Thorough and entertaining

Would you consider the audio edition of The Norman Conquest to be better than the print version?

This is an excellent overview of the Norman Conquest, from it's pre-history in the early 11th Century to it's lasting legacy through British History. Morris will be criticised for being pro-Norman, but he does illustrate quite convincingly that Harold's claim to the throne was less than dubious. He's certainly no Norman apologist when it comes to the Harrying of the North and their ruthless political (if not literal) decapitation of the Saxon nobility.

What Morris does manage to do is to incorporate the source material effectively into the narrative. As such, he provides an insight into the way that Historian's handle the contemporaneous accounts of the Conquest whilst turning their author's into characters in their own right.

What did you like about the performance? What did you dislike?

Frazer Douglas' reading is slightly odd. He has a tendency to ponderous hesitancy and some of his pronunciation of place names is irritating (his rendering of Ely, the Cambridgeshire town, as EE-LIE rather than EE-LEE was particularly poor). Also, his adoption of a 'posh vicar' voice when quoting from the original source material grated after a while.

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11 people found this helpful

Great book but an odd narration style

Where does The Norman Conquest rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

The content was excellent, very well researched and presented the sources at much more than their face value. The critical evaluation of the evidence really added a lot to this book.

Who was your favorite character and why?

Edmund Ironside, the evidence suggests that he was a brave and strong leader but the hand he was dealt was spectacularly unlucky

What didn’t you like about Frazer Douglas’s performance?

The intonations were all wrong, giving the emphasis in the wrong places. He also paused mid-sentence and then resumed as if he were starting a new sentence. Some of the names and words were pronounced in a strange way. It took some getting used to at first but this did not detract from the excellent content.

Did you have an emotional reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?

No real emotional reaction just a series of "what if" pontifications

Any additional comments?

Great book, I'll seek out more by the same author

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1 person found this helpful

Most annoying, reader ever

Odd pauses, mid-sentence along with horrible mispronunciations of some names made this a disappointing listen.

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1 person found this helpful

gripping!

was gripped. found it hard to leave it when I had to do everyday things.

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1 person found this helpful

Really engrossing story/narrative

Really engrossing narrative of this transformational period of history. May well change your preconceptions. It did mine.

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Worst narrator ever .

Audible needs to have this book recorded again using a narrator who is able to string more than two words together , this book is far too important to be left in this diabolical form, someone of the standing and well documented skill of Simon Vance should bring this research to life . If this narrator gets any more work it will be an insult to the listening public .

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4 people found this helpful

Inexcusably poor narration

I am not the first to make this observation but it is so fundamentally important to the enjoyment of an audio book that the narration is carried out professionally that I thought I would add my own comment. Before a conventional printed copy of a book is published and sold to customers it is proof read. You would not expect to find errors of grammar, spelling or punctuation if you have paid money for a professionally produced printed copy of a book. When buying an audio book a customer has the right to expect that it too has been "proofed" and a check has been made that the narrator has not mispronounced the names of people and places. This is so obvious it hardly needs to be said. Frazer Douglas I assume was engaged to narrate this book although I cannot say on what basis and what his qualifications for the task are or were thought to be.. I assume he was paid for his services. If I had been engaged to narrate the book, before making the recording I would read the relevant chapter, and ensure that I knew the correct pronounciations of all the names and places and I would familiarise myself with the spelling, grammar and punctuation. If I was unsure about any of these I would ask the author or someone else as regards the correct pronounciation. I would not be so arrogant as to suppose I could simply get away with ploughing on and pronouncing the names of people and places phonetically, willy nilly, or however I saw fit. Caen in Normandy is not "Cayenne". In a book about the Normans its important to know that. Ely in Cambridgeshire is not "Eli", Pontefract in Yorkshire is not "Ponty Fract" (emphasis on Fract!). Edwyne is not "Ed-wine" but Edwin. There are countless other very grating and annoying errors which detract from the pleasure of this otherwise well researched and important book relating how England came to be occupied and subjugated by the Norman French a thousand years ago. Mr Douglas also sees fit to narrate quotations from original medieval sources (many of them Norman French noblemen and clerics) in what sounds like a mock theatrical upper class snobby English voice of the mid-20th century - why?! I will finish this book because that is just the way I am, but I can quite understand those who have given up half way through because of the intensely annoying sometimes comic quality of the narration.

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2 people found this helpful

Very interesting let down by poor narration

This book has a very interesting story to tell, but the reader is so poor that, not only has he no idea how to pronounce the French names which are quite common, he cannot even pronounce English names (Eli for Ely for example). His reading style paid scant attention to the sense of what he was reading and he did not allow the prose to flow. Doesn't Audible supervise the production of their audiobooks? It adversely affected my enjoyment of the book because I would find myself suddenly wondering what a particular word or phrase meant. A great shame as I doubt that I will want to listen to this again

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1 person found this helpful

dodgy pronunciation

Contains interesting content but is marred by frequent mispronounced words and names. It becomes very irritating.

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Excellent book, terribly read

Very detailed, yet still enjoyable. Marc Morris characteristically blends scholarship with a common sense consideration of the humanity of the key players and practical matters, with a smattering of dry humour.

Sadly the narrator is poor, considerably worse than on other works by this author. I seriously wondered at times whether it may have been computer-generated. Very odd pronunciation of some key figures (God-wiiiine-son.....), and poor pronunciation of non-English place names. Weird plummy voice when quoting any sources.

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