Le Morte D'Arthur
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Narrated by:
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Chris MacDonnell
About this listen
To the modern eye, King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table have many similarities to our own contemporary super-heroes. Equipped with magical powers, enchanted swords, super-strength, and countless villains to take on, they protect the weak and innocent and adhere to their own code of honor. Comparing Batman, Superman, and Captain America to Sir Launcelot, Sir Tristram, and Sir Galahad isn't a huge leap of the imagination.
Perhaps, for the 15th century reader, King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table were the equivalent of our modern day Justice League or Avengers. This audiobook gets to the heart of the narrative, telling the exciting legends of the supernatural, magic, dragons, beasts, battles, and chivalry contained in Sir Thomas Malory's epic in a contemporary and unaffected style. First published by William Caxton in 1485, this version is a faithfully unabridged narration of the complete Malory text (excluding the introduction). It includes the chapter numbers and descriptions used in the original manuscript.
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The most influential work of the entire Spanish literary canon and a founding work of modern Western literature, Don Quixote is also one of the greatest works ever written. Hugely entertaining but also moving at times, this episodic novel is built on the fantasy life of one Alonso Quixano, who lives with his niece and housekeeper in La Mancha. Quixano, obsessed by tales of knight errantry, renames himself ‘Don Quixote’ and with his faithful servant Sancho Panza, goes on a series of quests.
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More than funny
- By Colin on 08-21-11
By: John Ormsby - translator, and others
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Waverley
- By: Sir Walter Scott
- Narrated by: David Rintoul
- Length: 17 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
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Waverley by Sir Walter Scott is an enthralling tale of love, war and divided loyalties. Taking place during the Jacobite Rebellion of 1745, the novel tells the story of proud English officer Edward Waverley. After being posted to Dundee, Edward eventually befriends chieftain of the Highland Clan Mac-Ivor and falls in love with his beautiful sister Flora. He then renounces his former loyalties in order actively to support Scotland in open rebellion against the Union with England. The book depicts stunning, romantic panoramas of the Highlands.
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Loved it
- By Tad Davis on 04-12-18
By: Sir Walter Scott
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Don Quixote
- Translated by Edith Grossman
- By: Edith Grossman - translator, Miguel de Cervantes
- Narrated by: George Guidall
- Length: 39 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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Sixteenth-century Spanish gentleman Don Quixote, fed by his own delusional fantasies, takes to the road in search of chivalrous adventures. But his quest leads to more trouble than triumph. At once humorous, romantic, and sad, Don Quixote is a literary landmark. This fresh edition, by award-winning translator Edith Grossman, brings the tale to life as never before.
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My Fourth Try at an Audible Quixote
- By James on 12-24-12
By: Edith Grossman - translator, and others
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Idylls of the King
- By: Alfred Tennyson
- Narrated by: Charlton Griffin
- Length: 12 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
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The Arthurian legend of Camelot has been told many times, but never better than by Alfred Tennyson. Employing some of the most stirring and beautiful blank verse ever written, Tennyson crafted his version of the Knights of the Round Table over the course of nearly fifty years, completing it in 1885. Despite the length of time, Tennyson managed to maintain a high level of style and continuity throughout.
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Beautiful poetry
- By Roger on 01-15-08
By: Alfred Tennyson
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Don Quixote
- By: Miguel de Cervantes, Gerald J. Davis - translator
- Narrated by: John Hanks
- Length: 20 hrs
- Unabridged
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Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes, follows the adventures of Alonso Quijano, a hidalgo who reads so many chivalric novels that he decides to set out to revive chivalry, under the name Don Quixote. This is the story that a Nobel Prize Committee survey of one hundred of the world's best writers named "the greatest book of all time."
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A wonderful, magical listen
- By K on 12-01-13
By: Miguel de Cervantes, and others
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Njál's Saga
- By: Anonymous
- Narrated by: Gunnar Cauthery
- Length: 13 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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Based on events that took place between 960 and 1020 AD, Njál 's Saga is a mesmerizing drama about a multigenerational cycle of violence and retribution, and the feuds and passions that perpetuate it. The eponymous sage Njál, known for his keen legal mind, is one of Iceland's pre-eminent men, along with Gunnar of Hlidarendi, a fierce and formidable warrior married to the diabolical Hallgerd, whose conniving instigates the interminable pattern of romance, action and brutality - until one unforgivable act ends it all.
