Tales of Men and Ghosts

By: Edith Wharton

Narrated by: John Burlinson, Aisling Gray, Sara Sheckells, Leanne Yau

Tales of Men and Ghosts
By Edith Wharton

Narrated by John Burlinson, Sara Sheckells, Leanne Yau and Aisling Whitfield Gray

This collection of 10 classic tales is very representative of Wharton's approach to story-telling - in the narrative, the venue becomes a character almost as much as do the people. Situations are presented in an elegantly understated way, and the overall effect is disturbing rather than blatantly horrific.

The Bolted Door
His Father's Son
The Daunt Diana
The Debt Full Circle
The Legend
The Eyes
The Blond Beast
Afterward
The Letters

Public Domain (P)2019 Voices of Today

Offbeat

I love Edith Wharton but had never read these stories before. Out of the company of narrators the best by far is Aisling Gray. Her voice was excellent.

A look at human nature.

Confession: I've never listened to or read any other books by Edith Wharton. I do have an established and long term love for O Henry and Saki though, and this short story collection reminded me of what I love best about those two authors. Though the title mentions ghosts, it isn't the usual sort of ethreal specters that walk through walls and haunt people. Instead, it's people's own selves and their own troubled relationships with desire and happiness.

There are multiple narrators, each taking turns narrating the different stories. Some were better than others. Overall, they all gave decent performances and I enjoyed this collection quite a lot.

I was given a copy of this book in exchange for a fair review.

A good listen

This is my first book by Edith Wharton. I listened to the preview and read the synopsis but was still not sure what to expect. This book was not what I expected but I also was not disappointed. I will not give out spoilers but the stories were haunted, but not in the ways you would traditionally expect. These stories were refreshing and entertaining and I believe most listeners will enjoy them as well.
The different narrators did a great job and I thought they were matched up very well. If you spend the credit, you won't be disappointed

This book was given to me for free at my request and I provided this voluntary review.

Not a big fan, but they were ok stories

I can't say I really enjoyed these, but they were not too bad either. I was looking for more spooky or creepy I guess and I fell far flat on that. I did like the one with the man and his son talking, it had a nice little twist to it that I enjoyed. If you like shorter stories that don't fan out too much, but do have details that are typically left out of shorter stories, then this is for you.

This book was given to me for an unbiased review

Meh

I have to say that this collection of short stories came across as boring to me. I had to replay parts of the stories due to zoning out. I'm an eclectic listener and look for collections like this one to hear new works by authors I haven't experienced before but this author just really didn't grab my attention. The tales are of various beings being haunted in one way or another which intrigued me but, from beginning to end, they fell flat for me. The narrations were done excellently. Each one narrated their story with skill and they were the only reason I listened to the entire book.

I was given this free review copy audiobook at my request and have voluntarily left this review.