The Red House Mystery by A. A. Milne

Source: LibriVox (zipped mp3's | iTunes)

Length: 6 hr, 55 min
Reader: Kristen Hughes

The book: Arriving at a friend's house in the English countryside a few minutes after a murder has taken place, Tony Gillingham is thrust into a classic-style locked room mystery. He takes on his role as amateur detective with enthusiasm, finding false identities, hidden passages and blown alibis as he delves deeper into the secrets of the Red House and its inhabitants.

The best mysteries are those that use the mystery as a backdrop for an additional layer of complexity: The mediation on guilt in And Then There Were None, the exploration of a corrupt town in Red Harvest , the fusion of magic and the modern world in the Dresden Files. This book is simply a fun mystery novel, not much more.  It's worthwhile as a few hours of entertainment or as an insight into Milne's writing outside his Winnie-the-Pooh series, but it's also not a must-read.

Rating: 7 /10

The reader: I've mentioned it before, but Hughes is an excellent amateur reader. She doesn't have the polish and voices that are the hallmarks of the pro's and some of the other great readers at LibriVox, but her narration is warm and pleasing. This style of reading is less of a dramatic performance and more of a friend reading to you at your bedside. The little quirks and imperfections make it more enjoyable knowing it's an ordinary person on the other side of the microphone.

Buy a paperback copy of The Red House Mystery

House of Mirth by Edith Warton

Source: LibriVox (zipped mp3s | iTunes)

Length: 12 hr, 32 min
Reader: Elizabeth Klett

The book: Lilly Bart, an unmarried woman on the fringes of New York high society, is trying to parlay her looks and eligibility into a suitable marriage to a wealthy man. But in the Gilded Age, a single woman without family protection was at the mercies of rumors and Lilly's self-willed spirit make her particularly susceptible to intrigue. The rules of society and the whims of love both seem to be working against Lilly as she tries to climb the social ladder, or at least avoid poverty.

Although set in roughly the same time period, this book plays out as the inverse of Downton Abbey.  Where Downton is English and rural, House of Mirth is American and urban. Where the Crawleys are an aristocratic family trying to hold onto its wealth, Lilly is trying to work her way into wealth and privilege. Yet, the battlefield of manners and drawing-room politics are similar. I ended up enjoying this book much more than I thought I would.

Rating: 8/10

The reader: Elizabeth Klett is one of Librivox's best readers. She has an expressive American voice that makes the story easy to follow. Klett doesn't exactly "do voices" here, but her intonation and expression change enough to make it clear who is speaking and give the speaker some characterization. The recording is clean and nicely produced.

Buy a paperback copy of  The House of Mirth

The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde

Source: LibriVox (Act 1 | 2 | 3)
Length: 2 Hours, 11 min
Readers: multiple

The play: “I hope you have not been leading a double life, pretending to be wicked and being good all the time. That would be hypocrisy.” John Worthington, a.k.a. Ernest, has been leading a double life. In London, his friend Algernon knows him as Ernest. In the countryside, his ward Cecily knows him as Jack or John and believes that "Ernest" is Jack's black sheep brother in the city. This being a comedy, the double life comes back to bite John, and everyone tries on new identities for parts of the play, leading to more confusion. It's an old device that recalls Shakespeare's comedies, but Wilde (who knew a thing or two about putting up a false front) twists it beautifully until the false identities become more real than the actual identities. 

The funniness of the piece holds up, even after almost 100 years. Although it is meant to poke fun at British upper-class society, much of the humor is in Wilde's wonderful use of language. One-liners like "To be natural is such a very difficult pose to keep up," are funny even out of context, but the mounting absurdity of the play's plot make them even better. The great lines are almost too much to keep up with at some points and I found myself relistening just to catch the full wit of the words.

Rating: 9/10

The readers: Librivox does an interesting trick of having the actors record their lines separately, then has an editor paste all the lines together to make a finished recording. It shouldn't work, but somehow in this example, it does. There are places where the sound quality noticeably changes between readers, but  I didn't mind so much. The actors themselves do a remarkably good job, despite the impediment to comedic timing. I'm impressed that they were able to overcome the limitations of this style of compiling a play.

