The World’s Story Volume VII: Germany, the Netherlands and Switzerland

(4 stars)

BoyWonder

I found this book’s stories and anecdotes quite interesting and informative. Once I became familiar with the disparate volunteer readers and their idiosyncrasies, like slow startup and then fluidity, different audio levels, etc. I looked forward to the book’s episodes. (Having passed books around to readers and also read on long car trips in my youth, I was trained to listen to the book, not the reader. I often listened again to episodes of this book to be able to remember the stories. A gold mine of anecdotes about the formation and histories of Germany, the Netherlands, and Switzerland. Having traveled that region in my earlier life, I wish I’d known these anecdotes before traveling there. While listening to this book, I kept Google Earth handy in my iPhone to be able to geographically place the anecdotes on a map and pause the audio to explore castles, cities, mountains, and lakes. The series is a gem that will likely never be turned into a commercial audiobook series with a more professional presentation. I’m grateful to the amateur volunteers and LibriVox for making it available.

Another great piece of work utterly destroyed by a female reader

(0.5 stars)

Nordic Hebrew.