The Master and Margarita

This went to my top five favorite audiobooks by the first twenty minutes, absolutely wonderful reading of this weird, funny, scary, profound satire/whatever it is. The dryly sarcastic narrative voice is pitch-perfect, the huge cast of characters wonderfully done. Not often a book this good gets and equally great performance. Fantastic!!

I enjoyed this book - particularly the narration which is a real tour de force and makes the book for me - but I confess that I did find it rather long and tending to go around in circles towards the end. It is also quite difficult to keep track of all the multifarious characters with strange Russian names and I did get quite confused at times! Some brilliant and laugh out loud funny set pieces though particularly in the first half which the narrator really brings alive - I can see why the book is regarded as a masterpiece.

Overall, four stars for me.

A number of people have named this to me as their 'favourite book'. It would certainly feature in my top ten; it is a rich work that rewards careful reading and consideration but can also drag you along with its surreal story.

The reading is excellent, and the narrator conveys the air of mystery and fear that pervades the Moscow of the novel.

I have read the translation by Michael Glenny (as opposed to this one by Michael Kabulson). There are some things that sounds better me to in the Glenny translation - for example the transaltion of Ivan Bezdomny to Ivan Homeless, just sounds a bit wrong. However, this is a minor point, and there is no other translation available on audible.

Overall, a fantastic book and a great reading.

This novel is a rare experience - compelling, moving, bizarre and enlightening. One of those novels where you find yourself wondering "how can anyone write this kind of thing?" There will be times where you find yourself shrinking from the savagery and times when you find yourself laughing out loud. Julian Rhind-Tutt's performance is just about perfect.

What a captivating story this one is. I loved it from the fist hour to the last. Thanks Julian for telling this story in such a lively manner. All the characters were really a joy to listen to.
I'm sure I will listen to this audiobook more often.
The story is witty, sarcastic and funny with a dark undertone.
This is one of my favorite stories to read/listen.

I read the book many times myself and now somebody reads it for me :-) It is a wonderful story full of wit and fantasy, breathing with an absurd atmosphere of first-half-of-the-last-century Russia. Very well narrated. I can only recommend!

Well written and captivating book - though I think would be all the more enjoyable if I had a more complete grasp of Russian history at this point, the broad strokes of the satire I get, but I am sure some of the more subtle nuances are being missed by me. On the whole, interesting, vivid and colourful, worth a listen.

This book is a great work and is well read. At times it could make a cat laugh. The Pontius Pilate passages are vivid and moving. The work is imaginative interesting and original. Listen and be entertained. When you think about the context in which it was written it makes this both a brilliant and a also brave classic.