Just how much a successful audiobook depends on the match of voice to text is demonstrated by Arthur Morey’s excellent rendering of Hochschild’s history of individual Britons’ response to WWI. Initially, Morey may seem too mellow a voice for a military history, but Hochschild looks at loyalists as well as opponents to the war, and Morey wisely lets their words and the author’s speak for themselves. Even those who know the history of The Great War will feel the anger and heartache build here. Best known as the author of KING LEOPOLD’S GHOSTS, the most damning of all books on the evils of European imperialism in Africa, Hochschild is an impressive historian and prose stylist. He requires, and gets in Morey, a narrator who measures feeling with restraint and can articulate every word clearly at the author’s own pace. Hochschild focuses on individuals, but this is a book that encompasses the whole history of the war, its origins, and its awful toil.
Pub Date: May 4, 2011
Duration: 17 hrs
Publisher: Tantor Media
Review Posted Online: Jan. 22, 2026
GENERAL HISTORY | WORLD | MILITARY | HISTORY
A well-read explanation that will keep listeners engaged.
In a pleasing voice, Gordon Rothman narrates this account of how the current war in Ukraine started. Kinzer, a former foreign correspondent, goes back to the CIA’s clandestine war against the USSR, particularly its operations in the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, to trace the origins of the conflict. “Ukraine is magnetically attractive to anyone looking for ways to keep Russia down or to bring it down,” Kinzer writes. He concludes that, although Russia was wrong to invade Ukraine in 2022, it was not unprovoked. Rothman’s delivery is clear, and his pace is easy to follow. Some of his pronunciations of Russian and Ukrainian names are anglicized.
A well-read explanation that will keep listeners engaged.Pub Date: Nov. 3, 2026
Duration: 13 hrs, 9 mins
DD ISBN: 9781250451781
Publisher: Macmillan Audio
Review Posted Online: yesterday
A story of survival through unthinkable tragedy that the wistful little girl in the portrait could never have imagined.
Narrator Jenn Lee brings a storyteller’s flair to this true saga of the Renoir portrait La Petite Irène, painted in 1880 and stolen by the Nazis during WWII. Irène Cahen d’Anvers was the daughter of a wealthy Jewish banking family who were targeted and destroyed during the occupation of Paris. But Irène survived by changing her religion and remarrying, eventually recovering the painting. The survival story of the portrait is equally dramatic and full of twists and turns in the world of underground art dealings. Lee’s talent for French is evident in her pronunciation of names, locales, and expressions, adding a vivid sense of place and atmosphere.
A story of survival through unthinkable tragedy that the wistful little girl in the portrait could never have imagined.Pub Date: Oct. 20, 2026
Duration: 10 hrs, 51 mins
DD ISBN: 9781668659656
Publisher: Hachette Audio
Review Posted Online: Oct. 26, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2026
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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