This well-researched history of the blues and its connection to nineteenth-century Louisiana reveals that the popular music genre was not invented on plantations in rural Mississippi, as is often reported. The author, a Grammy-winning blues artist, says that it was an outgrowth of a well-established Black classical music culture in New Orleans, one that was systematically destroyed by Europeans who were threatened by the achievements of people they thought were inferior. Narrator Adam Lazarre-White has a wonderful vocal tone but narrates too slowly and with unnatural-sounding pauses between phrases. This drawn-out pacing is tolerable because the story is so compelling, but it often makes it harder to keep track of the ideas in complex sentences. Riveting to hear, nonetheless, this is a stunning history of how Europeans suppressed opportunities for Black people in a growing country.
Pub Date: Jan. 22, 2021
Duration: 24 hrs
DD ISBN: 9781662088391
Publisher: Dreamscape
Review Posted Online: Jan. 22, 2026
Throughout this solid performance, listeners will hear both pain and steadfastness.
This is a different take on the celebrity memoir. Lundgren, the Swede best known as Russian fighting behemoth Drago in Rocky IV, offers a straightforward, unadorned, and candid text with a workmanlike narration that suits his firsthand reflections. The perspectives of male members of his entourage, such as his managers and trainers, are voiced with great skill and variety by Rick Adamson, while personal reflections from women are voiced by the equally skilled Nan McNamara. Lundgren has suffered multiple bouts of cancer, and his memoir goes beyond karate belts and film performances to focus on his health battles. Now an American citizen, Lundgren shares his love for his adopted country.
Throughout this solid performance, listeners will hear both pain and steadfastness.Pub Date: today
Duration: 5 hrs, 43 mins
DD ISBN: 9781400255214
Publisher: Harper Audio
Review Posted Online: Sept. 22, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2026
In a book that often holds listeners at arm’s length, even as MacLachlan describes his own reticence, it’s a...
Audio is the ideal medium for experiencing MacLachlan’s smart, well-written memoir, which he narrates himself—and it’s the only format that’ll allow you to hear MacLachlan’s pitch-perfect impressions of figures like Anthony Hopkins, Ethan Hawke, and, of course, David Lynch, with whom MacLachlan maintained a close creative and personal relationship. A point midway through the audiobook, when MacLachlan describes the time he and Hopkins sat around trading Lynch impressions—and then impersonates Hopkins’ impersonation of Lynch—is a particular high point. As he recounts his well-known roles and occasional missteps, MacLachlan returns often to the idea that actors, especially, maintain multiple selves: There’s the private, interior self, but also the public self who finds his face splashed across billboards—and occasionally, the two find themselves untethered from each other.
In a book that often holds listeners at arm’s length, even as MacLachlan describes his own reticence, it’s a perfect motif.Pub Date: today
Duration: 10 hrs, 32 mins
DD ISBN: 9798217406883
Publisher: Random House Audio
Review Posted Online: today
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