Mark Twain

A Life

By: Ron Powers

Narrated by: Ron Powers

“Powers brings to vivid life Twain's America...No biography of Mark Twain could do him full justice. Powers' comes as close as you can imagine." —Los Angeles Times

A magnificent and insightful biography of legendary writer Mark Twain and a great American story.

Samuel Clemens, the man known as Mark Twain, invented the American voice and became one of our greatest celebrities. His life mirrored his country's, as he grew from a Mississippi River boyhood in the days of the frontier, to a Wild-West journalist during the Gold Rush, to become the king of the eastern establishment and a global celebrity as America became an international power. Along the way, Mark Twain keenly observed the characters and voices that filled the growing country, and left us our first authentically American literature. Ron Powers's magnificent biography offers the definitive life of the founding father of our culture.©2005 Ron Powers; (P)2005 Simon & Schuster Inc. All rights reserved. AUDIOWORKS is an imprint of Simon & Schuster Audio Division.

Great book

This was a wonderful book. Beautifully told and read by the author. I highly recommend it.

A surprisingly good bio

I was a little skeptical of this at first; historical bios can be dry and turgid. But what a great find! The author really excels at bringing Twain’s personality to life and creating a marvellous sense of place and time which translates very well to audio. An engaging listen and I was particularly surprised and delighted that it wasn’t drawn out. Twain’s later years are handled succinctly and without heavy sentimentality which really allows the height of his life to shine even more

Abridgment Is The Only Negative

I enjoy the Read & Listen feature of Audible. I bought “Mark Twain: A Life” ebook and when I saw the author was the narrator I bought the Audiobook too. I NEVER buy abridged. I usually check but this time I missed it. Because of Abridgment I gave an overall 4 stars rather than 5.
Aside from that I found Samuel Clemens’s life story told by Ron Powers utterly enjoyable. Having pictured Clemens as a white haired old gent on a stage entertaining an audience with his humor, it was an eye opener to read about his young self being so wild, rowdy, and hedonistic out West during the Civil War years.
Ron Powers’s narration was excellent, especially his Samuel Clemens/Mark Twain voice.
I came to this book after reading Ron Chernow’s biography “Grant” and learning about his friendship with Clemens. Now on to some of Twain’s writings, “The Innocents Abroad” first!

Concise

Twain fans will love this concise biography filled with plenty of details of this amazing writer.

An amazing life frustratingly abridged

I've listened to the abridged version and read the original book. Both are good. Neither is perfect. The original could be the most thorough, complete Twain biography. Read it if you really want to dig into his whole life. But, it could have used an editor, because the information wasn't laid out as smoothly and selectively as one would hope. Powers slavishly recorded details that didn't seem to add anything, and he brought in a baffling parade of people that only appear once or twice. However, when it was abridged for audio the editor kept most of Twain's coming-of-age story and writing, as well as most of the really colorful adventures that shaped his legend. But, it gutted his marriage and family life. The connecting passages - We skip ahead in our story several years. Twain is now married and has a daughter - made clear that real meat had been cut as well as the fat (and it had been.) I wish there was a happy median which sliced out all the dry sentences and kept the full personal story intact.