Mangan is so chatty and warm, both in writing style and in narration, that this audiobook is sure to spark joy.
Author Mangan never leaves the house without a book. She’s wryly funny and self-deprecating, with a charming British accent that makes her even more likable. Her enthusiasm—which manifests in her breakneck narrating pace—is infectious. Books have always been Mangan’s refuge and joy: “bonkbusters” while she was studying literature at university, Lee Child mysteries when she was recovering from childbirth, and romance novels after her father’s death. During the pandemic, Mangan sorts her 10,000 volumes in her newly constructed book shed—a room of one’s own, as it were—and the shuffling, organizing, and touching of her treasures proves to be the perfect balm for troubled times.
Mangan is so chatty and warm, both in writing style and in narration, that this audiobook is sure to spark joy.Pub Date: Feb. 3, 2026
Duration: 7 hrs
DD ISBN: 9798318543166
Publisher: Tantor Media
Review Posted Online: March 25, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2026
Narrator Lisa Flanagan has a wonderful vocal personality--lithe with a broad palette of pitch patterns and a range of believable emotional tones. Her friendly voice works well with this lighthearted overview of how dramatically the Internet has changed the world in the past 30 years. Though being digitally connected has improved life in many ways, the author says we've lost many of the interpersonal experiences that used to sustain us. We have less privacy, don't need all those reference books, and have largely forgotten how to have vocal conversations with other people. The audiobook is entertaining nostalgia for anyone who feels incompetent navigating the World Wide Web, and a soothing reminder that those of us who miss the simplicity of the pre-Internet era are not alone.
Pub Date: Oct. 26, 2021
Duration: 5 hrs, 30 mins
DD ISBN: 9780593418055
Publisher: Random House Audio
Review Posted Online: Jan. 22, 2026
Craig Brown tickled our ear with 99 GLIMPSES OF PRINCESS MARGARET, a brisk, irreverent assembly of tiny chapters that ran a satisfactory 12+ hours. For the Beatles, he adds 51 more glimpses and another eight hours, with a proportionally diluted effect. Brown himself, Kate Robbins, and Mark McGann share the narration, which is interesting, insightful, well performed, and packed with some new and a lot of old information. All of it is shaped by Brown's propensity for "easing sense into nonsense." The self-mocking Beatles are harder to deflate than a pretentious princess, but Brown's accounts of touring Beatles sites in Liverpool and his histories of Beatles contemporaries swept up--and aside--by their spectacular rise will amaze and beguile listeners.
Pub Date: Oct. 13, 2020
Duration: 20 hrs, 30 mins
DD ISBN: 9781250770127
Publisher: Macmillan Audio
Review Posted Online: Jan. 22, 2026
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