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censored version
- By Amazon Customer on 01-26-21
By: Anonymous
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Brilliant and powerful
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Derek Jacobi is Astounding
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The glorious but tragic story of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table is one of the great legends of Western civilization. Storytellers and poets down the centuries have returned repeatedly to the universal themes of the Quest of the Holy Grail and the love between Sir Launcelot and Queen Guenever. Yet the first printed account, written by the 15th century knight Sir Thomas Malory, remains unmatched.
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Gorgeous narration
- By Carpe Diem on 03-22-08
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Le Morte D'Arthur
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Not Quite as I Remembered
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Le Morte d'Arthur, Vol. 2
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This monumental work made the Arthurian cycle available for the first time in English. Malory took a body of legends from Celtic folklore that had been adapted into French literature, gave them an English perspective, and produced a work which ever since has had tremendous influence upon literature.
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The complete "box set" of T. H. White's epic fantasy novel of the Arthurian legend. The novel is made up of five parts: "The Sword in the Stone", "The Witch in the Wood", "The Ill-Made Knight", "The Candle in the Wind", and "The Book of Merlyn".
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My favorite book this year.
- By Robert on 12-13-12
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Le Morte d'Arthur
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- By: Sir Thomas Malory
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- Length: 38 hrs and 4 mins
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Of all the legends of Western civilization, perhaps the glorious adventures of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table are the best known. The Quest for the Holy Grail, and the undying illicit love between Sir Launcelot and Queen Guenevere, have provided inspiration for storytellers and poets down the ages, and sparked so many films and books of our own time.
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Brilliant and powerful
- By Tad Davis on 05-19-21
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Le Morte d'Arthur
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Hear the immortal story of Arthur, the once and future king! The legendary tale of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table is a superb story of adventure, love, honor, and betrayal. Originally published in 1485, Malory's epic poem, Le Morte d'Arthur, is filled with dramatic power and deep, tragic irony. Guenever, Launcelot, Mordred, the quest for the Holy Grail and the ultimate doom of Arthur's realm - it's all here.
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Derek Jacobi is Astounding
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Le Morte d'Arthur (The Death of Arthur)
- By: Sir Thomas Malory
- Narrated by: Philip Madoc
- Length: 3 hrs and 58 mins
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
The glorious but tragic story of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table is one of the great legends of Western civilization. Storytellers and poets down the centuries have returned repeatedly to the universal themes of the Quest of the Holy Grail and the love between Sir Launcelot and Queen Guenever. Yet the first printed account, written by the 15th century knight Sir Thomas Malory, remains unmatched.
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Gorgeous narration
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Not Quite as I Remembered
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- Narrated by: Frederick Davidson
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My favorite book this year.
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Barsoom Series Collection: 7 John Carter Stories is an audiobook collection of seven novels/stories of John Carter by Edgar Rice Burroughs. It will transport you to a fascinating new world unlike any other. Join John Carter as he finds himself on another planet beyond his deepest imagination - Mars, with almost a complete lack of resources.
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The Arthurian Romances by Chrétien de Troyes form the wellspring of the legend of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table. Stories of knightly valour in the Welsh Marches had existed before the 12th century, but it was the magnificent poetry and imagination of Chrétien, the 12th century French poet and trouvère, which brought alive the great characters of Arthur, his wife Guinevere, Lancelot and others.
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Merlin, Arthur, Galahad, Lancelot - the names conjure images of knights in armor during the age of chivalry. When Le Morte D'Arthur was first published in 1485, it was the first time the mélange of medieval tales had been given unity, form, and the English language. Sir Thomas Malory, an English knight born in the early 1400s, wrote Le Morte D'Arthur - a set of 8 romances having to do with King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table - when he was in Newgate Gaol. The Holy Grail is one of the most famous.
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Four hours to find the Holy Grail
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Histories of the Kings of Britain: King Arthur
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This may rightly be considered one of the first published sources of the King Arthur legend. The translation by Sebastian Evans of this selection of Geoffrey of Monmouth's chronicle of ancient British kings differs in several respects from more popular versions of Arthurian tales published centuries later. Notably absent here are the Round Table of knights, the Holy Grail, Guenevere's affair with Sir Lancelot, and the Lady of the Lake.
