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Monday, May 9, 2011

Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen, Audiobook read by Juliet Stevenson

Over the past two years, I listened to all of Jane Austen’s novels on audiobook and vastly enjoyed them. I discovered that Austen’s books were meant to be listened to aloud, as Austen must have once read them aloud to her family. While I’ll still always enjoy reading them in their original print editions, I also want to explore more audio editions and enjoy listening to them as well. As readers of this blog know, I really can’t get enough of Austen in any type of media.

As part of Austenprose’s Sense and Sensibility Bicentenary Challenge, I decided to listen to a different audiobook version of Sense and Sensibility than the one I listened to two years ago. I chose the Naxos Audiobook version as read by Juliet Stevenson. I listened to Persuasion as read by Juliet Stevenson last fall and enjoyed it greatly.

Juliet Stevenson played Mrs. Elton in the 1996 Emma movie starting Gwyneth Paltrow. I enjoyed listening to this novel read with her great British accent, but more importantly she is able to give a unique voice to all of the characters and bring them to life. It was a pleasure to listen to this novel once again.

This audiobook version is an unabridged edition with eleven CDs for approximately 12 hours and 43 minutes worth of playing time. It was very soothing to me when I listened to it three weeks ago while driving to and from Milwaukee during a nasty sleet storm. It’s also a nice book to listen to when the kids are around as I know that it will contain no “naughty bits.”

For more of my review of Sense and Sensibility in general, please see my 2009 review of the Sense and Sensibility audiobook as read by Wanda McCaddon.

Sense and Sensibility is my second item for the Sense and Sensibility Bicentenary Challenge and my fifth item for the 2011 Audiobook Challenge.

Audiobook Source: The Kewaunee Public Library

4 comments:

  1. I'm currently making my way through the audiobooks (I've heard NA and S&S and have just started P&P) and I completely agree about how enjoyable they are aloud. I particularly enjoyed the dinner party at the Ferrars where they snub Elinor in favor of Lucy-so hilarious!

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  2. I love that dinner party as well! I also love how John Dashwood is obsessed with the idea that Elinor is going to marry Colonel Brandon.

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  3. Thanks for sharing. I'm currently exploring audiobooks and have come to realize how important the narrator is to the enjoyment of the book.

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  4. I definitely agree Alexis! There are many different audiobooks versions of Austen's books out there, and they are not all created equally. I've come across a few that were not that enjoyable totally due to the monotone narrator!

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