Review by New York Times Review
FOR THE PAST 20 years there has been a cassette tape in our car with a title along the lines of "Teach Yourself Morse Code." While not exactly riveting material, this is possibly the first nonfiction audiobook I can remember listening to, and it's a perfect example of why nonfiction works well in the format. The human voice lends life to words on a page. The tonal subtleties of a skilled narrator can captivate listeners with a commitment that readers of the written word must bring to a text on their own. Steve Sheinkin's "The Port Chicago 50: Disaster, Mutiny, and the Fight for Civil Rights" and Candace Fleming's "The Family Romanov: Murder, Rebellion and the Fall of Imperial Russia" are excellent works in their own right, but both books gain a layer of engagement through vibrant spoken narrations. There is warmth and urgency in the actor Dominic Hoffman's reading of "The Port Chicago 50," the story of a group of African-American sailors who had enlisted in the United States Navy and were court-martialed for mutiny in September 1944. After a disastrous explosion on the job they had refused to load bombs, dangerous work in which their white counterparts were not required to participate. Sheinkin is gifted at making nonfiction read like a fictional account - when he brings in Thurgood Marshall as a seemingly unconnected minor character, the reader knows it makes narrative sense for Marshall to turn up later in an instrumental plot role. The inevitability of the racism in this story is a bitter truth, and time and again, as I listened to "The Port Chicago 50" in the car with my teenage daughter, we had to pause the recording to discuss history and politics both past and current. Simultaneously sharing a story with other readers is a pleasure directly connected to reading aloud. Hoffman's narration of this important and forgotten step forward in the battle for civil rights is superb; never melodramatic or disrespectful, he conveys a range of voices, including an imitation of Franklin Roosevelt that even my British-born daughter recognized. One of the effects of hearing a book read aloud by a disembodied voice is that you can't help feeling that the narrator, as the storyteller, has the authority of the author. The voice I associate with "The Port Chicago 50" is not Sheinkin's: It's Hoffman's. Similarly, the actress Kimberly Farr's voice now feels to me the right one to associate with Candace Fleming's detailed and accessible portrait of the doomed Romanov autocracy in the early 20th century. "The Port Chicago 50" is a man's tale, indeed an African-American man's tale, appropriately and skilfully voiced by an AfricanAmerican man. Farr's warm, straight-shooting, clear-voiced interpretation of "The Family Romanov" breathes immediacy into Fleming's narrative. But is there any reason Fleming's story of political and social turmoil in czarist Russia should be voiced by a white American woman, other than that's what the author is? It's easy to overlook how our expectations for any given narration inform how we receive and interpret the audio recording of a printed book. Fleming's "The Family Romanov" deals gracefully with the meaty history of the Russian Revolution by framing it biographically, as a family portrait. By no means does the focus rest entirely on the Romanovs: Innocuous episodes in the royal family's daily routine are contrasted throughout the book with the documented lives of less fortunate Russian peasants, workers and intellectuals. This turns the book into a pageant of contrasts: The intimate, claustrophobic, obscenely wealthy and often faintly idiotic mind-set of Imperial Russia's royal family is counterbalanced with the broad-thinking, frustrated, poverty-stricken and intellectually challenging mind-set of Russia's lower classes. Farr's confiding narration is both lucid and confident, growing subtly and appropriately grimmer toward the end. I felt that the supporting voices that narrate the sidebars, though adding texture to the overall listening experience, were so heavily accented they were often difficult to understand. BOTH "THE FAMILY ROMANOV" and "The Port Chicago 50" - and probably other nonfiction audiobooks as well - would benefit from a booklet or web link dedicated to the supplementary material left out of the audio editions. As a visual reader and an amateur historian, I longed for the pictures and references included in the printed versions. Sheinkin's book, in particular, is a wholly different experience without its plentiful illustrations (photographs and facsimiles appear on almost every third page of text). I found myself wondering repeatedly, as I listened to Hoffman's moving and masterly narration, where the lengthy direct quotations were coming from. Sheinkin tells you in his source note in the printed version, but not in the audiobook; 20 pages of references are not included in the audio version, and Fleming's missing printed references are even more detailed. Is this a loss to the reader? I want to put the question out there without making a judgment call. The listener should bear in mind that an audiobook isn't a compromise; it's an option. The reading performance exists as an art form in its own right, and adds nuance, accessibility and immediacy to a text. ELIZABETH WEIN is the author, most recently, of "Rose Under Fire" and "Code Name Verity."
