SOUTH SEA TALES

If you know London primarily through novels like WHITE FANG, these stories will provide a new perspective. Full of intriguing characters and snippets of pidgin, they also highlight London’s concern with social issues. Lloyd James reads them wonderfully, turning a one-man reading into a lyrical presentation that feels like a full-cast production. Not only does James handle half a dozen accents easily, he shifts pace to capture the cadence of London’s vivid passages of extended description and allows London’s near-poetry to ring out powerfully. My only objection is the lack of labeling; the collection doesn’t indicate what stories are contained or on which discs. G.T.B. © AudioFile 2003, Portland, Maine [Published: APR/MAY 03]