What Are You Listening to Now? Part 11

I think we need a new thread here. I finished the excellent The River of Doubt and just started Soulless by Gail Carriger. Light & fun.

I've been listening to Treasure Island narrated by Alfred Molina.

I'm almost done with In the Woods. In spite of thinking I might be mysteried out, I may have to listen to the next one in the series, The Likeness, which I hear is even better.

I am listening to The Twentieth Wife By Indu Sundaresan
Narrated by Sneha Mathan
Its pretty good I'm about half done with it.

The Cellist of Sarajevo just arrived at the library. I'll finish laughing my head off at Right Ho, Jeeves and move on to more serious stuff.

I've begun And Did those Feet, which is well narrated, but material proving a tad too self-consciously funny.

//msf59 thanks for starting a new thread. :)

I finished In the Woods by Tana French narrated by Steven Crossley, one of the best mysteries ever, I think. Now I'll start the next in the series The Likeness narrated by Heather O'Neil.

//8 citizenjoyce wow! you've got more something or other than i do. i needed a break. i found both books intense and either convoluted or complex. or both. i enjoyed the likeness but really need a break between Tana French books.

have fun, brave soul. ;)

I started listening to Watership Down narrated by Ralph Cosham today. Have gotten through the first 7 chapters and am all in! We're having a group read of it, so anyone interested in joining, the thread is here http://www.librarything.com/topic/120280.

Mirrordrum, I've been reading Orange Prize books this month (5 of them so far). In comparison the Tana French books are interesting and realistic but not overwhelming.

//CJ--tell me about it! ;)

i'm rereading Regeneration (Booker Prize nominee) mostly because Peter Firth's narration knocks my socks off but also because every time i listen to it i find something else. and also, i got for my b'day Lady Ottoline's album: Snapshots and portraits of her famous contemporaries . . . . There are a number of pictures of Siegfried Sassoon, one of the main characters in Regeneration, hanging out with assorted other luminaries at Lady O's.

what recommendations have you from your OP reading? these are often in audio versions.

Just starting The Art of Detection by Laurie R. King. Have never heard of the narrators Alyssa Bresnahan and Robert Ian Mackenzie. Hope it's as good as some of her other books.

Alyssa Bresnahan is terrific - highly recommended

I finished Soulless, read by Emily Gray. She did a fantastic job. Can anyone recommend anything else she's narrated.
BTW- The book was light & fun.

#12 I read Regeneration at the beginning of the year and absolutely loved it. Didn't do the audio version, but I'll want to revisit this novel so may consider it.

#15-msf59-Emily Gray also narrated the Thursday Next Series by,Jasper Fforde she does a great job on those too!

Sorry no touchstone nook keyboard doesn't have the right brackets.

Wow, kudos to you for posting with your Nook. I don't have the patience. maybe I have an older version.

I have the nook color once I figured out the whole touch scren its getting much easier!

Well, there you go. I don't have the Nook color. No touch screen. Maybe next time.

finished Sense and sensibility a couple of weeks ago and, finally, the imperfectionists today. mercy! an excellent book, veeeerrrry dark humor but what a wonderful imagination he has. Tom Rachman, that is. highly recommended though i think it would be easier to follow if read in book form.

still reading Crimes of conscience, which i'm having to do slowly as it's another dark book but not funny at all.

also wending my way slowly through Betjeman: a life by A. N. Wilson superbly narrated by our own narratorlady and i am not blowin' smoke when i say that.

it feels most special to be listening to one of our own. narratorlady reads as though she were reading a book she's really enjoying and keeps wanting to share parts of it and ends up reading me the whole thing. such a delight and what a gift, what a gift!

have just downloaded the golden compass from NLS and am adding that to the platter. oh, and i'm about 2/3 of the way through Regeneration and have a Rex Stout trilogy hanging around.

I've been listening to Louis Menand's The Metaphysical Club and it is very compelling. Although as intellectual history goes, I find myself constantly pausing the sound to write down notes. So I'm going to have to go back to the book.

Just finished the Mickey Haller series by Michael Connolly. Definitely recommend The Lincoln Lawyer and The Fifth Witness in that order. The Brass Verdict and The Reversal were good too, just not as good as the first two. Good crime stories all which lend themselves well to the audiobook format.

I'm starting Brian Jacques' Loamhedge tonight. It's full-cast, with Jacques himself also reading. It was a 50-cent find at a library booksale. Should be fun!

Thanks Ellie ... (I'm blushing). Just finished an anthology including some poetry, some of which I had a hard time slogging through. Yearned for the wryness and wit of Mr. Betjeman.

