The Very Best of Willa Cather: My Antonia and O, Pioneers!

By: WIlla Cather

Narrated by: Andrea Giordani

Willa Cather achieved recognition for her novels depicting American life on the prairie frontier. First published in 1918, My Ántonia is the riveting story of pioneers on the Nebraska frontier in the late 19th century. The tale focuses on Antonia Shimerda, daughter of an immigrant family from Bohemia, and Jim Burden, an orphaned boy from Virginia, who formed a lifelong friendship. O Pioneers! (1913), the first of Cather’s “prairie trilogy” of novels, is the saga of the Bergson family who came from Sweden to settle the farmland near the town of Hanover, Nebraska, at the end of the 20th century. The main characters include Alexandra Bergson and Carl Linstrum, Alexandra's brother, Emil, and Marie Shabata.

Public Domain (P)2020 Museum Audiobooks

British narrator?

Willa Cather's books are all exceptional. I do not understand why a narrator with a British accent was chosen. These were stories of American pioneers, so I would have preferred an American narrator to depict the characters.

Deeply satisfying

Authentic narration and a story that touched me to my soul. Highly recommended I will definitely seek out more from the author

The poor pronunciation of the characters’ names. I couldn’t finish listening to it.

I love the writing, but the delivery is mediocre. It was a waste of an audible credit.

The reader needs supervision during recording

At the first sentence, I was struck by the thick European accent I could not identify. I stayed with it for half of the first book, granting that the accent works because Antonia is a Czech character. While the reader does have a talent for character voices, her experience with the English language suggests that she has read much but listened little. Words that are not pronounced the way they are spelled tripped her up frequently, and there had apparently been no producer or engineer to correct her during the recording sessions. There were several missed edits where the reader stopped and tried a line again. This is not up to Audible standards.

Ultimately, I abandoned this recording and finished by listening to free public domain recordings of both books.

This recording should be offered in the Plus Catalog. I'm kicking myself for having spent a credit on it.