Overly Long Post About Audiobooks

I've been travelling a lot recently -- by foot, by car, by plane, and by train -- and have had ample opportunity to hear stuff en route.  I feel like talking about it.

About a year ago I got a subscription to audible.com and have been happily downloading audiobooks ever since.  Audiobooks are excellent because they allow me to: 1) listen to something other than my tired iPod playlist while walking the dog or going to school; 2) listen to anything other than my tired inner monologue when spending alone time at home being alone; 3) avoid listening to the motherfucking CBC and its obsession with the "local man-on-the-street," issues of Canadian identity, and/or someone's account of their precious fucking childhood (I realize the shittiness of CBC programming has resulted from chronic underfunding but that's not enough to make me pity-listen to it); and, finally, 4) develop my aural comprehension skills/attention span - things one needs to have when trying to grade class presentations, say, or get anything out of a conference paper.

I'm sure that audible doesn't give me the greatest deal ever for their monthly subscription but I'm too lazy to shop around.

Audiobook highlights include:

Rachel Maddow's new book Drift, read by Rachel Maddow.  EXCELLENT.  WONDERFUL. LOVED IT!  I don't know what else to say.  RM is my hero.

The Color Purple by Alice Walker, read by Alice Walker.  Of course it's painful to hear, of course it's a novel that tells you just as much about race and gender in the US in the 1980s as it does about the 1930s.  Walker's acting and pacing are amazing and I can't imagine anyone else reading it.  It made me nostalgic for 1980s feminism and, also, the old Oprah.

Unfamiliar Fishes by Sarah Vowell, read by Sarah Vowell and friends.  Another radio-trained professional (like Maddow) who understands how to perform a book AND who has written a wonderful book.  Loved it.

Bossypants by Tina Fey, read by Tina Fey.  Again, a performer who is performing her (exceptional for the genre) book.









Honorable mentions go to:

Journey to the Center of the Earth by Jules Verne, read by Tim Curry.  This book is unbelievably fucking boring.  I'll even spoil it for you: they never get to the center of the earth! I never, ever want to read it or listen to it again.  The only thing that kept me sticking with it and even had me bursting out loud in laughter was Tim Curry's performance: astonishing.  That guy is a consummate performer.  He could sell toilet paper to a palm tree.  Somehow he was able to draw out the humour in almost every sentence, whether it was by severely over-pronouncing Icelandic names Swedish-chef style or just saying something sarcastically.  I love him.

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, by Mark Twain, read by Elijah Wood.  Frodo acts his ass off in this! Seriously, I can't even describe it except to say that's one massive performance.  For sure, I got bored with classic Americana and bailed a number of times in the course of listening to this, only to come back weeks later. That Ringbearer is one talented dude.

Jacqueline Kennedy: Historic Conversations.  On top of the blue blood way of speaking, you can hear the cigarettes being lit and the ice cubes in the drinks while she's talking.  It's kind of awesome and creepy and mundane and awesome - like Mad Men a little bit and Jackie might be Betty Draper.







Of course that isn't all I've listened to.  Other middle-of-the-road selections included the list below but really, they all amount to a solid, "meh."

1) The Hunger Games Trilogy, by Suzanne Collins, read by Carolyn McCormick.  I don't know who decided that Dr. Elizabeth Olivet from Law & Order would be the go-to narrator for a 1st-person account by a teenager but it's all just not quite right.  I did listen to all three of them, though.

2) A bunch of lesbian pulp.  Whatever, I'm putting it on the blog so I own it but none of it is really good. Titles include: Sing You Home by Jodi Picoult (snooze), Annie on My Mind by Nancy Garden (klassic YA, I'm sure it's banned in some of your states), the Ann Bannon canon! (aka the Beebo Brinker series, 1950s lesbian pulp as is should be - first book is set in a sorority house at UIUC!), Breaking the Ice by Kim Baldwin (horribly bad - the story is about an Alaskan bush pilot - cough - who lives in a remote location and built a cabin with her bare hands and has a rocking bod and has to fly in some nurse from somewhere who is smitten with the bush pilot's rugged-yet-noble lifestyle and there's a hypothermia scene - alls I'm saying is that Kim Baldwin knows her audience).

3) Shit for work: 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (where are you, Tim Curry!); Salt: A World History (awesome! and then boring but in the academic awesome way); Madame Tussaud by Michelle Moran (why is this so boring?); The Ascent of Money by Niall Ferguson (ugh).

4) Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity by David Allen.  You know you have a problem when . . .

5) Things that are maybe just better as reading-books: Brave New World by Aldous Huxley, The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury, Slaughterhouse-Five (what the what? read by Ethan Hawke - meh), An Object of Beauty by Steve Martin (read by Campbell Scott which is like saying, "Read by Soggy Cardboard"), The Professor and Other Writings by Terry Castle (is this ass-boring, unbelievably self-indulgent, or is it genius that I lack the capacity to appreciate?)

6) Books that didn't need to be written, spoken, or downloaded: Jane Lynch's Happy Accidents.  I'm sorry to say it but JL hasn't got much to say.  I do like her acting though.

Recent downloads I haven't gotten around to yet but am very much looking forward to:

I'll let you know how it goes.