Tom Jones, Volume 1

I’ll admit, I approached *Tom Jones* with the dutiful sigh of someone ticking off a ‘classics’ box—but within an hour, Charlton Griffin had me cackling like a scoundrel in a back-alley comedy. His narration is a masterclass in vocal range: one minute he’s the avuncular, eye-rolling Fielding himself, the next he’s a simpering hypocrite or a bawdy barmaid, each voice distinct enough that you’d swear a cast of dozen took the mic. The real triumph? How he handles Fielding’s infamous digressions. Instead of letting them drag, Griffin treats them like juicy gossip, lowering his voice or speeding up just enough to keep you hooked. It’s the audiobook equivalent of a nudge in the ribs: *Pay attention, this bit’s delicious.* That said, this isn’t a tidy listen. The plot meanders like Tom after a skinful of ale, and Fielding’s 18th-century pacing can feel indulgent—some set pieces (a certain bedroom farce in Volume 1) go on *just* a beat too long. And while Griffin’s performance is mostly flawless, his female voices occasionally tip into caricature, which grates in a novel already skeptical of women’s agency. But these are quibbles. The sheer *joy* of the prose—its earthiness, its refusal to moralize neatly—makes this audiobook feel alive in a way few classics do. If you love your satire with teeth and your narrators with panache, this is a gamble worth taking. Just don’t listen with your grandma in the room.