I thought that The Imperfectionists was wonderful; Tom Rachman is certainly a writer to watch. And I envy you beginning The Golden Compass and the "His Dark Materials" trilogy which I just adored.

I read The Imperfectionists as an ebook, and I could see where that might work better than audio.

//25 i abandoned The golden compass from NLS. although i enjoy Suzanne Toren's narrations, she just wasn't right for the book. when i'm reading about oxford and the 'common room' and 'high table' in a novel, i want a British accent. i quite like Philip Pullman's voice so am looking forward to the audio version that my partner will fetch from the library tomorrow. :)

in re: Rachman, i'll be interested to see what he comes up with next. talk about 'his dark materials.' i was intrigued that Rachman's 'thanks' section, which i listened to quite as happily as to his book, was so warm and positive. it made a nice end note, actually.

#28: I didn't know Philip Pullman had narrated the books himself! I'll have to go and track that down now, thanks for the tip.

I'm new to this group, but would suggest that the "What are you listening to now?" threads be changed monthly (several other groups use that arrangement), rather than when they get to 300 posts . . .

Anyway, I'm currently listening to: Democracy in America by Alexis deTocqueville, Monday or Tuesday by Virginia Woolf, and The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins all downloaded free from librivox.org

30 Cubs --

No problem - I don't see why we can't do that starting in August (I'm not a moderator or anything though). I just finished Wilkie Collins' Poor Miss Finch from Librivox -- highly recommended!

#28 & 29

I didn't like Philip Pullman's narration at first; I thought it was a little too staid and sleepy at the start. But I quickly warmed to him (and I do think he gets better as he goes along), and I really enjoy the full cast as well. Lyra in particular is wonderful, and I always think of her voice when re-reading the books.

I am really struggling through Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel. Maybe because I believe in the written work there is a cast of characters whereas all I have to go by are the people I remember from the TV series.

>33 bergs47:- I had a hard time with Wolf Hall because there were so many characters with the same name.I'm one of those that didn't like that one as much as others

I really liked Wolf Hall, it is one of my favourite books of the past few years, but I have to admit it did get confusing that everyone had the same names (Thomas and Anne being some of the most common). In Mantell's defence though the fact is that these names were extremely common at the time, and these are all historical characters, she couldn't exactly change their names could she?

#33 When you say the TV series do you mean The Tudors? I am not going to knock it, it was very entertaining which was what it was supposed to be, but you should be prepared for Wolf Hall to have lots of differences in characters, plots, etc. as it is very well historically researched, wheras The Tudors was really REALLY not :)

Finished The Idiot Girls' Action-Adventure Club: True Tales from a Magnificent and Clumsy Life by, Laurie Notaro narrated by, Hillary Huber Loved it so hilarious!

Now listening to I Love Everybody (and Other Atrocious Lies): True Tales of a Loudmouth Girl by, Laurie Notaro narrated by, Hillary Huber it's starting out to be just as funny!

Just started The New York Trilogy by Paul Auster. Not the book I expected but so far so good. The best thing though is that the tracks are about 40 seconds long each. Brilliant!

I finished Grave Goods narrated by Kate Reading and am now beginning Dream Man by Linda Howard, narrated by Phil Gigante.

I've dropped everything else, so smitten am i by the full cast recording of The golden compass. dang it's good! John Betjeman's life, and all the other stuff, will just have to wait. ;)

I'm getting ready for a road trip with my brother. Does anyone have recommendations about any of these three?

The Lost Hero by Rick Riordan and read by Joshua Swanson
Sh*t My Dad Says by Justin Halpern read by Sean Schemmel
Diaries of Adam and Eve by Mark Twain and read by Mandy Patinkin and Betty Buckley

I'm currently listening to the latest No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency, The Saturday Big Tent Wedding Party. I like this series but sometimes it gets a little patronizing. I just finished Minding Frankie by Maeve Binchy and The Queen of New Beginnings by Erica James. I liked them both.

With the kids, we're re-listening to Harry Potter (#1 & #4).

By myself, I finished up Changeless by Gail Carriger, Dark Road to Darjeeling by Deanna Raybourn and have started Dark Enquiry also by Raybourn.

Penn

I finished Dream Man by Linda Howard. It was great and I loved Phil Gigante's narration - perfect! Now I'm starting Katherine by Anya Seton narrated by Wanda McCaddon.

I finished The Likeness. One more to go in the Dublin Murder Squad series, but I'm going to give murder a little break while I listen to westerns for now. I've just started My Antonia narrated by Patrick Lawlor and am completely charmed. There's one thing about pioneers, if they managed to last, they grew to love the country.

I am listening to Rules of Civility by, Amor Towles narrated by, Rebecca Lowman its good so far.

