I recently discovered the Librivox website and couldn’t be happier with it (that’s a subject for another review!). One of the free audiobooks that I just got done listening to was The Mysterious Affair at Styles by Agatha Christie. I really enjoy Christie’s works and thought it would be fun to listen to one for a change.
The book was read by a Librivox volunteer named Alex Foster. At first, I couldn’t really get into Foster’s reading style. He was reading so quickly at the beginning that I could barely process what was going on. This was pretty disorienting, especially when it came to dialogue. I actually had to listen to the first chapter a couple of times to make sure I was following the plot properly.
Fortunately, Foster got much better after that inauspicious start and by the end of the book I was actually enjoying his reading. I thought he did a marvelous job with the voices of Arthur Hastings and Hercule Poirot, and his overall performance was very good. Oh yeah, Christie’s first published novel was excellent as well!
This was a good audiobook, and it’s free, so head on over the Librivox.org to download a copy of Alex Foster’s reading of The Mysterious Affair at Styles by Agatha Christie.