Buy a paperback copy of  The Importance of Being Earnest

"Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came" by Robert Browning

Source: LibriVox (mp3)
Length: 13 minutes
Reader: Algy Pug

The poem: In The White Company, Conan Doyle mentions the great knight Roland as the company travels from France into Spain through the Roncevaux Pass in the Pyrenees Mountains. Roland, a knight of King Charlemange, died while holding the rearguard in a battle in the pass, made famous by the French epic poem The Song of Roland.

This poem, composed hundreds of years later, follows a legendary earlier quest by Roland to the Dark Tower. Browning describes a desolate landscape full of imagery of death, reminding him of other knights who have failed this quest. Roland himself holds little hope of himself succeeding at finding the Dark Tower, but continues on anyway. Browning, perhaps, is commenting on the futility of life as well as our duty to keep living as best we can. The depressing nightmarish land described in the poem have been a inspiration to other writers, notably Steven King's The Dark Tower series and Gordon R. Dickenson's Childe Cycle.

Rating: 8 /10

The reader: Pug does an adequate job here reading a very difficult poem. He has a strong Australian accent, but it did not inhibit my understanding of the words. I did have trouble following the poem due to its complexity and had to follow along by reading the text. Each stanza heading (1, 2, 3, 4) is read out loud, which, although faithful to the text, is somewhat distracting. Though Pug's reading does little to aid the interpretation of the poem, his neutral tone is probably best for those wishing to find their own sense of meaning.

The White Company by Arthur Conan Doyle

Source: LibriVox (zipped mp3s)
Length: 14 hr, 43 min
Reader: Clive Catterall

The book: Although known now as the creator of Sherlock Holmes, Arthur Conan Doyle considered The White Company and his other historical fiction as his best work. The title refers to an English mercenary band of archers during the Hundred Years' War. The book follows the adventures of two men from very different parts of the feudal hierarchy: Alleyne, a second son of a minor nobleman who after being raised in a abbey, goes off to find his fortune and John, a massively strong peasant who has been kicked out of the same abbey for flirting and drinking. They both fall in with Aylward, an enthusiastic recruiter for the White Company.

The story takes a long time in getting started, with plenty of descriptions of everyday life in the 1300s before the action gets going. Perhaps Conan Doyle was trying to set up a connection with the characters before thrusting them into danger, but they never seemed more than two-dimentional to me. The action set pieces are quite exciting and worth the wait. Although this was a fun book, I'd have to disagree with Conan Doyle and go with the Sherlock Holmes books as his greatest legacy.

Rating: 7 / 10

The reader: Catterall's narration is outstanding. He's a gifted narrator, using his tone of voice and pacing to play up all the action and humor that's in the text. His character voices are particularly well thought out. Sam Aylward's rolling baritone perfectly brings out the bravado of the old soldier. This is a top-notch recording. I'll be looking forward to hearing more of Catterall's work soon.

Moby Dick by Herman Melville

Source: LibriVox (zipped mp3s)
Length: 24 hr, 38 min
Reader: Stewart Wills

The book: Moby Dick. For years this was a book that I didn't feel ready to tackle. Of course, I knew the hype of it being the Greatest American Book Ever Written, but I'm often disappointed by hype and wary of nineteenth century literary prose. I'd heard about the long passages that dealt entirely with whaling practices or the whiteness of the whale. I'd also run into innumerable references to it in other works, which is usually a cosmic sign from the Literary Gods that I should read a particular book. Like the White Whale itself, this book held both fear and fascination for me.

So, when I started actually reading it, I was surprised how much I liked it. The legendary Ishmael I had heard so many jokes about is a funny, sarcastic guy himself. The view of the world is surprisingly enlightened for its time, simultaneously taking part in and subverting the view of non-Europeans as savages.The parts on whale anatomy are there, sure enough, but as a biologist, I found that I actually enjoyed them. My fears relieved I was able to get into the book.

What a book! Peeking at an annotated copy in the library, I begin to realize how many symbolic and historical references I was missing. Even so, I caught many of the Biblical and literary allusions Melville was throwing out. Catching these morsels made the reading like an obscure game - great fun for people who can play, but baffling if you don't know the rules. I don't think this is a book that I would have liked as a high schooler, and I'm glad my English teacher never assigned it. This is a book that rewards a mature mind with the background of years of reading.

