Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories

By: Julian Hawthorne - editor

Narrated by: Scott Woodside

In the six volumes of the Library of the World’s Best Mystery and Detective Stories, Julian Hawthorne presents us thrilling and mysterious short stories from all corners of the world. Some of the stories appeared in this 1907 collection for the first time translated into English, and many of them come from unexpected sources, such as the letters of Pliny the Younger, or a Tibetan manuscript. In the first volume, we find stories written by American authors.

Public Domain (P)2012 Audible, Inc.

Reader should have learned French.

Is there anything you would change about this book?

The first few stories were written by French authors. Unfortunately the reader had not learned French and he mispronounced such simple words as "monsieur" which he pronounced as "moan-sewer." As a lifelong mystery reader, some of these stories were predictable. So, I look for how the story is told. They were so-so overall.

Who would you have cast as narrator instead of Scott Woodside?

Anyone who knew how to speak French.

Was Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories worth the listening time?

Not really.

Unfortunately very poor narration

The narration is odd and poor, completely unnatural, with odd pauses, and poor pronunciation. Disappointing.

When did Zoroaster become Zoo Roaster.. Mon Sewer.

OK so the content was OK.. historical tales, many of which were not just detective tales but OK from a historical standpoint... and that part was good... but I had to wade through the gut wrenching mispronunciations of the storytellers narrator. Really Mon Sewer, and Zoo Roaster .. it just make the entire effort seem flawed...
If you are getting paid to read this stuff in English... then we expect you to read it in adult English not pedantic English.... really a bummer

Library of the world's best mystery and detective stories

This was the slowest most boring book I have listened to in a long time. The title could not have been more misleading.

Not So Interesting Mystery Stories

The stories never captured my interest. I look for the unexpected and stories that keep me reading. When the stories are good I have a hard time putting the book down.

Can you ignore mispronunciations ?

Would you try another book from Julian Hawthorne (editor) and/or Scott Woodside?

I don't know how the process of recording a book is done but if there is supposed to be an audio editor they did a very poor job. Scott Woodside has a pleasant, easily-understood voice but the glaring mispronunciations are disconcerting. Because I like short stories I was able to forgive the errors. Shouldn't someone be noticing these errors or previewing possible difficulties before the recording is made ? Not every narrator might be familiar, for example, with a "brazier" and would (understandably) pronounce it "brassiere", and "sow" ( rhyming with "now") is a perfectly reasonable mispronunciation of "sou."

How could the performance have been better?

As I mentioned, someone needs to preview and go over possible pronunciation problems before the recording session. I do not fault the narrator for this omission.

did not finish

these are classic stories and would have been interesting to listen to but for the narrator who seemed hesitant and red the text like a child

It’s as if the narrator has no idea what he’s reading

Forget the terrible prononciation of the foreign text, Scott can’t even read basic English words. Poor quality and very distracting performance and overall not worth the time.

Narration too distracting!

Couldn't finish this book due to the narrator's bizarre style of reading. It sounds like someone asked a computer to read this out loud.

Absolutely terrible

This is a collection of very simplistic and not very good tales of supposedly mysterious stories. They are not mysterious, unless the mystery is how in the world they were ever chosen to be published. Also, the narrator is a terrible reader. His voice is lovely but it is a shame he does not know how to read properly. He pauses in between words when no such pause is called for and interrupts the flow of the narration. He mistakes magnetism for hypnotism when the text is clearly referring to the latter. If it were copied wrong in the text it should have been caught long before being said out loud. Another unbearable annoyance is that the stories are French in origin, so names of people and places are French, which the narrator can neither pronounce nor accent properly. All in all a great disappointment!! Do not even bother to download it. If I were allowed, I would not even give it a half star, but I must give it something. So.......