New Reviews: Classics

David Timson captures gentleman robber Arsène Lupin's multiple identities as he takes listeners through the many twists and turns of Maurice Leblanc's classic story. Timson gives the stranger who robs Rudolph Kesselbach an airy tone, even as menace creeps into his voice. Listeners will soon realize that the stranger is Lupin. Timson adopts a cackling voice when Lupin expresses... Read More

Mike Vendetti narrates this classic WWI story, told from a German soldier's point of view. Paul endures all the brutalities of the Great War that we can imagine--and those that we cannot. Vendetti's deep pitch and rhythmic cadence mirror the random, horrific trajectory of Paul's experiences with trench warfare. Every moment in this story, the good and bad, illustrates the life... Read More

There's no question that CANDIDE, written in 1759, is a classic and Voltaire's masterpiece, but most people today probably don't know it. This audio version is an easy-to-swallow rendition in which narrator Martyn Swain seems to be having quite a good time telling the story. He mostly uses accents to portray the many characters, and his range of accents is impressive, including... Read More

Henry James's 1878 novella about a flirtatious American girl who is traveling in Europe is part of a growing series of short classics narrated by Edoardo Ballerini. The story has only a small number of characters, but they are diverse, and Ballerini handles them all capably. He gives convincing voices to both the title character and her suitors, one American and one Italian.... Read More

Golden Voice narrator Edoardo Ballerini has the perfect voice to match the crisp rhythms and assured ease of Hemingway's celebrated prose style in his bestselling semi-autobiographical 1929 classic about an American adventurer who joins the Italian Army in WWI. Known for its realistic depiction of the violence and destruction of war, the novel follows the travails and growth of... Read More

Charlotte Brontë's skill ensured her place in literary history, and this audiobook delves deeply into her life and times. Lucy Scott is the consummate British narrator. Her brisk pace and animated tone remain consistent throughout this extensive audio performance. Supporting cast members are used well to voice various primary sources; these moments highlight the quotations and... Read More

Not all of the damsels in this audiobook are in distress. One of them needs Galahad only to lend her a sword. Aside from that, these "rediscovered" tales hew pretty closely to the style and tone of medieval Arthuriana. A lot of the humor comes from the puckish introduction and footnotes, which treat the tales as serious historical documents. Narrator Simon Vance does his usual... Read More

Alison Larkin's bright narration takes listeners to the charming fictional town of Middlemarch, England. Individual goals, loves, and desires intertwine as early-nineteenth-century characters find themselves navigating restrictive social norms amid political and social change. Larkin's narration captures the complex residents as they come to terms with the new world they find... Read More

Quentin Crisp's classic autobiography, originally published in 1968, receives a vibrant new audiobook performance from Christian Coulson. Crisp, the irrepressible gay icon with a delightfully dry wit and unabashed self-expression, takes listeners from his early-twentieth-century British childhood through his seemingly unlikely rise to international celebrity as an openly gay... Read More

Gertrude Bell recounts her 1892 tour of Persia (Iran) and Turkey. A late-Victorian floweriness and a sometimes condescending Orientalism are balanced by Bell's open mind, good nature, intelligence, and astute observations--all of which Juliet Stevenson conveys. Her narration is clear and energetic, and her voice, though somewhat nasal in her characterization of the author, is... Read More

Golden Voice Rupert Degas captures this first novel in Ford Madox Ford's tetralogy, PARADE'S END. It revolves around WWI and Christopher Tietjens, an aristocrat who was decent, principled--even noble--in a way that is rapidly vanishing. Sometimes impressionistic yet realistically detailed, it paints the world in tones of heightened emotion. Degas's voice is excellent, his... Read More

Laurel Lefkow performs the second in Willa Cather's Great Plains trilogy in a precise, sweet voice that highlights the author's expressive prose. The 1915 novel is the story of Thea Kronberg, a talented girl from a humble home in a Colorado mountain town who, through hard work and luck, goes on to operatic fame. Set in the era of the burgeoning West, replete with railroads,... Read More

Gerry O'Brien skillfully narrates a newly translated collection of Irish stories first collected more than 900 years ago. In the earliest anthology of stories and poems relating to the pursuit of Irish independence, characters from folklore are intermixed with stories of St. Patrick. Pagan and Christian worlds collide in the tales being shared. O'Brien's tone is pleasant to the... Read More

With his bass voice and vocal flair, narrator Bill Homewood transports listeners to France, where we meet D'Artagnan 20 years after his adventures in THE THREE MUSKETEERS. Cardinal Mazarin, the power behind the throne, summons D'Artagnan and commands him to find his former friends, Athos, Aramis, and Porthos. France is on the brink of a civil war, and England is in turmoil, so... Read More

This fresh production of Charlotte Perkins Gilman's classic short stories featuring strong and enterprising women pairs perfectly with the vocal talents of Laurel Lefkow. Lefkow lends emotional nuance to their pragmatism, courage, and desire as they transcend stifling societal expectations in stories like "The Widow's Might," "Bee Wise," and "An Elopement." "The Yellow... Read More