THE NEW AMERICAN STORY

Bill Bradley's book is a political call to arms that is more interested in substance over style. It's engagingly written. But it's the ideas that are important. At times, listeners might wish they could underline passages to remember them, but otherwise it's easy to pick up the author's thoughts and certainly easy to take in his main point, that an involved, educated citizenry can take back the political process. Michael Prichard's diction is clear and crisp. It has almost a stentorian quality to it but without the stridency that is attached to deep political thoughts. On occasion, Bradley's sentences run longer than even Prichard's practiced lungs, but the pauses are neither distracting nor inappropriate. Prichard doesn't sound at all like Bradley, but that means nothing. Few listeners have any idea what Bradley's voice sounds like, anyway. Again, it's the ideas that count in this book. R.C.G. © AudioFile 2007, Portland, Maine [Published: AUG/ SEP 07]