Crossing the Continent 1527-1540

The author admits that much of his story about the Spaniards crossing North America in the sixteenth century comes from apocryphal accounts. His writing includes many worthwhile lessons on how he located old sources and attempted to extract the facts from them. His flowery and wordy prose adds generous color to a story of much starvation, disease, and death. Like the author, narrator Simon Prebble is British, and employs an accent and pronunciations foreign to many American ears. His pristine English and skill at narration have won him many AUDIOFILE Earphones Awards, but his inept Spanish deserves no praise. This may matter little to most listeners, but one wonders why a reader without spanish-language skills would be selected for an audiobook all about Spain and Mexico. J.A.H. (c) AudioFile 2008, Portland, Maine