What a wonderful-sounding subject—and what a windy disappointment! Harvey Sachs has assembled a book of secondhand opinions about Beethoven, Europe in 1824, and the Romantic Movement that reads as if it was cobbled together out of Google searches. On the page it may be tolerable, if it includes images of the paintings under discussion and you can listen to music while reading, especially during Sachs’s detailed analysis of the eponymous symphony. No such luck if you’re listening to Patrick Egan. He doesn’t make things worse than they already are, but neither does he improve matters, adding no sense of engagement or compelling interest in the text. And why record a book about a symphony and include no music? What a missed opportunity.
Pub Date: June 15, 2010
Duration: 9 hrs, 30 mins
DD ISBN: 9780307715692
Publisher: Random House Audio
Review Posted Online: Jan. 22, 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: today
Duration: 4 hrs, 45 mins
DD ISBN: 9798217282234
Publisher: Penguin Audio
Review Posted Online: today
Andoh gives a magnetic performance for fans of Wild Swans and anyone interested in learning about China.
British actress Adjoa Andoh’s robust, smooth voice elevates Chang’s follow-up to her bestselling 1991 book Wild Swans, resulting in an engrossing and thought-provoking listen. Chang chronicles her life after 1978, when she became a British citizen and began researching and writing about China and Mao Zedong. She reflects on China’s political shifts and on her mother’s guidance as Chang navigates a suspicious and sometimes hostile government. Andoh narrates the more academic passages with a measured pace. In more personal sections, such as Chang’s battle with breast cancer and her recollections of her father’s imprisonment, Andoh ups the emotion.
Andoh gives a magnetic performance for fans of Wild Swans and anyone interested in learning about China.Pub Date: Jan. 13, 2026
Duration: 10 hrs, 30 mins
DD ISBN: 9780063480070
Publisher: Harper Audio
Review Posted Online: Feb. 24, 2026
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