The Man Who Ate Too Much by John Birdsall, Read by Daniel Henning
On the Life of James Beard
Every Monday through Friday, AudioFile’s editors recommend the best in audiobook listening. We keep our daily episodes short and sweet, with audiobook clips to give you a sample of our featured listens.
Performed with grace and care, Daniel Henning’s outstanding narration of The Man Who Ate Too Much reveals, warts and all, the larger-than-life James Beard. Host Jo Reed and AudioFile’s Alan Minskoff discuss John Birdsall’s biography of the renowned chef who is considered the dean of American cookery. Henning narrates with intelligence at a good pace, and gives the elegant prose its due. It’s an audiobook filled with luscious descriptions of places, meals, and people, and the author deftly handles the essential truth of Beard’s life: he rose to fame as a closeted gay man in homophobic postwar America. Read the full review of the audiobook on AudioFile’s website.
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After a fifteen hundred year break, the first Olympics of the modern era took place on April 6, 1896 in Athens. A History of the Olympics is a unique audiobook; our review at AudioFile said: “Barry Davis announces the history in an enjoyable, breezy manner.” Written by sports journalist John Goodbody, with a fascinating personal documentary featuring one of Britain’s leading Olympians, Sebastian Coe.
