Excellent text, well (if confusingly) read

This is an excuse edition of Suetonius's text, whose precise & archaic language lends an appropriate sense of depth to the accounts. The reader is very good, holding one's interest while matching the tone of the text admirably. My only significant criticism is that the editor's commentary which follows each "life" is in no way distinguished from the main text, though of a wildly different age, by a different author, & on a different subject--the literary works of the reigns! This took a lot of getting used to, & required me to find the printed text to note the location of the switch from text to commentary on the first instance: I then learnt to look out for a change in style, but it was not always clear.

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3 people found this helpful

Strong text let down by poor performance

Suetonius is Suetonius, there's not much to say there, but I do have some comments on the formatting of the audiobook, the reader, and the contents.

First, perhaps 1/3rd of the runtime of this audiobook is not Suetonius but a commentary on Suetonius written by one Alexander Thomson, M.D., who I suspect but am unable to confirm might have been the same Alexander Thomson M.D. who was a 19th century Australian pioneer. It's generally a decent commentary, and doesn't detract from the text, but it exacerbates some formatting issues. My chief complaint is that chapters aren't named (making it difficult at times to remember which emperor you're dealing with) and there are no hard breaks between chapters. Sometimes Suetonius runs off into the commentary of Dr. Thomson and I found myself not noticing for several minutes.

The performance is generally poor. Monotonous. A chore was made out of what is actually quite interesting content.

In summary, get another edition unless you are interested in the supplemental commentary that this one includes.

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2000 years old and still a great book

Brilliantly written brilliantly narrated not just the story of the twelve Caesars but of there time fantastic

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1 person found this helpful

Loved this but gave up.

Very informative, and I prefer monotonous narration to overly dramatic readings, but have decided to switch to the e-book, together with a copy of Robert Graves' translation, to use as a crib, because it was too difficult to tell which Caesar was being discussed for too much of the time.

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Dire narration

Monotonous narration completely stiffled this book. Going for print copy instead or another version.

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