Ellen Archer narrates this audiobook with grace and precision. In addition, Englishman Nicholas Guy Smith delivers the long quotations from the story's protagonist, Collingwood Ingram. The dual approach adds to this evocative and engrossing historical biography of the English plant collector whose passion for Japanese flowering cherry trees saved Japan's most indelible species when industrialization, war, and pollution threatened to destroy them. Ingram, a self-taught botanist, ornithologist, and aficionado of Sakura (cherry blossoms), preserved the once extinct Taihaku (Giant White). Author Naoko Abe, a Japanese journalist based in England, celebrates a most worthwhile life and gives the listener a primer on Japanese culture and history while telling the story of the richly symbolic cherry tree.
Pub Date: March 19, 2019
Duration: 9 hrs
DD ISBN: 9781984839954
Publisher: Random House Audio
Review Posted Online: Jan. 22, 2026
James Michener tells the real stories behind the man and his books. The recording is read with skill and consistency although the reader does little to enhance the robust, larger-than-life incidents related in the book. Due to the first-person narrative format, there is no opportunity for the narrator to change his voice. This makes some chapters monotonous as they go on and on in the typical Michener style. The listener may also become confused because the stories are not told chronologically. This is not a great choice for the audio format, but Michener fans may stick with it to the end.
Pub Date: N/A
Duration: 22 hrs
Publisher: Books on Tape
Review Posted Online: Jan. 22, 2026
In a quest for a sense of inner contentment and self-worth, Gloria Steinem brings the reader on a journey of investigation and discovery. Steinem reads the text herself in a straightforward and friendly, but not intimate, presentation which is so easy to listen to it invites repetition--thus ensuring the painless relearning of the lessons of the book. It's difficult to tell from the reading that this audiobook is abridged; each section can stand alone. Nonetheless, the listener wished the book were unabridged. Steinem left me wanting to learn more.
Pub Date: N/A
Duration: 3 hrs
Publisher: Dove Audio
Review Posted Online: Jan. 22, 2026
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