May this fine performance awaken new interest in a dusty favorite.
Narrator Oliver Hembrough begins this audiobook by describing Alfred Tennyson’s formidable beard, first grown when he became Britain’s Poet Laureate in 1850 and iconic ever after. That image is the context for portraying a younger, less familiar Tennyson—at Cambridge, writing his first poems, mourning the death of his dearest friend, and shaped like so many in that post-Romantic era by rapid progress and religious doubt. Tellingly, he and Darwin were born in the same year, 1809. Hembrough sounds like one imagines Tennyson might have sounded, and his renderings of Tennyson’s verse are fluent and compelling. The audiobook catalogue for Tennyson is presently thin and dated.
May this fine performance awaken new interest in a dusty favorite.Pub Date: Feb. 10, 2026
Duration: 15 hrs
DD ISBN: 9798217340446
Publisher: Penguin Random House Audio
Review Posted Online: March 3, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 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
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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