The Original Watergate Stories

By: Bob Woodward - foreword, Carl Bernstein - foreword, The Washington Post

Narrated by: David Marantz

Length: 5 hrs and 39 mins

Publisher's summary

To mark the 40th anniversary of the Watergate scandal, The Washington Post's seminal Watergate stories have been gathered together for the first time as an audiobook, including a foreword by journalists Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein assessing the impact of their stories 40 years later.

"5 Held in Plot to Bug Democrats' Offices Here", said the headline at the bottom of page one in The Washington Post on Sunday, June 18, 1972. The story reported that a team of burglars had been arrested inside the offices of the Democratic National Committee in the Watergate office complex in Washington. On assignment, Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward uncovered a widespread political scandal and cover-up at the highest levels of government, culminating with the resignation of President Richard Nixon. The Post won a Pulitzer Prize for its work, which became the subject of two best-selling books and the renowned movie All the President's Men.

This audiobook is a look back at the dramatic chain of events that would convulse Washington for two years and lead to the first resignation of a US president, forever changing American politics.

©2012 The Washington Post (P)2014 Audible Inc.

fascinating!

I have been trying to 'read' as many of the Nixon/Watergate books that I can get my hands on...with time at a distance, can look back and really get an understanding...no regrets for time well spent!

Quick and concise

this book was a very quick and compact telling of the Watergate story. it was very engaging and made it more understandable.

Insightful

This book came out in 2013 to mark the 40th Anniversary of the Watergate Scandal. The forward is by Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein. The stories were published in the Washington Post and won the Pulitzer Prize in 1973.

This is a compilation of the newspaper stories but they are not in chronological order and it is not a complete compilation. Woodward selected certain stories to present but it does give an informative picture of the scandal. This makes a good review for someone like me that lived through the scandal but for young people it would make a beneficial reference and starting point to launch further investigation.

I read the memoir of Katharine Graham’s “Personal History”. It won the Pulitzer Prize in 1998. Her memoir provided information about what tactics Richard Nixon took in his attempt to stop the Post from publishing the stories. As I read this book I remembered what Graham had said and it only made the stories in this book even more interesting.

David Marantz does a good job narrating the book. Marantz is an actor, voiceover artist and audiobook narrator.

Interesting but not essential

The best thing about this book is the fact that writers other than Woodward and Bernstein receive some recognition for their contribution to Watergate. As important as W & B were, Watergate was a collaborative work, a fact that is often forgotten.

One of the more annoying aspects of the book, which works well in print but can be confusing on audio, is the structure of a chapter introduction which summarizes the contents of the chapter and then launches into the reading of the relevant stories. This was a bit confusing and broke the rhythm of the storytelling.

Overall, the book, unlike histories written after the events, contains contemporaneous reports with only the facts known when the respective story was written. This lends a certain excitement to the stories as the affair unfolds.

Historic

Provides an excellent time line and description of the events that lea'sd to the resignation of Richard Nixon.

Relevant to this era.

I wasn't born until well after Watergate so it was useful to get an idea of what happened.

Wonderfully told.

Very concise and thorough, I wouldn't expect less from the Post. So many parallels of an authoritarian figure that thinks he is above the law.

Disappointing

No new info, kind of boring, felt like a re-hash of old newspaper stories.

left leaning

if your going target one party target both leaves alot out but it's hard task to be unbiased