Depends on the book and how it’s produced. I loved Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, which is epistolary and each character was a different actor who read their own letters. The Historian, on the other hand, was an overproduced mess where if a character was reading a letter that recounted a conversation between two other people, you’d get all four voices-the recipient, the letter writer, and the two people overheard.

I hate sound effects but will admit to not minding the jazz bumpers in The Rivers of London.

There’s a mystery series by SJ Rozan that features two detectives, Lydia Chin and Bill Smith. They’re written in first person but she alternates between the two with each book. I was absolutely fascinated by how they see themselves versus how they see each other. You get some of that switching perspective within a novel but maybe it’s not as noticeable when you’re quickly getting both views of the same events. When Lydia narrates she’s a little dingy and somewhat cowed by her overprotective Chinese mom and brothers. Bill thinks she’s this incredibly smart badass. Lydia thinks Bill has way more layers than he actually does. Rozan does a good job of showing these perspectives and not just telling it. This series started in 1995 and her efforts to age the characters and add modern technology have been spotty imo but I still love swapping perspectives for the entire book.

Yes but why do they only read a few pages at a time and spend the chapters between talking about how important the letters or journals are and how much they wish they knew what was in them? That can make this trope tricky.

I think the only book in this style that I’ve loved is The True History of the Kelly Gang by Peter Carey. Fascinated by the picture on the cover of Ned’s armor, I read his letters first and that made all the difference. I’ve no idea how Carey stayed in character but he mimicked Kelly’s style so beautifully. Don’t think I’d make the effort to reread but it’s an amazing work.

I struggled with Wolf Hall. Thought the “He, Cromwell” schtick was a little too precious, although I adored “Call me.” Not sure why I picked up Bring Up the Bodies. It’s fantastic. She toned down the pronoun juggling, picked up the pace and dug into the character development. Plus the stage was already set and this was a part of the story that’s more familiar so that probably played a part in how much more I enjoyed it. Anne Boleyn’s final scenes are breathtaking. I’m sure part of my thousand star rating is how much I expected not to like it based on the first book.

Skeletons on the Zahara by Dean King. Unbroken and Endurance are fantastic recs too. There are several versions of Endurance. I read Caroline Alexander’s. Alfred Landing’s also gets good reviews. You could go straight to the horse’s mouth and read South by Ernest Shackleton, he’s not a bad writer. Just be sure to get an edition of whichever you pick with Frank Hurley’s photographs.