It is an imposing enough task to attempt a quality unabridged recording of James Joyce’s Ulysses. Add to that the aim to provide the listener with 18 smoothly segued musical transitions consisting of songs and opera excerpts mentioned in the novel; a booklet with a track-by-track commentary, introduction, and explanatory essays; and finally a CD-ROM packed with further supplements (Web links, booklists, interviews with the performers, sound files of Joyce reading excerpts, and more)--and you have as ambitious and rewarding an audio production as any that exists, an audio experience that truly deserves to be cherished. Joyce’s celebrated novel follows Stephen Dedalus and Leopold Bloom as they travel in Dublin on June 16, 1904. Joyce’s inspiration was The Odyssey and the fullness of humanity he recognized in Odysseus, whose adventures he obliquely recreates in the wanderings of Bloom. Following along with the novel while listening to the discs reveals the enormous care that director Roger Marsh and reader Jim Norton lavish on the project. Their orchestrated performance is a work of love and respect for Joyce and his experimental, poetic, funny, musical epic book. Jim Norton has a wonderfully rich and friendly voice, appreciative of the humor and cadences of the text and even of the onomatopoetic textual noises of cat purrs, door creaks, and print-press groans: “Everything speaks in its own way.” His performance turns a challenging book into an inviting, even a hypnotic, one. Marcella Riordan satisfyingly performs the dialogue of Molly Bloom, including the 24,000-word unpunctuated stream-of-consciousness passage that concludes the novel. Readers of Ulysses have long been encouraged to read out loud the more difficult sections for added comprehension and enjoyment of the language. Now, thanks to Naxos, the entire book is available in a performance to savor. It is safe to say that anyone wanting to experience the preeminent work of modern fiction has in this package the perfect audio companion.
Pub Date: March 31, 2004
Duration: 27 hrs, 14 mins
DD ISBN: 9789629545970
Publisher: Naxos AudioBooks
Review Posted Online: Jan. 22, 2026
Published in 1927, this lost gem connects the gilded voice of the Edwardian age with the devastation and carnage of WWI.
Justin Avoth has the voice of England. He just does. And herethat voice embodies a literary world lost between Hardy and Hemingway, when an orphaned adolescent is left with a dour, very Victorian aunt and a grim, miserly grandfather. Clare goes on to find true love, suffer a devastating loss, and carve out her own identity surrounded by melodramatic in-laws, horseless carriages, and prying clergy. Avoth is at his best narrating the detailed, breathless descriptions of the West Midlands, and he is especially vivid when he gives voice to Clare’s maturation as a woman of means and mother of a son wounded in battle.
Published in 1927, this lost gem connects the gilded voice of the Edwardian age with the devastation and carnage of WWI.Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2025
Duration: 29 hrs, 30 mins
DD ISBN: 9781781985588
Publisher: Naxos AudioBooks
Review Posted Online: March 10, 2026
Booth delivers an engaging version of a historically significant work that still deserves attention.
Jonathan Booth’s performance of these essays on political and military science clearly and ably presents Machiavelli’s arguments. Machiavelli’s ideas, while based on examples from ancient and Renaissance history, are often still valid and applicable today. Booth’s tone mirrors Machiavelli’s: serious but friendly, thoughtful, and deeply interested in his topic and in conveying it to his audience. Booth’s performance is unobtrusively precise, and he matches his expression, inflection, and emphasis to the meaning of the text. His pace is on the quick side of comfortable, but his energy and his understanding of the material draw the listener along through the occasional dry patch.
Booth delivers an engaging version of a historically significant work that still deserves attention.Pub Date: Dec. 31, 2025
Duration: 15 hrs
DD ISBN: 9781781985762
Publisher: Naxos AudioBooks
Review Posted Online: March 25, 2026
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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