The Thirteen Clocks

By: James Thurber

Narrated by: Edward Woodard

Length: 1 hr and 26 mins

Publisher's Summary

The Thirteen Clocks is James Thurber's enduring story of life in a castle where time stands still on every clock at 10 minutes to five. The Duke of the castle ignores time and pays no attention to temperature either. He is a wicked Duke who has hands cold enough to choke a bull. The only warmth he understands is the warm hands of Princess Saralinda, his fair niece, whom he cherishes and protects from suitors. In a comic and poetic way, this story makes us all want to love a Princess and to be a Prince. What's more, we want the 13 castle clocks to whir and tick and tell us that the time is NOW.

©2009 Phoenix

I couldn't finish this. The dreadful music!

I love Thurber and Edward Woodward is enjoyable, but I couldn't finish this audible book. The background music never stopped. And it was dreadful.

Some audiobooks start out with music, but it generally fades after a minute or two. This background music never stopped. It was horribly mournful music, like listening to a funeral dirge, and it distracted me from the story at the same time it depressed me.

I'm going to look for another version of this story. If not, there's always the print version.

As a Fairy Tale Should Be

James Thurber is, of course, delightful, and Edward Woodard is an absolute Wonder.

Ruined by sound effects and over loud music

The story is 10 stars and performance is good but wrecked by the overwrought production. Try to find the version done by Peter Ustinov it is almost a perfect production. The story is so good that even the bad choices of loud music and slapdash sound effects could nudge down the overall score

I loved this story!

What a very fun short story! Highly recommend if you love a good fairy tale, with some Monty Python-esque humor twisted in! It only takes an hour to listen to it. It's a tough book to find (....audio or otherwise -- my local library doesn't even have it!), but this Audible version is outstanding! The voices are spectacular, and you won't be able to resist repeating some of very clever phrases, or saying, "golux" out loud!

Awful Background Music/Sound Effects

I was really looking forward to this, however, the incessant and rapidly changing music and sound effects were so irritating, I retuned this title. I hope I can find it somewhere else, without all the added distractions.

a great story

I liked the different sounds of Characters an-. the Story

Wond e r f U I

A Great Tale For Young and Old Alike

One of Thurber's best stories; his wordplay and humor make this a winner. But it is made even better with Edward Woodard's fantastic narration. It took me awhile to get used to the sound effects and music and I'm still not sure if I would like it better without these. However, it's delightful anyway and if you have children they should enjoy it too.

Distracting music

As a Thurber lover I was exited to listen to this. The narrator is quite good, but there is intrusive and unneeded background music that I kept expecting to go away. No such luck. I'm asking for my money back and will try to find a version with no noise in the background.

audible fails to tell you

James Thurber is a National Treasure. This is a gentle Fairy tale that can be enjoyed by all ages.

Buy the book and enjoy it. But you need to know that you have to download it on the highest quality for good audio quality. Otherwise the music will drown out the speech.

A very good reading, but something's missing...

All in all, I enjoyed this reading of a story that I've enjoyed since childhood, but I really can't give it full marks. While Edward Woodward is an extremely competent narrator and kept the story moving along at a very good pace, I didn't quite get the impression he was enjoying himself portraying all the different characters and his reading at times seems slightly rushed. While using sound effects was all right, I found that the background music was a distraction throughout the story and at times almost but not quite overwhelmed the narrator.

A good, very good, performance and audio-book ... but I have to say I have heard better.

Infuriating background music

A good book completely ruined by loud, tedious and completely inappropriate music throughout the whole story.

all great apart from the music

The story is great and so is the narration, but the background music is annoying.

Music too loud

The music is too intrusive and noisy. The story is great, funny, whimsical and strange. I’d recommend a kindle or paperback instead

Mad and inventive

Epic tale told in dramatic and comic style. Great narration. Clever fairy tale. Well worth buying.

Absolutely fantastic!

Amazing work from the narrator, doing all the characters' voices sound so distinct and all the different ways of talking. The sound effects were also spot on, and the author's style and word choices are superb! An utterly delightful listen, I will certainly recommend this audiobook to everyone I know!

I just want to listen to this at least once whilst having a printed copy of the book in front of me, as there was unfortunately a few words I couldn't understand, even after repeating some passages a number of times...

Very strange and very enjoyable

I don't normally like audiobooks with music and sound effects, but it worked very well in this instance. The story was even weirder than I had heard, and I enjoyed it a lot.

Delightful

Edward Woodward gives a masterful narration of this classic Thurber fairy tale with marvellous portrayals of the different characters, bringing the whole to life just as one expects of the best audio book reader actors.
The audio book also has a sound track and sound effects accompanying the reader throughout, which is the first time I have come across this. I was not sure I liked it at first, but having listened to the whole tale quite a few times now I find I like it very much.