A Tale of Two Cities

I’ll admit: I approached this audiobook skeptical that a 15-hour Dickens novel could hold my attention in 2024. Then Simon Callow started speaking, and within minutes, I was hooked—not just by the story, but by the *performance*. His Sydney Carton is a revelation: a man drowning in self-loathing, yet Callow laces his drunken slurs with a tragic charm that makes his redemption hit like a gut punch. The real surprise? The humor. Dickens’ jabs at the aristocracy land like stand-up comedy in Callow’s delivery, making the sudden shifts into horror (that *knitting* scene—*shivers*) even more jarring. That said, this isn’t a flawless listen. The first third drags slightly as Dickens sets his chess pieces, and Callow’s female voices occasionally veer into caricature (Madame Defarge’s growl is iconic, but Lucie’s breathiness grated after a while). Yet these are quibbles. The audiobook’s crowning achievement is its *sound design*—subtle, but devastating. The echo in the Bastille scenes, the distant screams during the September Massacres: these choices transform the book into an immersive experience. By the final lines, I was openly weeping in my car, something no print version has ever managed. If you’ve only known *Two Cities* as required reading, this audiobook will make you fall in love with it as a *masterpiece*.