Rating: 9/10

The reader: Like with many long audiobooks, this is one I read part as an ebook and listened to part as an audiobook. As I went along, I found myself more and more listening to Steward Wills excellent narration and going back to the printed text only to reread parts I didn't fully understand. Wills is a great narrator for such a complex book. He has a patience to his pace without being so slow as to make the story boring. His characterizations of the different sailors are magnificent, especially important in the chapters written as stage directions. I'm sure there are some pretty high-priced versions of Moby Dick read by famous people, but you couldn't do much better than this free production.

Entered in Cym Lowell's Book Review Part Wednesday. Follow the link for more book review blogs,

"Markheim" by Robert Louis Stevenson

Source: LibriVox (mp3)
Length: 44 minutes
Reader: William Coon

The story: In desperate need of money on Christmas Day, Markheim approaches a local pawnbroker.  Markheim's evil intentions go beyond just selling stolen goods. His deeds, however secretive, do not go unnoticed. A touch of the supernatural enters into the story, bringing the tale beyond the usual trappings of a dark crime story and into a discussion of the nature of evil and the powers of free will.

This story strongly reminded me of Crime and Punishment (previously reviewed) with both its general outline and its themes. The major difference is  the addition of the supernatural into the story. This addition allows Stevenson to open up the story into the future and past, but also into the soul of Markheim and investigate the essence of his being. With only a fraction of the length of Dostoevsky's novel, Stevenson is able to visit many of the same themes.

Rating: 8 / 10

The Reader: Coon is a superb reader. He builds the tension of this story so that the listener feels the growing psychological horror of the crime. Even though this recording dates to the early days of LibriVox, Coon's recording is clear and well-made.

photo by wallg via flickr. Creative Commons by attribution, non-commercial, no derivatives

Hard Times by Charles Dickens

Source: Librivox (zipped mp3s)
Length: 12 hr
Readers: narrated by Bob Neufeild, voiced by many

The book: The lower classes do all the work and have little to show for it, while the rich get richer. Charles Dickens saw the same problems 150 years ago that people are protesting today. Like Upton Sinclair in The Jungle (previously reviewed), Dickens blends fiction and social activism in his attack on industrialization and the plight of the working class.

Unlike Sinclair's muckraking style, Dickens lacks authenticity in his novel. At the time of writing this book, Dickens was already a well-known writer, so it's unlikely that his sources were anything better than second-hand accounts of life in the factories. Instead of realism, Dickens makes his industrialists into blatant cartoons, bluntly criticizing what he did not know. Still, the novel is readable for Dickens' sense of humor and his trademark pathos. I just wish he had taken his approach more seriously and shown the real pathos in the working man's life.

Rating: 6 / 10

The readers: This book is presented as a dramatic reading, somewhere between a play and a narration. None of Dickens' words have been changed (the "he said"s are even still there), but different readers play each part. This can be a great help in keeping track of who is who, but it gets a bit disconcerting to hear all the different voices, especially since they have different accents and recording equipment. The parts are done very well, for the most part, and edited together nicely. Bob Neufield, as the narrator, does most of the speaking. The main parts are all well-acted, but I won't spend time naming names. This is an interesting way to present an audiobook and, for the most part, it works.

(Entered in Cym Lowell's Book Review Wednesday. Follow the link to read reviews of other books)

"Second Variety" by Phillip K. Dick

Source: Librivox (Part 1 | Part 2)
Length: 1 hour, 24 minutes
Reader: Greg Margarite

The story: In case you haven't noticed, I usually try to pair the stories I review with the book I've reviewed earlier in the week. I like the way that interesting comparisons sometimes result from the juxtaposition of two narratives. This week, the book was a science fiction novel that is no longer plausible because the basis in scientific fact has been overturned. In this science fiction story, the science aspect is still plausible, but the political situation it depicts is history.

In the story, a nuclear war between the Soviet Union and the U.N. has turned Earth into a battlefield. American scientists left robots called "claws" to battle the Soviets, then fled Earth to the moonbase. When a U.N. General returns to Earth to negotiate a peace treaty, he discovers what the Russians already know -- that the robots have modified themselves into a human form to better trap unsuspecting soldiers. No one can be trusted - anyone could be a robot in disguise.

