This brief but delightful and highly informed audiobook begins and ends with blue spheres. First, listeners learn that the blue marble that astronauts photographed from space actually had the South Pole on top until NASA flipped the image. It ends with the ever-present iPhone blue dot that locates Apple map users. Narrator Liam Garrigan has a natural storytelling style, and his British accent and professional delivery work well in this exploration of geographic direction. He narrates at a good pace and a sensible cadence that make this science-oriented text move almost too quickly. The central idea is how the cardinal directions gave life meaning throughout history but are now being displaced in the digital age, when the ideas of east against west and south versus north have geopolitical, rather than geographical, meanings.
Pub Date: Nov. 12, 2024
Duration: 5 hrs, 30 mins
DD ISBN: 9781668132364
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio
Review Posted Online: Jan. 22, 2026
A fresh look at Europe’s long, contentious history.
Hearing all of European history compressed into 14 hours could be comparable to seeing Earth from outer space. Everything is familiar, yet wondrous and new. Even those familiar with the history will find this audiobook to be a unique listening experience. Actor and narrator Alisdair Simpson is a familiar voice from dozens of British documentaries, and his performance here is highly polished, exacting, and attuned to every word. History compressed becomes history clarified. Drama is lost—the Huns, Charlemagne, the fall of Constantinople, all here and gone in a minute. At the same time, patterns emerge. Simpson’s flawless voice carries listeners effortlessly into a wider and more timeless perspective.
A fresh look at Europe’s long, contentious history.Pub Date: April 28, 2026
Duration: 14 hrs, 10 mins
DD ISBN: 9781668656204
Publisher: Hachette Audio
Review Posted Online: April 11, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2026
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
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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