WWII spycraft may be best remembered for ingenious bits of technology, but an extrememly low-tech strategy also played an important role in the Allied victory. Derek Perkins ably narrates this audiobook about Great Britain's use of homing pigeons to communicate with resistance cells and Allied agents in Belgium. Perkins's British accent adds a pleasurable air of authenticity to his reading. He handles the names of people and places well, keeping the narrative flowing. But he can't overcome the author's overly detailed prose. There are so many people involved that it can be difficult to keep them straight. Also, the author's complex sentence structure occasionally makes it difficult for listeners to discern the primary point.
Pub Date: Oct. 16, 2018
Duration: 9 hrs, 30 mins
DD ISBN: 9780062876324
Publisher: Harper Audio
Review Posted Online: Jan. 22, 2026
GENERAL HISTORY | WORLD | MILITARY | HISTORY
Buruma’s subtle and effective narration style is essential to this chronicle.
Bard College historian Buruma has a personal link to WWII-era Berliners, his Dutch father having been a forced laborer in wartime Berlin. Buruma’s account highlights instances of the survival and rescue of Jews and of the Berlin residents who came forward to assist them. But of most Berliners, he says, “Their main aim was to stay out of trouble.” Buruma’s performance as both historian and narrator is a model of restraint and reliance on fact. He shapes a powerful narrative around Germany’s defeat at Stalingrad and year-by-year shifts in civilian morale. As deprivation and disillusion with the Nazi regime set in, the struggle for survival extended to all Berliners.
Buruma’s subtle and effective narration style is essential to this chronicle.Pub Date: March 17, 2026
Duration: 12 hrs, 15 mins
DD ISBN: 9798217282210
Publisher: Penguin Random House Audio
Review Posted Online: March 16, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2026
A hint of hijinks in sleepy Königsberg sets ears ablaze.
The obscure uproar so vividly portrayed in this brief audiobook couldn’t be farther from today’s media commotions—or nearer. This “small vortex of turbulence” sounds like a stage farce: It’s set in backwater Königsberg, capital of East Prussia, in the 1830s, during the lull between the Napoleonic wars and the 1848 Revolution. Take a preposterous but compelling religious cult and two guileless but strikingly handsome Lutheran clergymen, add only a hint of fornication, and gossip does the rest. Vidish Athavale’s measured, finely nuanced narration gives edge and authority to a narrative without a wasted word or useless detail. And he clearly relishes the polysyllabic 19th-century German names.
A hint of hijinks in sleepy Königsberg sets ears ablaze.Pub Date: March 10, 2026
Duration: 4 hrs, 45 mins
DD ISBN: 9798217282234
Publisher: Penguin Audio
Review Posted Online: March 10, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2026
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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