Dutch:

I recently listened to an abridged version of the Edmund Morris’s controversial biography of Ronald Reagan, “Dutch.” Based on my experience, I can recommend the abridged book-on-tape version as a very entertaining and interesting profile of President Reagan–indeed, I suspect that the abridged book-on-tape version is probably better than the book itself.

First, it cuts out all of Edmund Morris’s narcissistic ruminations on himself. Seriously, what was Morris thinking about? I supposed he was trying to make some sort of point about how any biography reflects the life experience and perspective of the profiler, not just the subject. Ok, ok we get it–mention it in the preface and move on. Anyway, the abridged book-on-tape version has a narrator who briefly describes these interludes and then moves on.

Second, Dutch does something that has become one of my favorite things for books-on-tape–it contains actual clips from Reagan’s speeches, including many things I had never heard before. I love this aspect of the technology of books-on-tape. Why block quote a speech when you can insert an actual audio excerpt? I suspect that this is the wave of the future, which I really like. Just as a movie is different from a play, a book-on-tape is a different media from a book.

The best example I have heard of using the book-on-tape technology to its greatest advantage is John Dean’s book, “The Rehnquist Choice,” which I didn’t think was a very good book, but was a delightful book-on-tape because he clips in a bunch of excerpts from Nixon’s Oval Office tapes and recorded phone conversations, including a hilarious conversation between Nixon and Goldwater, where both experess their enthusiasm for Rehnquist, even though neither of them can remember his name.

As for the accuracy of Morris’s portrayal of Reagan, I can’t speak to that very much. Morris makes clear–in fact this is the point as noted above–that his particular impression and portrayal of Reagan is highly idiosyncratic and personal. Regardless, I learned a lot new from the abridged book-on-tape version, and given that I never intend to read the full book, I got plenty out of it.