Quirky Tales

The real point about Paul Jennings’ Quirky Tales (and indeed all his stories) is the accessibility of his writing to unconfident readers. He tells genuinely amusing stories in an easy-to-read way without ever being patronising. But that makes them less successful when read aloud as the carefully designed simplicity and lightness becomes more like lightweight. The amusing idiosyncrasies of the stories are hard to capture and depend partly on Jennings’ Australian turn of phrase. Without an Australian accent, Stephen Pacey sadly struggles to bring them to life. (2 hrs 52 mins, unabridged