It's hard to imagine any other narrator performing this audiobook as effectively, and equally hard to imagine this narrator performing any work other than his own. A well-known British publisher and author, Richard Cohen has a strong, distinctive, heavily accented voice, untrained but engaging--a grandpa voice. It's one you grow accustomed to over time and eventually come to appreciate as his information-packed and idiosyncratic narrative unfolds. All the great historians are here--Herodotus, Tacitus, Gibbon--along with figures like Caesar, Machiavelli, and Churchill whom you wouldn't primarily class as historians. But who cares? Cohen is a gifted raconteur, informative, sometimes tiresome, but someone you can listen to anytime, anywhere, in any order and feel you've profited.
Pub Date: April 19, 2022
Duration: 26 hrs
DD ISBN: 9781797143996
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio
Review Posted Online: Jan. 22, 2026
Carol Matthau epitomizes a glamour and lifestyle not associated with the 1990's. Here is a life of privilege, tragedy and worry about what friends would think of her new frock or lover. Matthau possesses a voice and delivery that simply could not be improved on. In her coy whisper, she tells compelling stories involving everyone from William Saroyan (husband #1) and Truman Capote to Carson McCullers, Gloria Vanderbilt, and Walter Matthau (husband #2). This excellent audio presentation will leave you wanting to read the entire book to discover what juicy tidbits were left out.
Pub Date: N/A
Duration: 3 hrs
Publisher: The Publishing Mills
Review Posted Online: Jan. 22, 2026
Macintyre’s latest is one of his best.
If there’s a branch of history devoted to espionage, Macintyre is its unchallenged dean. As narrator, Macintyre is conversational, confiding, unaffected, and companionable. He sounds like he’s been through it all. His popular narratives, among them A Spy Among Friends (2014) and Operation Mincemeat (2010), excel in precision of detail and adherence to fact, which is indeed often stranger than fiction. What novelist would conceive of a master spy with erectile dysfunction? This true history of a British spy roping in a Soviet spy in revolutionary Tehran is a primer in spycraft and agent management and offers an entirely new perspective on the Islamic Revolution and the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Macintyre’s latest is one of his best.Pub Date: Sept. 15, 2026
Duration: 17 hrs, 24 mins
DD ISBN: 9798217406906
Publisher: Random House Audio
Review Posted Online: Oct. 2, 2026
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