Bob M. Clarks Audiobooks

Norse Mythology Illustrated: the old northern stories retold for listening

1 audiobook reviewed

Who is Bob M. Clarks?

Norse myth is public property; what changes is who is doing the telling and how. Norse Mythology Illustrated takes the gods, the giants and the long slide towards the end of the world, and puts them into a form built for listening rather than for study.

The illustrated part of the title belongs to the printed edition, and it is worth saying plainly: in audio you get the stories, not the pictures. That suits the material, which was spoken long before anyone thought to draw it. We shelve it with classics and heritage, which is where its interest really lies, whatever else the tags suggest. Of Bob M. Clarks we can say nothing dependable, so we stick to the work.

Bob M. Clarks in audiobooks

Kevin Wagner reads the three hours and fifty-five minutes, a length that makes this a survey rather than a scholarly march through the sources. That is the right call for a first encounter: the shape of the myths, the names in order, and the stories everything else refers back to.

No ratings have been logged yet, so there is nothing to lean on but the material itself, and the material has held up for a thousand years. If your Norse gods currently come mostly from films, this is a short and painless correction. Begin with the audiobooks below.