{"id":47967,"date":"2021-04-10T11:12:25","date_gmt":"2021-04-10T15:12:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/?p=47967"},"modified":"2021-04-06T18:35:28","modified_gmt":"2021-04-06T22:35:28","slug":"utopia-avenue-by-david-mitchell-in-booklist","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/utopia-avenue-by-david-mitchell-in-booklist\/","title":{"rendered":"Utopia Avenue by David Mitchell [in Booklist]"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-47070\" src=\"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/10\/2020\/06\/Utopia-Avenue-David-Mitchell-BookDragon-526x800.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"526\" height=\"800\" srcset=\"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/10\/2020\/06\/Utopia-Avenue-David-Mitchell-BookDragon-526x800.jpg 526w, https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/10\/2020\/06\/Utopia-Avenue-David-Mitchell-BookDragon.jpg 640w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 526px) 100vw, 526px\" \/>At 25-plus hours, we\u2019re talking serious commitment \u2013 and enthusiastic accomplishment \u2013 for veteran narrator Ralph Lister, whose energetic performance never, ever lags. That said, clear distinctions between characters aren\u2019t always reliable \u2013 the women, especially, sound too affectedly similar, the musical clips between sections are more distracting than enhancing, and a few production glitches annoy (later-inserted phrases and sentences), but overall, both novel and recording are undoubtedly <em>epic<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s the late 1960s and a new band morphs from the Way Out into the titular Utopia Avenue: members Dean Moss (bass), Elf Holloway (keyboard\/vocals), Jasper De Zoet (guitar) rotate \u201ctracks\u201d revealing their stories \u2013 as individuals, artists, and band members. Dean is a too-often penniless womanizer, Elf is repeatedly lovelorn, Jasper a haunted soul. Missing, interestingly, is the voice of the band\u2019s drummer, Griff Griffin, but musical luminaries from Janis Joplin to Leonard Cohen get rollicking cameos.<\/p>\n<p>For Mitchell groupies,<em>\u00a0<\/em>this is a meta-delight, with references to previous titles. For newbies,\u00a0<em>Utopia<\/em>\u00a0proves surprisingly (comparatively) straightforward, providing an\u00a0invitingly accessible entry.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Review<\/strong>: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.booklistonline.com\/Utopia-Avenue-\/pid=9738004\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">&#8220;Media,&#8221; <em>Booklist Online<\/em>, March 26, 2021<\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong>Readers<\/strong>: Adult<\/p>\n<p><strong>Published<\/strong>: 2020<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>At 25-plus hours, we\u2019re talking serious commitment \u2013 and enthusiastic accomplishment \u2013 for veteran narrator Ralph Lister, whose energetic performance never, ever lags. That said, clear distinctions between characters aren\u2019t always reliable \u2013 the women, especially, sound too affectedly similar, the musical clips between sections&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":47070,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,81,114,6,60,6535],"tags":[84,6608,6668,7631,1058,11,51,13,672,9622,9621],"class_list":["post-47967","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-adult-readers","category-audio","category-british","category-fiction","category-nonethnic-specific","category-repost","tag-betrayal","tag-bookdragon","tag-booklist","tag-booklist-online","tag-david-mitchell","tag-friendship","tag-identity","tag-love","tag-music","tag-ralph-lister","tag-utopia-avenue"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v19.14 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Utopia Avenue by David Mitchell [in Booklist] - BookDragon<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/utopia-avenue-by-david-mitchell-in-booklist\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Utopia Avenue by David Mitchell [in Booklist] - BookDragon\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"At 25-plus hours, we\u2019re talking serious commitment \u2013 and enthusiastic accomplishment \u2013 for veteran narrator Ralph Lister, whose energetic performance never, ever lags. 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