If you feel you've heard this before, it's because Dick's story has become hugely influencial in science fiction. The 1995 film Screamer's was directly based off the story. More significantly, both The Terminator and the newer version of Battlestar Galactica have elements of Dick's paranoid thriller.
Rating: 8 /10

The reader: I've reviewed Margarite's readings before on this blog, including his tendency to give a William Shatner-like delivery. The more I listen to him, though, the more I like him. It's a good thing that I 've grown to love his readings, since he has an extensive catalogue of science fiction stories that he's narrated for LibriVox.

Persuasion by Jane Austen

Source: LibriVox
Length: 7 hours, 15 minutes
Reader: Karen Savage

The book: Persuasion was recommended to me as "the man's introduction to Jane Austen."  The book has several qualities that make it good for men interested in Austen: it's short, reducing the time you've wasted if you don't like it, it's one of Austen's later works, showing a more polished style for those unused to her writing, and many of the male characters are naval officers, making it sort of a shoreside version of a Patrick O'Brien novel. Being male and having already listen to (and mildly enjoyed) Pride and Prejudice, I looked forward to reading this one.

As with Pride and Prejudice, I liked the novel, but failed to see why Austen is so hugely admired by her fans. The plot concerns Anne Elliot, a spinster at age 27, who is re-introduced to her old beau, Captain Frederick Wentworth. Anne and Captain Wentworth had been engaged when Anne was younger and Wentworth was much poorer, but the engagement had been broken off at the advice of Anne's guardian. The reconnaissance and rebuilding of their relationship is an interesting story, full of Austen's wry observations on human nature, but I couldn't really get excited about a novel with so obvious a direction. I appreciate Austen's writing, but I still haven't learned to love her.

Rating: 7 /10

The reader: Karen Savage does a marvelous job at bringing Austen's characters to life. She has a bright tone of voice that manages to convey plenty of emotion with great subtlety, as is fitting for this book. The characters are clearly drawn without the performance of drastically different voices. I can't imagine why anyone would want a professionally made recording when this one is just perfect.

The Great God Pan by Arthur Machen

Source: LibriVox (zipped mp3s)
Length: 2 hours
Reader: Ethan Rampton

The book: For Halloween, here's a creepy story that influenced generations of horror writers. In the novella, a mysterious woman named Helen moves through London society, attracting those around her and leaving disaster in her wake. Who is she and what secret horrors does her beauty conceal?

Machen cleverly leaves it to the imagination most of the descriptions of what Helen actually does. This not only has the advantage of getting around Victorian censors, but also allows the reader to invent more heinous sins than any graphically presented misdeeds. Just like the threat of pain can be more frightening than pain itself, the phrase "as I expect you can guess" is a invitation to darkness.

Rating: 7 / 10

The reader: Rampton has a deep, brooding American accent that increases the atmosphere provided by Machen's words. He gives each character his own voice, allowing the fragments in the last chapter to be easily matched to their authors. The recording itself is well-made.

Happy Halloween!

(photo by Brookie via Wikimedia Commons. Creative Commons by Attribution Share-Alike)

The Willows by Algernon Blackwood

Source: LibriVox (zipped mp3s)
Length: 2 hours, 21 minutes
Reader: Michael Thomas Robinson

The book: Considered one of the greatest stories in horror literature, The Willows lives up to its reputation. Two friends canoeing down the Danube stop for the night on an island in the middle of a huge expanse of willow trees. The place seems mystic, almost otherworldly, and in the night the two interlopers find out why.

Blackwood could have set this story in any exotic river in the world, but he chose the Danube. This river, which runs through the heart of Europe, is the wildness that runs through what was then the epitome of civilization. As the atmosphere of this turns from idyllic to terrifying, Blackwood is showing that the unknown horrors of the world can be anywhere, even where we should be the most safe. This, I think, is the most horrifying realization of all.

Rating: 9 / 10

The reader: At first, I was not impressed by Robinson's voice. He's somewhat nasal, and starts the book with a bored, straightforward style. As the story went on, though, I realized the initial bored tone was probably intentional, contrasting with the building dread of the story. His pace quickens and slows to build the tension, drawing the listener into the horror of what the narrator is experiencing. Despite my early misgivings, I greatly enjoyed this reading.

