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

In the days before typewriters and copy machines, there were scriveners--people who meticulously copied documents for lawyers and businessmen. Golden Voice narrator Edoardo Ballerini captures the intelligent, genteel, and, finally, compassionate voice of the narrator of this classic story, who hires a quiet scrivener named Bartleby for his law firm. At first, all is well as... 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

David Timson performs in the character of author Bernard Mandeville as he is revealed in this early-eighteenth-century satirical discourse on economics and morality. In his engaging performance, Timson explicates and clarifies the text, making it easier to absorb while also enlivening it. Subsequent dialogues between a Mandeville proponent, narrated by Justin Avoth, and a... Read More

Dorothy Wordsworth may not have had the gift for words that her brother William did, but she was a very good descriptive writer. Sarah Lambie brings her to life with a charming and appropriate Northern English accent. The listener gets a vivid portrait of country life in rural England at the beginning of the nineteenth century and some interesting background on the lives and... Read More

Dickens is one of those classic authors whose works are wonderfully suited to the audiobook format. With strong dialogue, unexpected plot twists, and a wide array of characters, this production is superb, thanks to British actor Stephen Fry's expert narration. His exuberant performance brings Pip's coming-of-age story to life with glorious British accents. Dickens is well-known... Read More

Seth Numrich narrates this classic Jazz Age novel with an introduction by Jesmyn Ward, foreword by Eleanor Lanahan, and afterword by James L.W. West III. The story follows the mysterious Jay Gatsby through the eyes of Nick Carraway, and Nick's cousin, Daisy. Numrich captures Nick's optimism and Daisy's softness with his lively narration. Excelling at long passages full of... Read More

As Kevin R. Free deftly narrates this 1928 bestseller with understated ease, the strength, newfound artistic freedoms, and dizzying magic of the Harlem Renaissance come to life. The Roaring Twenties roar loudly in wonderfully vivid descriptions of gambling, prostitution, cutting-edge jazz, and perfectly groomed mobsters, but it's the story of a job-hopping down-on-his-luck... Read More

Golden Voice Nicholas Boulton gives yet another excellent performance in this second part of Gorky's three-part autobiography. Sometimes titled in English "My Apprenticeship," this work, published in 1916, covers his youth and is as unsentimental as the first part, MY CHILDHOOD. Boulton is superb--as he is in all the many other Naxos classics of Russian literature that he's... Read More

Prévost's 1731 novel of a flawed and tragic love is richly served by two fine performers. Sean Barrett plays the framing part of an older man to whom Manon's lover, the Chevalier des Grieux, tells the story of their blighted romance. Barrett's warm, rich, slightly raspy timbre brings gravity and warmth to his role. His intelligence especially shines as he narrates the... 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

Leighton Pugh masterfully delivers Emile Zola's heady mix of urbane prose, playful dialogue, and meticulous descriptions of stock market trading and manipulation in this one-of-a-kind cautionary tale. It's the roaring 1860s of the Second French Empire. Growth and prosperity are in the air, the Suez Canal is almost complete, and a devious stock market speculator plans to... Read More

Edoardo Ballerini splendidly narrates three of the Russian writer Gogol's best-known works. All three display the author's use of the grotesque and surreal. "The Nose" and "The Overcoat" also exhibit Gogol's satire of the Russian bureaucratic hierarchy. Anyone wishing for an entry into Russian literature would do well to listen to these three works. Golden Voice Ballerini has a... Read More

With his erudite-sounding English accent, Justin Avoth ably narrates Nabokov's memoir of his early years in pre-Revolutionary Russia and his life as an emigré, ending with a chapter about his time as a translator for the U.S. Army in Berlin immediately after the end of WWII. A composer himself, Nabokov (first cousin of writer Vladimir Nabokov) offers many vignettes of famous... 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