VIRGINIA WOOLF

Nigel Nicolson’s memoir of Virginia Woolf, whom he knew well, is a graceful and interesting addition to the Woolf canon, but an American woman is a peculiar choice for reader. Karessa McElheny has a beautiful voice, but this is a book by an English man, who often addresses the reader in first person, and it is about a thoroughly English setting and subject. McElheny reads as if this were a second-rate novel, full of drama and jokes. “Hitler was now chancellor of Germany and had recently murdered some of his close associates,” she confides with an audible twinkle, as if telling a delighted audience that three little kittens had lost their mittens. Weird. B.G. © AudioFile 2001, Portland, Maine [Published: AUG/ SEP 01]