Our Island Story by H.E. Marshall

Source: Librivox (part 1 zipped mp3s | part2 zipped mp3s)
Length: 16 hr, 53 min
Readers: Kara Shallenberg and Jim Mowatt

The book: Our Island Story is a children's history book of Great Britain, up to the end of the Victorian Age. As its name implies, this is not a scholarly history, but a series of history stories. Marshall does not investigate the socio-political background behind events or apply economic theory to the past. Instead she tells the legend of Boudica in the same narrative style as a story about the signing of the Magna Carta.

What this type of narrative history may lack in scholarly rigor, it makes up for by being a fascinating read. This is the history that people remember, long after the facts and dates have faded from their minds. Of course, this history must be taken with a grain of salt, since it carries many of the prejudices and nationalism of the British Empire. As someone who knows only the barest bones of British history, this was a great, fun introduction to the characters and events of the past.

Rating: 8/10

The readers: To me, Kara Shallenberg is the epitome of LibriVox readers: decidedly amateur, but wonderful nonetheless.  Comparing a LibriVox book to a professional audiobook is like comparing a cake that your friend made you to a cake baked by a high-end baker and cake-decorator. The professional product is perfect, with smooth icing, moist cake, and eye-popping decorations. Your friend doesn't have the training, experience, or expensive equipment that the pro does, but her cake is made because she loves to bake and that makes it special.

Kara's reading is full of little mistakes like birds chirping in the background, but it's a labor of love from which it's easy to pick up her enthusiasm for the book. When Jim Mowatt joins her to read every other chapter in the second half of the book, he adds some weightiness and an appropriate British accent to this story of British History. This is not a recording for those who like their audiobooks perfect, but instead it's for anyone who appreciates a good amateur effort.

The Last of the Mohicans by James Fenimore Cooper

Source: LibriVox
Length: 17 hr, 18 min
Reader: Gary Sherwin

The book: The Last of the Mohicans is set in upstate New York during the French and Indian War. Natty Bumppo, known to the British-allied Indians as Hawkeye and to the French and their Indian allies as "Le Longue Carabine," is a scout in the hotly-contested portage between the Hudson River and the Great Lakes. He and his friends Chingachgook and Uncas, the last two members of the dwindling Mohican tribe, pledge to help two young ladies and their escort through the forest to Fort William Henry where their father is in command of the British forces. But the forest is filled with the French-allied Huron Indians, so it will take all of Hawkeye and the Mohicans' skill to get them through alive.

I was expecting this book to be a plodding period drama with long-winded descriptions of the American frontier and boring philosophical speeches on the noble savage. Cooper did throw in a few of these, but I found the descriptions moving and the speeches short and to-the-point. For the most part, this book was much more fun than I expected. Cooper designs some exciting action sequences with interesting devices for the heroes' escape. His villains and heroes alike are well-formed characters, despite borrowing heavily from American Indian stereotypes. The main asset of the book, however, was the setting. The French and Indian War is a short chapter in most American textbooks and little more than a footnote in European history, but Cooper's story is a great example of literature making history come alive.

Rating: 8/10

The reader: Sherwin's reading is that of an amateur, but a talented amateur. He stumbles over a word from time to time, and noises like page turns and edits are clearly audible. His tone and pacing, however are near-perfect. Sherwin does voices with varying success. His voicing of the villain is scarily menacing, while the comic choirmaster's voice is hilariously funny. On the other hand, the female characters' voices made me cringe at times. His natural voice is fairly deep, which is liability for the women characters, but for his narration and male voices it's a great asset. Fortunately, most of this book plays to his strengths, so I can highly recommend this reading.

Dracula by Bram Stoker

Source: Lit2Go
Length: Approx 17 hr.
Reader: Rick Kistner

The book: My impressions of Dracula are heavily influenced by my first reading of it when I was in middle school. This was a revelation to me: that an old book could also be good. Dracula certainly deserves its reputation as a classic. Although some parts are a bit slow, others carry a profound spookiness that is untouched by the bombardment of gore and cheap frights of many modern horror movies.

Despite its many adaptations to film and other media, I'm not sure that Dracula the novel is ideally suited to audiobooks. For one thing, it's a long book, an aspect which telescopes in the spoken word where slow parts drag on. Complex action is difficult to re-read. Stoker makes heavy use of letter, diaries, and false documents to tell his story. These lose some of their feeling of veracity then taken off the printed page. There are some stories which are enhanced by the sound and rhythm of voice, while others are documents which take full advantage of the physical medium of the book. To Dracula's great credit, even though it belongs in the class of a primarily physical book, it still works well in the spoken format.

Rating: 9/10

The reader: Kistner has a deep voice that is full of color. He alters his accent and tone for the different characters, making them recognizable. The pace of his reading is not always ideal, but overall this is a decent reading. The main complaint lies with the recording. There is some background noise. Lip smacks and breathing are clearly audible. These issues are excusable to some people, while others may find that they make the book unenjoyable. I'll allow you to decide whether or not the quality of the story and reader make up for some audio noise.

A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens

Source: LoudLit / Literal Systems (direct link)
Reader: Jane Aker
Length: 16 hrs, 15 min

The book: Usually, I find Charles Dickens too sentimental for my tastes. A Tale of Two Cities is my favorite Dickens book because he gives his characters some depth and sets them in an interesting time. Typical of Dickens' work, there's still the extremes of the supremely good Lucie and supremely bad Madam Defarge, but he also throws in characters in shades of gray, like Monsieur Defarge and Sydney Carton.

The plot is doled out piecemeal, as is normal for serial novels, with a go-nowhere subplot about one of Lucie's suitors taking up too much space in the middle of the novel. I also found the chapters about Jerry to be tedious and full of supposed humor regarding wife abuse. Once the action moves to France, however, the pace picks up and I found myself doing a few more laps at the gym to find out what would happen to Charles, Lucie and the doctor.

The historical background is, of course, the French Revolution. I'm not sure how much actual research Dickens did into time period beyond what was generally known in the history books. I don't have a good handle on the historical events of the Revolution in all its complexity and contradictions, so I can't really comment on his verisimilitude. Dickens' portrayal, however accurate, of the persecution of the poor by the rich and the resulting bloodthirstiness of the Reign of Terror trials is something that will stick in my mind.

Rating: 7/10

The reader: Jane Akers is a marvelous narrator. She speaks at a slow pace with clear enunciation. She performs a wide variety of accents for the characters which makes Dickens' often difficult dialect much easier to understand. The recording is professionally done at a studio with no background noise or hiss.