The reader, the American actor, Richard Poe, is superb. Whatever your attitude to living a solitary life in a Norwegian forest might be, it is impossible not to warm to Trond Sander. And much of this sincerity stems from Poe’s nimble interpretation of Petterson’s text. From the opening words (‘Early November. It’s nine o’clock. The titmice are banging against the window’) we know that this cabin is the place we want to be and that we need also to know everything about Trond.

I was much looking forward to listening to Tim Butcher reading his bestseller, Blood River: A Journey to Africa’s Broken Heart (Clipper Audio, 9 CDs 9 ¾ hours. £19.99). A gambler would surely have rated it a dead cert to be an audio-book winner. But on the whole there is no substitute for a tried and tested professional. Butcher’s presentation is breathless, hurried and really rather flat. It is as if he had been plucked hotfoot from the impenetrable Congo jungle and plonked into an airless cubicle in front of the microphone without time even for a gulp of thirst-quenching tea.

This was all the more disappointing as his admirable recreation of H. M. Stanley’s 1874 expedition tracing the course of the River Congo to the sea is ideal material for an audio book. That trek remains one of the most attritional and daring adventures ever attempted. In a journey that took nearly three years, only 144 of the original party of 356 survived. Blood River certainly warrants a quality recording; sadly this is not it.

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