(entered in Cym Lowell's Book Review Party Wednesday)

The Aspern Papers by Henry James

Source: LibriVox (zipped mp3s)
Length: 3 hr, 51 min
Reader: Nicholas Clifford


The book: "Why do you have to go around raking in the past?" asks the elderly Mrs. Bordereau to the unnamed narrator. He's trying to obtain letters the (fictional) American poet Jeffery Aspern wrote to Bordereau during their love affair many years ago. Mrs. Bordereau, accompanied by her niece Miss Tita, jealously guards her privacy against the prying eyes of the literary world, from which the narrator is an undercover agent of sorts.


Henry James considered this his best novella, even better than his well-known The Turn of the Screw (audiobook previously reviewed here). James was a great believer in individual privacy, even for those with fame. Knowing the personal details of a great man's life is both fascinating and inspirational. Yet even the most respectful biographers lay bare secret emotions and words of their subjects. Watching James struggle with this conflict through his characters in this book makes for a intriguing read.


Rating: 7 / 10


The reader: This audiobook places a good reader in a bad recording. Nicholas Clifford has a soft, expressive voice that fits the character of the literary historian who narrates the book. The recording, however, makes it difficult to hear his performance. There is a continual hiss in the background and it seemed to me that the sound volume slowly rose and fell throughout the book, forcing me to turn up or turn down the volume controls constantly. If you're hearing this book in a noisy car or on bad headphones, the recording may be an issue for you, but if you're hearing the book in an otherwise good listening environment, the annoyances will probably be minor.


(Entered in Cym Lowell's Book Review Party Wednesdays)

Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad

Source: LibriVox (zipped mp3 | M4B file)
Length: Approx. 4 hours
Reader: Kristin Luoma

The book: Conrad's notoriously difficult book is like the jungle it depicts: full of mystery, intimidating, but with great wonders lurking beneath the surface. The surface story tells the tale of Charles Marlow, an ivory trader sent into the wilds of Africa to find and bring back Kurtz, another ivory trader who has gone insane. As Marlow continues his journey up the river, the narrative grows more nightmarish and dense. It's a daunting experience for the reader, but rewards with nesting questions of the nature of good and evil, civilization and wildness, European and colonial.

Like a jungle expedition, this one is made much more enjoyable with a good guide. Fortunately, the first time I read this book in high school, I had a great teacher as a guide. The characters' words and actions are not always in line with what Marlow as narrator or Conrad as author really believe. Readers, even knowledgeable ones, can read different meanings into the book. Though it's interesting to debate the symbols and motivations within the book, I think Conrad's real purpose is to show that we sometimes can't know a jungle (or man or culture) fully, only appreciate the complexity.

Rating: 8 /10

The reader: Kristin is a experienced reader for LibriVox. She doesn't put the emotion and dynamism into the reading that some other readers do, but reads with a clear, steady pace and neutral tone. In such an ambiguous novel as this, that means that it's up to the listener to interpret meaning. There's more work on the listeners' brain, which makes it harder to listen to, but ultimately can be a more free experience.

(entered in Cym Lowell's Book Review Party Wednesday. Follow the link for more reviews of other books)

"The Miller's Tale" by Geoffrey Chaucer

Source: LibriVox (mp3)
Length: 55 minutes
Reader: Gord Mackenzie

The story: On an airplane ride across the country, I once had the misfortune of riding behind a very drunk specimen of what we Southerners call a good ole' boy. This man proceeded to loudly tell unfunny and unwelcome jokes to his fellow passengers until he finally fell asleep. Reading this story, it's nice to know some things haven't changed in the past 600 years.

A group of strangers headed to the cathedral at Canterbury begin telling stories to pass the time. Chaucer's character the Miller is drunk and obnoxious, as fellow travelers sometimes are. He tells a dirty story about student having an affair with his landlord's wife. Unlike my aeronautical Bubba, the Miller's story is actually pretty funny. His story encompasses the hypocrisy of the clergy, sexual infidelity, and lowbrow potty humor. When commentators complain about how dirty modern entertainment is, someone should remind them of the great classics of English literature.