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Not Unabridged
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The Raveling: The Complete Saga
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Long ago, the world fell into twilight, when the great empires of old consumed each other in sorcerous cataclysms. In the south, the Star Towers fell, swallowed by the sea, while the black glaciers descended upon the northern holdfasts, entombing the cities of Min-Ceruth in ice and sorcery. Then from the ancient empire of Menekar, the paladins of Ama came, putting every surviving sorcerer to the sword and cleansing their taint from the land. The pulse of magic slowed, fading like the heartbeat of a dying man. But after a thousand years, it has begun to quicken again.
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Narration is intolerable
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The Great Book of King Arthur
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The stories of King Arthur and Merlin, Lancelot and Guinevere, Galahad, Gawain, Tristan and the rest of the Knights of the Roundtable, and the search for the Holy Grail have been beloved for centuries and are the inspiration of many modern fantasy novels, films, and shows. These legends began when an obscure Celtic hero named Arthur stepped on to the stage of history sometime in the sixth century, generating a host of oral tales that would be inscribed some 900 years later by Thomas Malory in his classic Morte D’Arthur (The Death of Arthur).
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Rare, never heard stories of King Arthur!
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The Life and Writings of C. S. Lewis
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What can we still learn from C.S. Lewis? Find out in these 12 insightful lectures that cover the author's spiritual autobiography, novels, and his scholarly writings that reflect on pain and grief, love and friendship, prophecy and miracles, and education and mythology.
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Basically a collection of sermons
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This remarkable poem, dedicated to Queen Elizabeth I, was Spenser's finest achievement. The first epic poem in modern English, The Faerie Queene combines dramatic narratives of chivalrous adventure with exquisite and picturesque episodes of pageantry. At the same time, Spenser is expounding a deeply-felt allegory of the eternal struggle between Truth and Error....
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High Fantasy from the Renaissance
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Idylls of the King
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This series of poems covers the story of the legendary hero, King Arthur, beginning with his first encounter with Guinevere, the woman who would become his queen on his search for the Holy Grail, to the betrayal of Guinevere and Sir Lancelot, and finally ending with Arthur's last battle. First published between 1859 and 1885 as a series of twelve poems, Idylls of the King retells the story of King Arthur with a unique and Victorian flavor beloved by many.
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Classic
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For hundreds of years, the legend of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table has been one of the world's most precious literary possessions. In 1902, the distinguished American artist Howard Pyle undertook to retell and illustrate this classic. His four-volume work has long been considered one of the outstanding interpretations of the Arthurian cycle.
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The Eternal Story
- By Angele Thibodeau on 10-27-18
By: Howard Pyle
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The Goshawk
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The predecessor to Helen Macdonald's H Is for Hawk, T. H. White's nature-writing classic, The Goshawk, asks the age-old question: What is it that binds human beings to other animals? White, author of The Once and Future King and Mistress Masham's Repose, was a young writer who found himself rifling through old handbooks of falconry.
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Informative but sometimes TMI
- By MIBuickLover on 12-11-23
By: T. H. White
What listeners say about Le Morte D'Arthur
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Esmeralda
- 12-12-23
I only read it to learn about Morgan lefay
37 hour book
60 parts/or my bookmarks recorded on Morgan lafey
I've read other dissapointing version of Arthurian Legends that bearly touch on the character of Morgan Lefay but this book seems to cover all her stories except in the end where it doesn't seems to mention much about her having mordred as a son.
Overall doesn't dissapoint!
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2 people found this helpful
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- Stef
- 05-13-21
vocabulary building
I should have known the language was going to be so archaic, but if you can get past that it is worth a listen. the repetition is iconic of oral tradition, but does take a while to get used to.
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3 people found this helpful
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- Joe
- 05-09-22
Le Monte D’Arthur
I really like King Arthur books, but his book goes beyond. The narration is incredible, although the girl voices are kind of cartoonish. Overall, great book, great narration.
