Takaki’s overview of the role of minorities in America’s history—native, immigrant, racial, national, ethnic, and religious—clearly takes their side and sympathizes with their often appalling treatment but saves overt polemic for the conclusion. Peter Berkrot’s narration, fittingly, adopts a tone of mostly understated sympathy. Quotations often suggest an accent or dialect—Hispanic, Southern, Irish, for example—a tactic that adds warmth and color but manages to skirt stereotyping by its subtlety. Berkrot’s voice is a bit astringent but serviceable; his reading well paced, eloquent, and clear; his tone and expression are well matched to the text. Barring a few high-profile mispronunciations (“epi-stemology”), he gives a professional but personable reading of a history more Americans should know.
Pub Date: March 31, 2011
Duration: 19 hrs, 30 mins
Publisher: Tantor Media
Review Posted Online: Jan. 22, 2026
Utterly fascinating.
Narrator Soneela Nankani ushers listeners around the globe and through time in this sweeping survey of how humans use information to understand, interpret, and control. Author Risam begins her exploration 43,000 years ago and ends it with tantalizing peeks into possible futures. Ranging back and forth both geographically and temporally, she examines data collection and its use (or misuse) in the 23rd-century B.C.E. Akkadian Empire, Han-era China, 14th-century C.E. Mali, and elsewhere. Given this mammoth scope, the account could easily lose listeners along the way, but Nankani’s understated delivery is its perfect vessel. Voice rising and falling naturally, with emotion applied sparingly and skillfully, Nankani allows listeners full access to the argument Risam builds from the data she has so meticulously researched.
Utterly fascinating.Pub Date: July 14, 2026
Duration: 13 hrs, 59 mins
DD ISBN: 9780063430358
Publisher: Harper Audio
Review Posted Online: Sept. 9, 2026
This engrossing audiobook is enhanced by its author’s gifted and masterly narration.
This is only historian Rogoyska’s second audiobook, after Surviving Katyń (2021). But as a narrator, she is as assured, as nuanced, and as captivating as any seasoned professional. Her history of Paris’ luxurious Hotel Lutetia before and during the WWII German occupation is a model of historical reconstruction and reimagining. Refugee artists and intellectuals, Gestapo officers, and returning French detainees all passed through this hotel’s revolving doors, and their histories run the spectrum from tragedy to bitter comedy. Rogoyska’s chronicle is compelling and richly detailed, and her narration is simply sublime. Her beautifully accented, finely nuanced voice is a pleasure in itself, fluent, supple, and perfectly attuned to her narrative.
This engrossing audiobook is enhanced by its author’s gifted and masterly narration.Pub Date: July 7, 2026
Duration: 11 hrs
DD ISBN: 9798318572203
Publisher: Tantor Media
Review Posted Online: July 7, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2026
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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