William Cook Miller

Delightful

Reviewed: 01-26-25

Great performance of one of Chaucer’s best tales.

Fifteen word minimum for some unknown reason.

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A great book stiffly read and strangely formatted

Reviewed: 02-25-22

Thomas Browne spins beautiful enigmas like no other writer of his era. It is great to see some of his writing available on audiobook. That said, this version is hard to get through. The reader seems barely to understand the text and frequently mispronounces uncommon words (which abound in Browne). The audio is also badly edited. There are lots of retakes left in the finished product, and the book is strangely chaptered. Browne's text contains 60 sections in Part 1 and 15 in Part 2. This version blows through section breaks as though they aren't there, which both makes it hard to find anything in the text, and distorts the pauses and turns of mind so important to the experience of reading Browne. That said, there is no other Browne in audiobook form outside of Librivox. Until a better reading comes along, this is as good as it gets, and it's a good deal better than nothing.

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Difficult to follow

Reviewed: 05-04-21

Unfortunately this version of this important text is quite difficult to follow, as it includes a running scholarly commentary on the original text without differentiating between text and comment in any obvious way. Eusebius' factual claims (say, about the alleged conversion of Philo) will be immediately followed by scholarly retraction, and the narrative will then careen forward another step, only to be followed by a half-shuffle back, etc. This would be easy to follow with the physical text at hand, but as this is an audiobook, the narrative needs clearly audible delineation. (Just saying "note" and "end note" before and after each interpolation would help a lot.) I found it all too confusing and gave up, which is a shame, because the translation and commentary both seem valuable as such.

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2 people found this helpful

Good for devotional purposes; not Foxe's text tho'

Reviewed: 04-19-19

Nadia May does a wonderful job leading this tour of horrors -- from ancient Rome to the 18th century -- visited upon Protestants. The many positive reviews here reflect this.

I purchased Foxe's Book of Martyrs for historical reasons -- because I'm interested in the English Reformation and this is the second-most widely read book in sixteenth-century English (after the Bible). As it turns out, this is a much later edition of Foxe's book -- based on the Book of Martyrs (or as it was first known, the Acts and Monuments) but slimmed down in some places, beefed up in others by some later editor. When you think you're listening to a sixteenth century book and suddenly the narrator is going on about Voltaire -- you know something's fishy.

So -- good for devotional purposes, it would seem from other reviews, but this isn't really Foxe's original text. Be forewarned.

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13 people found this helpful

A great performance

Reviewed: 10-18-18

This is an amazingly lucid rendering of Paradise Lost. Previously, I had reservations about this recording, as it was not chaptered by the epic's own books -- but it looks like Audible fixed that! (Thanks!)

You'll not find a better narration of this poem than this one. Lesser understands what he's reading (unlike many readers, who just play the notes). His reading will assist and entertain confirmed Miltonists and the Milton-curious of all ages and abilities.

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8 people found this helpful

Just one quirk

Reviewed: 06-16-15

I liked the narration of this classic story. My only issue is that it was broken awkwardly into ten "chapters" that each contained about ten of Austen's actual chapters. This made it hard to search within the text.

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