Dr Kevin O'Brien

vivid account of a brilliant traveler in late 18th Italy

Revisado: 02-22-25

Goethe’s narrative of his journey to and in Italy is full of vivid detail as well as many reflections on art and art production. It would make an excellent prelude to any trip to Venice, Rome, Naples, and Sicily in particular.
The narrator is excellent in conveying references in Italian and German with good accents. But I found his rather snobby manner and tone frequently off putting. Goethe’s vivid writing, however, comes through.

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excellent reader for engaging book

Revisado: 06-03-24

It was a great relief to find that the reader has an excellent command of French pronunciation—something essential for a book which continually references French names and places.

The most interesting aspect of the book is, naturally, Bair’s encounters with the two writers, Beckett and de Beauvoir. I learned a lot about the personalities of each. The other subject of the book is Bair’s own journey and development as a biographer, scholar, mother, wife…and particularly, her struggles to be heard and have agency as a professional in often hostile and sexist worlds and times. A fascinating book beautifully read.

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excellent reading of an intriguing Conrad novel

Revisado: 09-02-23

This is an outstanding recording of an interesting "lesser" masterwork by Conrad. The portrayal of the chief protagonist Willems is extremely masterful. For 21st century readers, the representation of women and of colonialism are as disturbing as fascinating. As always in Conrad, there are wonderful lyrical descriptions of the physical settings.
For Conrad fans and the curious, well worth a listen!

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outstanding reading, slightly censured text

Revisado: 01-21-23

Wives and Daughters is one of the classic novels of 19th c. England. Nadia May is the perfect reader for the text--capturing each voice, whether female or male, with just the right nuances. I was disappointed however to discover that the audiobook left out an appallingly racist passage from chapter 35. Gaskell may have been ahead of her time in her feminism, but not in her sense of white superiority. Here is a portion of the paragraph left out, "Black folk are not remarkable for their power of reasoning, I believe, so that they have not much chance of altering his opinion by argument, even if they understood each other's language; and certainly if he shares my taste, their peculiarity of complexion will only make him appreciate white skin the more."

I wish Audible would insert this back into the text. Readers need to be aware of, not protected from, such things as Gaskell's racism or Trollope's even more pervasive antisemitism.

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excellent reading of an interesting novel

Revisado: 11-19-22

David Dawson does an excellent job of conveying the various voices and tones of this novel--a look at two generations and two lives, father and son. A fine work of contemporary realist fiction.

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Very flawed reading of gripping classic

Revisado: 11-11-22

While James Cosmo may have a certain charm with his Scotch voiced rendering of Scott's classic, he continually misreads and mispronounces the text. Whatever you do, don't make the mistake of actually looking at the original as you listen. If you do, you'll discover that Cosmo misreads words on practically every page. A mild example would be misreading "through" as "though." He mispronounces basic words like "adversary" and "tryst" continually. And these are just familiar English words.
I don't understand why Audible doesn't check the recording to make sure it's not flawed, as this one is on every page.
This is just with respect to the English of the text. The French and Latin are hopeless, even when a word or phrase is fairly common in English.

The story itself is interesting and exciting. It just deserves a competent reader. A caution for Jewish listeners. While Scott was more sympathetic to Jews than many 19th c. British authors, and there are heroic depictions in this novel, there are still the negative stereotypes of Jews as obsessed with money and usuary. So it's a very mixed bag in terms of characterization.

That said, Ivanhoe is one of the great chivalric adventure novels..

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brilliant overview of journey of modern Ireland

Revisado: 09-06-22

We Don't Know Ourselves is a stunning achievement. It melds a superb command of the nuances and complexities of the journey of modern Ireland with a first-rate gift for narrative--melding meticulous research with engaging personal stories, unparalleled command of data with gripping biographical accounts. O'Toole's genius for marshalling a vast array of detail is matched by an exceptional way with words.

One of the best non-fictional books I've ever read. A masterpiece.

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flawless recording of engaging dystopian novel

Revisado: 08-16-22

I can’t imagine a better reading of Huxley’s classic. Michael York is pitch perfect in his rendering of each voice. Highly recommended.

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very disappointing reading of a great novel

Revisado: 05-20-22

Any professional reader of a work by Wharton or her good friend, Henry James, needs to have a sophisticated grasp of language. Mary Sarah continually mispronounces not only foreign words, but many familiar English words and names. At times she goes further and misreads Wharton and substitutes a word of her own. I found I had to get out my hard copy of the text in order to ascertain what Wharton actually wrote.
While the price was right for this reading, the experience for me, elicited winces. I encourage other listeners to pay more for a decent reading. This one will frustrate you if you know and love the text or have a good command of English and/or French.

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returned book because reader is so bad

Revisado: 04-14-22

I wanted a collection of Wharton's novels, and so I listened to the preview snippet and decided to get the book. However, on listening to the recording, I was continually frustrated by the narrator. He mispronounces virtually any foreign word and wrongly places the accent even on English words. For example, he mispronounces the author Thackeray's name (which you'd think the reader of a classic novel would know). An important part of audio narration is understanding the meaning of words and phrases and letting the stress fall where sense dictates. He constantly places the stress where it doesn't belong. I didn't have a hard copy of the first novel, The Age of Innocence, open before me, but I'm certain that he misread words on multiple occasions, so I was left wondering if the original could possibly have said what he said.

Wharton's novels are masterpieces and there's a real need for a collection like this one, but with a narrator who understands the text well, and has a sophisticated command of the language to match the sophistication of the writer.

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