because the narrator’s southern accent doesn’t really seem to match what the author would look or sound like, at least not in my mind. The pacing seems a little off at times, as does some of the pronunciation, especially of some of the foreign names and words from other languages like French or Spanish, but all in all, the narration doesn’t completely ruin the book. In many places, it is actually quite charming, and provides a certain comedic or philosophical element of its own separate from the writing itself.

The book does read a little like a collection of journal entries, but I have to say, if we all had journal entries like these, we’d have a pretty entertaining diary and life in general I’d say! I would highly recommend giving this audiobook a listen and you can all judge for yourselves. Personally, I have to say I was quite enthralled!

Disappointed, was not completely as advertised

There is no sampling of dreams as advertised in the book description, and that's why I bought the book. I thought it sounded different and interesting based on that.

The narration was very good in terms of pronunciation and tone, but awful in terms of rhythm due to staccato utterances. When a performer uses staccato pacing, nothing can save the listener experience because there's no speed that's right. You can't use 1x speed or any other speed to overcome this problem. Further, the narrator did better in the early part of the book than the latter when perhaps out of boredom got sloppy and let the staccato run in full force.

The 'stories' were really just diary/journal entries. It's a very repetitive set, such as meeting other travelers and going to a bar with them that evening and having one mixed drink and many beers. You can only listen to so much of that before wondering if publishing one's journal entries in audible format should be its own category so as to make avoidance easier.

All that said, the author clearly is very intelligent and highly sociable. I don't mean to pass judgement on the author.