>43 Citizenjoyce:- Loved My Antonia!

#43, 45 Loved My Antonia too. I'm on the last of Trollope's Barchester series, strangely it's called The Last Chronicle of Barset narrated by Timothy West and even though it's 30 hours long I think I'll be sad when I finally take my leave of Barchester.

I like the idea of monthly threads - when we get to 200+ posts my computer slows right down!

An FYI re: Timothy West - he does a terrific job reading Beryl Bainbridge's story Injury Time.

Thanks for the recommendation Seajack - I had a look at your review of Injury Time. Muriel Spark is a favourite of mine, so if Bainbridge writes in a similiar way to Spark and with West's wonderful plummy accent narrating, I should enjoy Injury Time. Heads off to check out Audible's catalogue

Socialpages - I'm not really that interested in Trollope's Pallisers series, but was told by a good friend (who's a Spark devotee and loved "Injury Time") that The Eustace Diamonds would work fine as a stand alone read, so I splashed out a credit on West's narration of the book, which is on my TBR pile.

Finished In chancery read by David Case. I love his dry, drawling voice and the story is one I've read, and enjoyed, many times on paper. One annoyance was the editing - this version was originally issued on audiocassette and one of the 'wind the tape to the end and turn over' instructions was left in, along with a duplicate section (about five minutes) of the text, which rather spoilt the mood.

I'm going on to The Tin Princess, the last of the Sally Lockhart stories, although she hardly appears in it.

I liked The Tin Princess, and I respect the idea that Pullman allowed Sally to grow and develop her life in other ways, but I missed her there.

>49 Seajack: I remember watching a tv adaptation of The Eustace Diamonds and enjoying it. It is the 3rd book in the Palliser series but I believe the main characters in the Palliser novels play little or no part from what I remember. Very interested to hear what you think of The Eustace Diamonds.

Finished The New York Trilogy. Not sure whats coming up next. I have The Year of the Flood, The Portrait of Dorian Gray and ,*gasp* Les Miserables.

The New York Trilogy was great and also exasperating. The reader and the production though were both very good.

I'm an hour into A Leg to Stand On by Oliver Sacks -- his story of what it was like being a doctor-as-patient. Narration is quite good!

//53 hey mejix, what exasperated you about the New York trilogy? i've been eying (eyeing?) that one for ever so long.

finished The golden compass and enjoyed it. gave it 4 stars instead of 3 or 3.5 in large part b/c of the excellent full cast recording.

why must we yanks tinker about with British titles? Northern lights is ever so much better a title than the golden compass. my first response to the aletheometer was that this must surely be the golden compass of the title and i was irked because it's not a compass. it's never referred to as a compass, it doesn't act like a compass. it bloody well isn't a compass! pah!

am now going back to Betjeman. such an enjoyable read. a book to savour.

picked up The ladies of Missalonghi at the library. sounds like a comfortable read. i'm going to give it a go.

have almost finished rereading Regeneration. what an amazing book in audio.

also in the stack are Westlake's Money for nothing, Carr's the man who could not shudder and a return to voyaging with Aubrey and Maturin in 'the dear Surprise' (HMS Surprise) in O'Brian's The wine-dark sea.

oh so many, many books.

Ellie,
I can only tell you that Pullman's saga gets even better. The Subtle Knife is a treat too.

I finished My Antonia and didn't love the ending as much as the beginning, but overall I did enjoy it. Now I've started The Journey of Crazy Horse read by the author Joseph M. Marshall III.

Just finished The Tin Princess beautifully read by Anton Lesser. I think if I'd been reading it in print I'd have skimmed through the final chapter - it was a bit too wordy. Perhaps it was padding to bring the book up to the required length?

I'm going on holiday for the week tomorrow and I shall take my ipod well stocked with books. I seem to have chosen mostly YA books - among others I have Treasure Island, The Greengage Summer and The Sword in the Stone. I have some heavyweights too - The Disorderly Knights (24 hours long) and To Let, the next in the Forsyte Chronicles. They always make me cry so perhaps not what I want for a holiday, but I think I've got enough choice.

#55; Ha ha, it's the philosopher's stone/ sorceror's stone debate all over again. I still maintain, it is NEVER referred to as the sorcerors stone in the book, not once, probably because it is not a sorceror's stone! but a philosopher's stone!

>55 mirrordrum: Mirrordrum, there were parts were Auster inserted some pseudo literary theorizing that felt forced and self conscious. Like he wants to show how clever he is. This is not always the case. Other instances seem more natural and effortless. I think the Trilogy is worth reading though.

Just finished Rules of Civility by, Amor Towles narrated by, Rebecca Lowman a great look at NYC in the late 1930's I really enjoyed it and the narrator did a good job!

