Phaedo (Annotated Edition)

I’ll admit: I approached this expecting dry academia. Instead, Preece’s performance made me *care*—not just about the arguments, but about the *people* in the room. His Socrates isn’t a detached sage but a man acutely aware of his impending death, his voice tightening just slightly when he describes the soul’s journey. The annotation pauses are handled deftly: a chime signals footnotes, but they’re read with enough separation that you never lose the thread. That said, the production isn’t perfect. The audio levels occasionally dip during Cebes’ longer speeches, forcing me to crank the volume, and Preece’s Phaedo (the narrator-character) sometimes blends too closely with Socrates’ tone, muddying who’s speaking in dense passages. What surprised me most was the *humor*. Plato’s wit shines here—Socrates teasing his friends for their grief, or the way he dismantles Simmias’ objections with a chuckle in his voice. The dialogue’s structure, with its false starts and emotional detours, feels modern in Preece’s hands. If you’ve ever bounced off Plato in print, this audiobook might change your mind. Just don’t expect easy answers: the final moments, where Socrates calmly drinks the poison while debating the afterlife, are as unsettling as they are profound. It’s not a comfort listen, but it’s a *necessary* one.