The Lost Empire of Atlantis

This book, by the author of 1421 (which posits that the Chinese discovered America ahead of Columbus), is about an ancient shipbuilding and trading culture on Crete about 1500 BCE. It's part history and part travelogue. And that's both its strength and its weakness. The conversational tone makes for easy listening. A dry litany of facts and theories could put listeners to sleep, so the author spices it up with observations about the contemporary landscape and culture. Yet he sometimes dawdles over those passages, clearly slowing the pace of the work. Gildart Jackson does an able job as narrator, giving the personal sections just the right touches of lightness but not making the history sound too ponderous. References are made regularly to illustrations in "the enhanced form" of the audiobook, which are helpful and enlightening but of little help to someone listening on an audio-only device. R.C.G. (c) AudioFile 2012, Portland, Maine