The Eighth Wonder of the World

The True Story of André the Giant

De: Bertrand Hébert, Pat Laprade

Narrado por: Graham Rowat

A definitive and exhaustive biography

Is there a way to find truth in the stuff of legend? You may think you know Andre the Giant - but who was Andre Roussimoff? This comprehensive biography addresses the burning questions, outrageous stories, and common misconceptions about his height, his weight, his drawing power as a superstar, and his seemingly unparalleled capacity for food and alcohol. But more importantly, The Eighth Wonder of the World transports listeners beyond the smoke and mirrors of professional wrestling into the life of a real man.

Born in France, Andre worked on his family's farm until he was 18, when he moved to Paris to pursue professional wrestling. A truly extraordinary figure, Andre went on to become an international icon and world traveler, all while battling acromegaly. While his disorder is what made him a giant and a household name, it's also what caused his untimely death at 46.

With exhaustive research, exclusive interviews with family and friends, and an exploration of Andre's amazing in-ring career and the indelible mark he left on pop culture, Laprade and Hebert have crafted the most complete portrait of a modern-day mythical being.

©2020 Bertrand Hébert and Pat Laprade (P)2020 Tantor

The Two Faces of André The French Whale

Very interesting story.
Not a fan of the narrator, but he was acceptable throughout.
Getting a clear picture of André's personality is not easy. On one hand he was the gentle giant and a really great guy to the people he liked. On the other hand he was a terrible bully and really mean and nasty to the people he didn't like, regardless of them doing anything wrong or not.
Must have been a chore sharing a locker room with this being.
Him literally pooping on Two Moves Allen in the middle of a match, was a full circle moment though...

Great book

A very comprehensive chronicle of a mythical character. Exhaustively researched, it paints a great portrait of who Andre was. Unfortunately, the narration is almost cartoon-ish and, like many wrestling audiobooks, names are often mispronounced. But I highly recommend, regardless.

Great, except the narration

I'm a lifelong (born in1981) wrestling fan. Fond memories of watching with my Dad. I loved how in depth in wrestling history this book goes. Most Andre bios that you read/watch rehash the same stories, but this one had so much great info that I hadn't heard before. I really liked it.

The narrator...his tone, pace, etc was fine, but he's clearly never watched wrestling a day in his life. It's rarely called a P-P-V, just a Pay Per View (Premium Live Event sounds stupid, but I won't get into that here since it's irrelevant). He managed to mispronounce so many not-hard-to-pronounce names: Arn = Arm, Janetty = janITY, Bischoff = Biskoff, Antonio = an-tow-NEO (like he's Italian or something), and lots others. Some of them, it was like someone finally corrected him halfway through the book and he started saying it right, but they didn't have him re-record to fix the previous errors.

Note to audiobook producers: thank you for producing wrestling books, but PLEASE either hire someone that knows wrestling or hire someone to "proofread" before it's published. This isn't the first wrestling book I've listened to that's almost been ruined because of mispronunciations.

Andre Protected

The book is an amazing journey of the legendary Andre the Giant. His life, from beginning to end, is explained in amazing detail. It does a great job of digging through the myth to get to who really Andre was. But even then, as the McMahon’s would do later in his career, the legend is still protected. And isn’t that the way it should be? It’s okay to have modern day legends, and Andre is still a legend.

Why oh why would they hire this narrator?

It's astounding how many audio books suffer from such poor narration, it's honestly unfathomable.
I could forgive his mispronouncing the names of wrestlers, which is ridiculous in its own right.
but he's just such an annoyingly voiced reader that I don't understand why he would have been given the job.
is it that difficult to find someone who sounds palatable?

Great Story

An Amazing story of the man known professionally as Andre the Giant.
The most complete and complex account of his life I have ever read.

OMG Just OMG

truly fantastic if you are a fan of Andre you will become a bigger fan. If not you will become one.

AWESOME

If your a wrestling fan this book is a must. Tells of Andres absolutely beautiful story and his very sad ending to life. I would recommend this to anyone is interested in wrestling history.

Fun look in to a childhood hero

Overall this was a wonderful book, growing up Andre was larger than life. He was such a unique character in the time.

The book and story are great. But...

The narrator sounded like a World War2 era newscast except when he was reading quotes in which he sounded like a heavy smoker. I understand the importance of needing someone to be able to pronounce French properly but someone should have edited for him or coached. Mispronouncing major wrestling figure names like Bischoff and Jannety as an example and you could tell he had no clue what PPV was or stood for. The bad narration still does not change that it was well written and did a good job showing the human behind the giant.