Copyright (c) The New York Times Company [November 16, 2014]
Review by Booklist Review
*Starred Review* History comes to vivid life in Fleming's sweeping story of the dramatic decline and fall of the House of Romanov. Her account provides not only intimate portraits of Tsar Nicholas; his wife, Alexandra; and the five Romanov children, but it also offers a beautifully realized examination of the context of their lives Russia in a state of increasing social unrest and turmoil. The latter aspect is shown in part through generous excerpts from letters, diaries, memoirs, and more that are seamlessly interspersed throughout the narrative. All underscore the incredible disparity between the glittering lives of the Romanovs and the desperately impoverished ones of the peasant population. Instead of attempting to reform this, Nicholas simply refused to acknowledge its presence, rousing himself only long enough to order savage repression of the occasional uprising. Fleming shows that the hapless tsar was ill equipped to discharge his duties, increasingly relying on Alexandra for guidance; unfortunately, at the same time, she was increasingly reliant on the counsel of the evil monk Rasputin. The end, when it came, was swift and for the Romanovs, who were brutally murdered terrible. Compulsively readable, Fleming's artful work of narrative history is splendidly researched and documented. For readers who regard history as dull, Fleming's extraordinary book is proof positive that, on the contrary, it is endlessly fascinating, absorbing as any novel, and the stuff of an altogether memorable reading experience.--Cart, Michael Copyright 2010 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
This educational history geared to young adult readers explores the reversals of fortune that attended the Romanov family, from their reign as privileged rulers of 130 million Russians at the turn of the 20th century to their violent deaths at the hands of Bolshevik revolutionaries in 1918. Farr, who is primarily a stage actress, serves as the story's primary narrator and also voices the diary entries and personal vignettes of various Romanov family members. She manages to create sympathy for the insulated family, especially the children, though her voice also expresses appropriate frustration at times when Czar Nicholas either turned a deaf ear to the desperation of his subjects or aggressively countered their complaints with military brutality. Less successful are the audio production's various uncredited "Beyond the Palace Gates" performances, which feature stories from the lives of Russian peasants, WWI soldiers, or other observers. Several anonymous voices perform these parts, lending a disjointed feel to the narrative, and oddly reinforcing the class divisions inherent to the history itself. (July) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by School Library Journal Review
Gr 9 Up-The tragic Romanovs, last imperial family of Russia, have long held tremendous fascination. The interest generated by this family is intense, from debates about Duchess Anastasia and her survival to the discovery of their pathetic mass graves. A significant number of post-Glasnost Russian citizens consider the Romanovs holy to the extent that the Russian Orthodox Church has canonized them. This well-researched and well-annotated book provides information not only on the history of these famous figures but also on the Russian people living at the time and on the social conditions that contributed to the family's demise. The narrative alternates between a straightforward recounting of the Romanovs' lives and primary source narratives of peasants' lives. The contrast is compelling and enhances understanding of how the divide between the extremely rich and the very poor can lead directly to violent and dramatic political change. While the description and snippets on the serfs and factory workers are workmanlike, the pictures painted of the reclusive and insular Romanovs is striking. Unsuited to the positions in which they found themselves, Nicholas and Alexandra raised their children in a bubble, inadequately educating them and providing them only slight exposure to society. The informative text illuminates their inability to understand the social conditions in Russia and the impact it might have had on them. This is both a sobering work, and the account of the discovery of their bones and the aftermath is at once fascinating and distressing. A solid resource and good recreational reading for high school students.-Ann Welton, Grant Elementary School, Tacoma, WA (c) Copyright 2014. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Horn Book Review
Marrying the intimate family portrait of Heiligman's Charles and Emma (rev. 1/09) with the politics and intrigue of Sheinkin's Bomb (rev. 11/12), Fleming has outdone herself with this riveting work of narrative nonfiction that appeals to the imagination as much as the intellect. Her focus here is not just the Romanovs, the last imperial family of Russia, but the Revolutionary leaders and common people as well. She cogently and sympathetically demonstrates how each group was the product of its circumstances, then how they all moved inexorably toward the tragic yet fascinating conclusion. Each member of the Romanov family emerges from these pages as a fully realized individual, but their portraits are balanced with vignettes that illuminate the lives of ordinary people, giving the book a bracing context missing from Massie's Nicholas and Alexandra, still the standard popular history. The epic, sweeping narrative seamlessly incorporates scholarly authority, primary sources, appropriate historical speculation, and a keen eye for the most telling details. Moreover, the juxtaposition of the supremely privileged lifestyle of Russian nobility with the meager subsistence of peasants, factory workers, and soldiers creates a narrative tension that builds toward the horrifying climax. Front and back matter include a map, genealogy, bibliography, and source notes, while two sixteen-page inserts contain numerous captioned photographs. jonathan hunt (c) Copyright 2014. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
Fleming examines the family at the center of two of the early 20th century's defining events.It's an astounding and complex story, and Fleming lays it neatly out for readers unfamiliar with the context. Czar Nicholas II was ill-prepared in experience and temperament to step into his legendary father's footsteps. Nicholas' beloved wife (and granddaughter of Queen Victoria), Alexandra, was socially insecure, becoming increasingly so as she gave birth to four daughters in a country that required a male heir. When Alexei was born with hemophilia, the desperate monarchs hid his condition and turned to the disruptive, self-proclaimed holy man Rasputin. Excerpts from contemporary accounts make it clear how years of oppression and deprivation made the population ripe for revolutionary fervor, while a costly war took its toll on a poorly trained and ill-equipped military. The secretive deaths and burials of the Romanovs fed rumors and speculation for decades until modern technology and new information solved the mysteries. Award-winning author Fleming crafts an exciting narrative from this complicated history and its intriguing personalities. It is full of rich details about the Romanovs, insights into figures such as Vladimir Lenin and firsthand accounts from ordinary Russians affected by the tumultuous events. A variety of photographs adds a solid visual dimension, while the meticulous research supports but never upstages the tale.A remarkable human story, told with clarity and confidence. (bibliography, Web resources, source notes, picture credits, index) (Nonfiction. 12 up) Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