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2 people found this helpful
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- Robbie
- 05-08-19
Most sections are good
The Tristram part was mediocre but other than that it was very good, Galahad and Arthur parts were best, it's a bit soft on Lancelot
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- John
- 09-22-16
Not for the faint of heart, but worth the journey!
What made the experience of listening to Le Morte D'Arthur the most enjoyable?
It's an English literature, history and foreign language lesson all rolled into one!
What other book might you compare Le Morte D'Arthur to and why?
It's a combination of all medieval stories, and the holy bible.
Which character – as performed by Chris MacDonnell – was your favorite?
Well it has to be Lancelot and Palamedes for me. The most noble nights, with definite kinks in their armor.Chris did a fantastic job with the Olde English, and the sheer multitude of characters! I can only imagine the chops he earned on this one! It was tough going at first, but Chris's steady, easy tone certainly helped me acclimate and learn. I feel like I learned a whole new language!
Was there a moment in the book that particularly moved you?
The insight into the struggles for many knights to maintain the code of knighthood added a sense of realism, and made the story more approachable. Was Gallahad a reference to Jesus? Very interesting parallels for sure. I liked how the ending ties into the story of the Knights Templar.
Any additional comments?
Quite taken by the number of archaetypes introduced in this work that resonate throughout literary history. This book seems but just once removed from the Holy Bible itself.
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17 people found this helpful
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- Russell
- 04-18-24
Boring and dull delivery
The narrator just never shifted out of his very neutral cadence. I got quite far but just gave up and couldn’t be bothered to finish when I found a better alliterative reading with a beautiful cadence and a less monotone delivery.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Taylor Britton
- 10-14-22
and anon
I thought lancelot or tristan or percival were meant to be the best of knights,
for I had never heard tale of the Knight of the Four Chans before reading these pages here.
even when speaking of the impressive exploits of others knights more renowned to me, the author would be driven to non-sequitur; "and Anon, he was in truth the best of noble knights."
imspired am I to spread word of this well and good Anon throughout the many threads and realms I troll.
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- John
- 09-18-17
'Chris’s steady, easy tone'
I have a confession. I haven’t listened to this entire recording yet.
Actually, I have. But I was asleep.
Wait, that doesn’t sound right. Let’s start again.
I’m one of those people whom the cares of the day seem to follow to bed. Some chosen few, like Napoleon Bonaparte, fall asleep when their head hits the pillow. Other, less-successful world conquerors, like me, have to come up with strategies for getting the required 8 hours.
I’ve found that long recordings of classic books, when evenly and soothingly read, engage my mind, banish worries and cares, and send me off to dreamland.
Even better, if I wake up in the middle of the night, the story is still there, still soothing, and I can fall asleep again.
So far, I’ve used Ovid’s Metamorphoses (the Naxos recording with David Horovitch), The Iliad and Odyssey (the Robert Fitzgerald translations, read by George Guidall and Dan Stevens, respectively), the Mabinogion (Lady Charlotte Guest’s 1877 translation, read by Richard Mitchley), the Divine Comedy (Clive James’s translation, read by Edoardo Ballerini), and Simon Armitage’s translation of The Death of Arthur, read by Bill Wallis.
I find Milton’s language too involved to lull me to sleep; though I sometimes use Canterbury Tales (full cast, translated by Nicolson) and Faerie Queene (Naxos, read by David Timson), my habit of anticipating rhymes can keep me up.
Please understand, I don’t find these books boring in the least. I know them from my page-and-binding reading and have loved them—some for decades now. When awake, what one reviewer has called Chris Macdonnell’s “steady, easy tone” is a superb vehicle for this epic prose masterpiece. But it also works well at the end of a long day.
I only regret that Beowulf, though read by George Guidall, isn’t long enough to get me through the night.
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33 people found this helpful
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- Uriel
- 01-23-18
Marathon of smiting!
totally classic piece of literature, truly accomplished narrator, although you can't tell if he knows how to pronounce French or not half the time. as good as this story is, if I have to hear the phrase, 'and he smote on the left hand and on the right' again, I'm very likely to throw my phone into the wall!
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13 people found this helpful
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- Nick Gregg
- 03-28-24
His voice was amazing.
Not the same version I remember. When I read the book when I was young. But different versions write different things. And I'm fine with it and I enjoyed the book.
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1 person found this helpful