Rating: 7 / 10

The reader: If you've ever seen a great Shakespearean actor make the Bard's words sound fresh and real, you have some idea of what Gord Mackenzie is able to do with this even older poem. The version he's reading has been slightly updated, but retains much of its Middle English character. Mackenzie breaths life into the difficult words, making their meaning abundantly clear through his suggestive tone of voice. I'm sure that having footnotes would have helped me get more of the definitions of archaic terms, but a great voice actor like this overcomes much.

Botchan by Soseki Natsume

Source: LibriVox (zipped mp3s or M4B)
Length: 5 hrs, 7 min
Reader: Availle

The book: According to Wikipedia, Botchan is one of the most popular novels in Japan. Natsume is the greatest Japanese novelist of the early twentieth century; until a recent anti-counterfeiting redesign, his face appeared on the 1000 yen note. Now that school is back in session, it's the perfect time to read this humorous book about the experiences of a math teacher.

As a name for the main character, "Botchan" can be appropriately translated as "young master" with both the connotation of a privileged background and of a schoolteacher. The narrator moves from a pampered upbringing in Tokyo to teaching at a middle school (what Americans would call a high school) in a provincial town. He gives the other teachers sarcastic nicknames like "Red Shirt" and "Porcupine" and views himself as superior to them. Much of the humor in this novel comes from the conflict between his airs of superiority and the students' attempts to bring him down through their pranks.

As a former teacher at a small college, I was surprised to see the same small-scale squabbles among teachers playing out in a setting halfway around the world and a century in the past.  I suppose departmental politics are the same at every level of education all across the globe. Anyone who's a teacher or is interested in teaching should listen to this classic.

Rating: 8 /10

The reader: Availle has an accent that is hard to place, sometimes sounding like British received pronunciation and sometimes sounding Asian, possibly Japanese. This accent adds spice to the recording, rather than making it difficult to understand. She pronounces the Japanese words with enough confidence that I assume she's correct. For the different characters, she adopts various tones, matching each voice to the character's personality. This is a good amateur recording of this translation.

(Entered in Cym Lowell's Book Review Wednesday. Visit the link for other book reviews)

"A Martian Odyssey" by Stanley G. Weinbaum

Source: LibriVox (mp3)
Length: 58 minutes
Reader: Greg Margarite

The book:  In 1970, The Science Fiction Writers of America voted "A Martian Odyssey" as the second best science fiction story of all time, after Isaac Asimov's "Nightfall" (previously reviewed). While I disagree that it's that great of a story, I can appreciate how influential it was on all science fiction that came after it.

The tale is told by astronaut Dick Jarvis to his fellow explorers on the first human mission to Mars. After Jarvis's sidetrip from the expedition ends in a rocket crash, he sets out on foot for the main rocket. Along the way, he meets several alien species including the intelligent bird-like creature who introduces itself as "Tweel."

Tweel and Jarvis's attempts to communicate and understand one another comprises the leap that Weinbaum made over his contemporaries. Weinbaum imagines an intelligent being who is not just odd sounding or funny-looking, but actually alien in its thought patterns. This took the alien in science fiction from being either a bug-eyed antagonist or a green-skinned stand-in for other humans, to being a rational but unknown xenobiology species. Although this isn't among the best science fiction stories you'll ever read, it is a good one that all fans of the genre should know.

Rating: 7 / 10


The reader: Greg Margarite has read numerous science fiction stories for LibriVox. He has an expressive voice that clearly conveys the printed page. In this story, Jarvis is narrating his adventures to the other members of the crew, so Margarite gives the astronaut a cocky tone that fits well with his character. He emphasizes the international nature of the rest of the crew by giving them accents for their few lines. Margarite narrates other Weinbaum stories in the Collected Public Domain Works of Stanley G. Weinbaum at LibriVox, including the sequel to this story "The Valley of Dreams."

The Green Odyssey by Philip Jose Farmer

Source: LibriVox (zipped mp3s)
Length: 6 hours, 6 minutes
Reader: Mark Nelson

The book: Philip Jose Farmer is best known for his Riverworld series, in which people from throughout history are reincarnated in a mysterious land with a river running through the center. That mish-mash of people from disparate times results in people like 19th century explorer Richard Burton meeting Nazi leader Herman Goring. In this standalone novel, Farmer does a similar mashup, this time with genres. The Green Odyssey reads like a combination of A Princess of Mars (previously reviewed) with a pirate adventure novel.

