Eric

Great Book but badly packaged

Reviewed: 09-28-14

What would have made Bleak House better?

When I buy a book, even a book on CD, it is available in individual units. Books have chapters and page numbers allowing me to find the part I'd like to read or reread. This enormous book, 35+ hours, is delivered in five big unpaginated, unchaptered lumps of 7 hours each. Imagine receiving a Bible with no page numbers, no books or verses. It's not only user-unfriendly, it's obtuse. And it is crummy of Audible to sell books without indicating how they are portioned. Some I've bought are nicely organized into 3 or 4 minute increments, some are divided into chapters. But I purchased six books today, all of them very long, and all of them are unsorted lumps of unwieldy story, no chapters, no individual bands that can be flipped through. Fast forward to the next chapter? It flips to the end of the book. Miss a passage because the phone rang? You can rewind and hope you can find the spot, but you cannot flip back to the previous chapter. If you bump the FF arrow, the book is done and good luck finding where you were. This is really stupid. Publishers invented chapters and page numbers and bookmarks for a reason.

Have you listened to any of Hugh Dickson’s other performances before? How does this one compare?

Good voice. Voices and accents matter. Nice work.

What reaction did this book spark in you? Anger, sadness, disappointment?

Anger. Sadness. Disappointment. I love this novel, but prefer to re-read it in a way that I can find the chapter I want to re-read. This package hands it to you in unpaginated 7 hour lumps. Really insulting.

Any additional comments?

Audible has known about this problem because I've complained about it before. And for several months I have found my purchases arrive in neatly banded segments, easily navigated. Today I bought six books and all of them are big fat unnavigable unpaginated unchaptered lumps of material. Very unfriendly packaging. I feel defrauded. Of course the lesson of Bleak House is "good luck trying to gain satisfaction from any smug unhelpful monopolistic system."

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1 person found this helpful

Disappointed

Reviewed: 02-23-14

What could have made this a 4 or 5-star listening experience for you?

Martin Jarvis is dependably good. But why why why add all the insultingly stupid "creepy" music to distract from the simple reading of a great story? If I could return this for cash I would.

How did the narrator detract from the book?

He was fine.

If you could play editor, what scene or scenes would you have cut from The Legend of Sleepy Hollow?

Cut nothing. It is a classic and deserves reading in full.

Any additional comments?

I wish the publisher understood that we didn't buy this for the music but the words and the voice. Can they offer the same product minus the awful music track?

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