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A Masterful Performance by Stephen Fry

Reviewed: 19-05-24

Stephen Fry is so good at these audio books, producing a wide range of different characters effortlessly.

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Fascinating and Entertaining

Reviewed: 07-04-23

I highly recommend this book. Bill Bryson is a great writer and it turns out an excellent narrator. There are amazing facts and startling, thought-provoking insights on every page. It will give you enough ammunition to bore your friends and family for weeks.

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Like a chat over coffee with a couple of old mates

Reviewed: 11-08-21

Really enjoyed The French and Saunders podcast "Titting about."  I'm not usually a massive fan of their comedy but this is really charming and quite funny. What comes across is their deep friendship for each other as they riff on (and way off) various topics, affectionately squabbling and teasing each other. I think most of it is ad-libbed although it is very well produced and probably edited. It still sounds very natural.  They keep cracking each other up which makes it even funnier.

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Smart, sassy, honest and politically spot on.

Reviewed: 07-07-19

I think I would get on with this woman if we met in a bar. I share a similar background (if less impoverished), and overcame it as she did, agree with her on most of the political points she makes and I enjoy her wit and writing style immensely. This is a curated collection of her pieces from the Times and is well put together and forms a sort of coherent whole. Some of the articles are, inevitably, less strong than others, but overall the standard is excellent. A pity she didn't read it herslef as she did with the last collection, but the voice of the person reading is quite close to her own so it doesn't matter. Highly recommended.

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Excellent Collection read by my favourite actor

Reviewed: 18-06-19

An excellent collection, beautifully read. The audio quality is not as good as it could be, but good enough. Richard Burton is my favourite actor and I owned this collection for many years on cassette tape. His voice is pure power and emotion, and is in my view unsurpassed. He has great oratory skill and brings the poems to life like no other could.
The thing missing here is a listing of the poems - even my cassette tape had sleeve notes. Amazon, get your act together! Why couldn't you have included it in the product description? You might sell a few more if you do. I found it online after searching for 5 minutes - here it is so you don't have to:

The Richard Burton Poetry Collection

Volume 2:

1. William Shakespeare, The Rape of Lucrece
2. Thomas Hardy, Wessex Heights
3. John Donne, The Anniversarie
4. Thomas Hardy, Shut Out That Moon
5. John Donne, The Canonization
6. Thomas Hardy, Chancel Firing
7. John Donne, Extasie
8. Thomas Hardy, In Tenebris
9. John Donne, Elegy VIII. The Comparison
10. Thomas Hardy, Weathers

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5 people found this helpful

Burton's voice is unsurpassed - pure pleasure

Reviewed: 18-06-19

An excellent collection, beautifully read. The audio quality is not as good as it could be, but good enough. Richard Burton is my favourite actor and I owned this collection for many years on cassette tape. His voice is pure power and emotion and is in my view unsurpassed. He has great oratory skill and brings the poems to life like no other could.
The thing missing here is a listing of the poems - even my cassette tape had sleeve notes. Come on Amazon, get your act together! Why couldn't you have included it in the product description? You might sell a few more if you do. I found it online after searching for 5 minutes - here it is so you don't have to:

The Richard Burton Poetry Collection
Volume 1:

1. Samuel Taylor Coleridge, "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" (1817 edition)
2. Coleridge, "Frost at Midnight"
3. John Donne, "The Good-Morrow"
4. Thomas Hardy, "Afterwards"
5. Hardy, "In Time of 'The Breaking of Nations'"
6. Hardy, "At Castle Boterel"
7. Hardy, "The Sunshade"
8. Donne, "Song" (Go and catch a falling star...)
9. Hardy, "At Casterbridge Fair" (I. The Ballad-Singer, II. Former Beauties, III. After the Club-Dance, IV. The Market-Girl, V. The Inquiry, VII. After the Fair)
10. Donne, "Song" (Sweetest love, I do not go...)
11. Hardy, "The Souls of the Slain"
12. Donne, "The Sun Rising"

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22 people found this helpful

Interesting effort, but the sequel feels nothing like the original

Reviewed: 16-02-17

A few interesting ideas on how the 1907 invasion would have changed the course of history, and some exciting set pieces. It retains the first person narrative for most of the book but then switches to third person when the action shifts from Britain to other landing sites across the world in the second invasion (from 1920), which is jarring.
There is a large cast of characters, and Nathalie Buscombe does an admirable job of trying to breathe life into them, employing an amazing array of different accents, but the variety is also a weakness. The power of the original, for me, came from the loneliness and desperation of Walter Jenkins as he struggled to survive the Martian holocaust.
The writer builds well on the original universe and retains the theories prevalent at the time (canals on Mars etc.) and imagines a much expanded War of the Worlds, taking in Venus and even Jupiter.
The story is very expansive, covering all parts of the earth with a steadily growing roster of characters and interconnections. It is quite a long listen- 15+ hours. I struggled to stick with it, but I had to know how it ended, which is a tribute of a kind. The author himself uses the phrase "deus ex machina" on no less than three occasions (meta!), so I'll say no more about that!
All in all, not a bad effort and I would recommend it to any fan of the original, though this is a very different book. The casual reader would perhaps not find it quite so interesting.

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Finely-crafted thriller / whodunit.

Reviewed: 26-01-17

The story is fast moving and compelling, the events told from the perspective of three women. It'll keep you guessing until the end. The performances are very good. My only quibble is the male voices, as acted by the female narrators, are less convincing, but it doesn't really detract from the enjoyment. All in all a really good book.

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Epic Motorcycle Journey to heal a broken heart

Reviewed: 07-02-16

If you'd been through what Neil Pearl had been through you might be tempted to throw in the towel. Instead he gets the urge to go - somewhere, anywhere on his bike a day ends up travelling thousands of miles up and down Canada, USA and South America. The book comprises his attempts to come to terms with his new situation whilst recounting his adventures on "the healing Road."
I loved the book, though some of the description gets a bit long. I'm not normally Into travel writing but this is exceptional Disclosure: I am a massive Rush and Neil Pearl fan.

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9 people found this helpful

Dreadful story, good production and performance

Reviewed: 16-01-16

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

The story is just risible. Utter trash.

Any additional comments?

As with most of these Star Wars books they are made more enjoyable by the use of familiar sound effects etc. But there was no saving this one.

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