Astronaut Alan Green has been living as a harem-slave to a queen on a semi-barbarous planet since his spaceship crashed there two years ago. He manages to escape imprisonment and flee to a merchant ship so he can search for two other astronauts rumored to have recently crashed on another part of the planet. The science-fiction coolness factor is that that on this planet, ships don't travel across the water, but instead roll across giant plains of grass. Although I found the ending a bit disappointing, the rest of the novel was good pulpy adventure in an improbable, but interesting, setting.

Rating: 7 / 10

The reader: Mark Nelson is a great reader. I've reviewed his readings multiple times here at Free Listens: Right Ho, Jeeves, "The Call of Cthulu," Plague Ship, and the previously-mentioned A Princess of Mars.  I really can't think of anything else to say about him that I haven't already. He has everything you'd want in a LibriVox reader: a clear strong voice, a good sense of pacing, and the ability to do a few voices without going over the top.

A Room With A View by E.M. Forster

Source: LibriVox (zipped mp3s)
Length: 7 hours, 9 min
Reader: Elizabeth Klett

The book: "Summer lovin', had me a blast . . ." Well, okay, so this isn't Grease, but it does have a number of similarities. Forster's first novel, A Room with a View is a romantic comedy about meeting people on vacation, then having to deal with different social classes back home. It's a funny and entertaining look at how people act in foreign countries and how they change when they return home.

While travelling in Italy, Lucy and her chaperone Charlotte meet a variety of fellow English tourists at an English-owned boarding house in Florence. Lucy and most of the other tourists dutifully follow their guidebooks' proscriptions of what to see and which artists to appreciate. A few of the tourists, like old Mr. Emerson and his son George, are unconventional in their approach to Italy, not following the standard opinions of the crowd. Lucy's friendship with the Emersons comes back to complicate her life when she returns to England, where conventions are more rigid and class distinctions more distinct. Forster paints a marvelous portrait of the transition of his native country out of the Victorean Era and into the modern age, couching it in a moving romance and witty comedy of manners.

Rating: 8 /10

The reader: Ms. Klett does a superb job reading this book. Her voice is clear and light, with a nondescript American accent for the narration. Her characters are all voiced in appropriate British accents, each distinct enough to distinguish different characters. Her voicing goes a long way toward developing the characters as fully fleshed-out people. I particularly loved her portrayal of the hypocritical but ultimately sympathetic Charlotte. As with Howards End, I would take Ms. Klett's reading of this book over any commercial recording.

(Entered in Cym Lowell's Book Review Wednesday. Follow the link for more book reviews)

The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling

Source: LibriVox (zipped mp3s or M4B)
Length: 5 hr, 2 min
Reader: Meredith Hughes

The book: In the winter of 1892, Rudyard Kipling was living in a small cottage in Vermont, the homeland of his new bride.  In the midst of caring for his first child, born that winter, he must have been thinking about childrens' stories and his own childhood in British India. He published a collection of stories, mostly set in India, in 1894 as The Jungle Book.

The first few stories deal with Mowgli, a boy raised by wolves in the Indian jungle. As he grows, Mowgli is taught the ways of the jungle by the wolf Akela, the panther Bagheera and the bear Baloo while fighting for survival against the tiger Shere Khan and the monkeys of the Bandor Log. Other memorable stories in the book include the brave mongoose Riki-Tiki-Tavi's fight against the cobra and the coming of age story set among the elephant-drivers in "Toomai of the Elephants".

I was less enthralled by the two stories not set in the jungle, "The White Seal" and "His Majesty's Servants".  Apart from these two, the stories are entertaining and gently didactic, though more violent and harsh than most childrens' stories are nowadays. Kipling, I think, would argue that children can safely be exposed to some level of harshness, since it is their introduction to the Laws of the Jungle and the how the world works.

Rating: 8 /10

The reader: Hughes has a youthful-sounding American accent that is bright and cheery without being overwhelmingly saccharine. She doesn't perform extreme voices for the animal characters, but does inflect her voice to indicate dialogue.  Her reading reminds me of a bedside reading of a favorite book for a child: friendly, warm, and fun.


(Entered in Cym Lowell's Book Review Party Wednesday. Click the link to see more book reviews.)