Now back to some Laurie Notaro We Thought You Would Be Prettier: True Tales of the Dorkiest Girl Alive narrated by, Hillary Huber love her books so much they make me laugh!

#56--however good it is, i'm going to miss the voice and character of Iorek Byrnison. he was my favorite. whoever voiced him did a superb job.

#59--see? see? this is what i'm sayin'.

got tired of The ladies of Missalonghi very rapidly and stopped. and, as much as i love Davina Porter's narrations in general, British English isn't the same as Aussie and it matters. of course, i suppose Aussie then wasn't the same as Aussie now. shrug whatever. movin' on.

had picked up the Nero Wolfe trilogy Three men out by Rex Stout and am tucking that in as a quickie. i thought i'd read all of his but no, this one's new to me. more Archie Goodwin. heh! :)

also started Death without company by Craig Johnson, my second in the Walt Longmire series.

trying to make myself return to Crimes of conscience. there are about as many 'crimes of conscience' in real life as i can handle right now without adding Gordimer's deft presentation of reality-derived fictional ones.

I've just finished The Driver's Seat by Muriel Spark and read by Dame Judi Dench. It was only a few hours long but Dame Judi is just wonderful. It was a strange story and I must admit I didn't really get it. Maybe I fell asleep at a crucial point and missed part of the book. It's happened to me before....comfortable bed, soft pillow, earphones in..... five minutes later, I'm dead to the world but my ipod is still going.

I'm listening to Triumph: Life After the Cult--A Survivor's Lessons by Carolyn Jessop.

For fans of noir-ish mysteries, I recommend Bad Things Happen by Harry Dolan - Erik Davies does a good job as narrator.

Almost halfway through Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell. Some of the text is a bit hard to follow in audio. There are, I believe, six readers, and their quality is uneven. The book however is pretty impressive. I'm enjoying it very much.

I just finished The Diaries of Adam and Eve by Mark Twain, read by Mandy Patinkin and Betty Buckley, with Walter Cronkite. (Two cd's) I really enjoyed it. I laughed out loud at parts, chuckled at others and was sad at the end. The info on Twain and his wife was also perfect with this book (books?). Anyway, I recommend it. (The music is a little irritating, but I guess makes it more "theater.")

I plan to listen to The Lost Hero by Rick Riordan on my road trip next week.

I've just been spending a bunch of time on Audible, because they sent subscribers a link to The Best Audiobooks I Ever Narrated which features interviews with some of the top narrators out there, including Simon Vance, Scott Brick, Tavia Gilbert and many more.

Latest read was Rules of Civility by Amor Towles. It was an entertaining novel, with very good narration. Currently listening to Great Expectations narrated by Simon Vance.

I saw that list and cannot recommend Karen White's Nothing to Envy highly enough!

I'm halfway through Snow Angels by Stewart O'Nan, an interesting story told through several points-of-view - quite well narrated.

I'm nearing the end of a reading of We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson, an e-audiobook from my local library.

finished Crimes of conscience by Nadine Gordimer. extraordinarily powerful, especially the final story, and my introduction to her writing. it's superbly narrated by Lisette Lecat for NLS.

also finished Death without company by Craig Johnson narrated by George Guidall. an easy read but i do so enjoy GG's narrations of the Walt Longmire series. Johnson can't really write a decent mystery but his characters, their relationships and his descriptions of people and landscapes, especially as narrated by Guidall, make the mystery part pretty much an unobtrusive vehicle. sometimes i have a very forgiving nature. ;)

still reading Betjeman: A life. have started A subtle knife and like it even more than i liked Northern lights. i'm savouring it. have also started A visit from the goon squad by Jennifer Egan, ably narrated by Erin Jones for NLS. i think it would be better in print but it's pretty amazing in audio!

Now started My Bass and other Animals, a memoir by session bassist turned stand up Guy Pratt who's played with Pink Floyd and Roxy Music among others. Read by the author.

I finished listening to Katherine by Anya Seton which I loved! Narrated expertly by Wanda McCaddon. Now I am beginning A Clash of Kings by George R. R. Martin narrated by Roy Dotrice, second in the A Game of Thrones series.

I'm Listening to The Thirteenth Tale and am enjoying it.

Just started Peter Carey's Parrot and Olivier in America.

Just finished Sarah's Key by, Tatiana de Rosnay narrated by, Polly Stone Loved it!great story great narration!

Now starting Moon Over Manifest by, Clare Vanderpool narrated by, Jenna Lamia, Cassandra Campbell, Kirby Heyborne

I finished Faithful Place and have pretty much been put off Tana French. It was well written, but why? Now I've started a book I'm liking much better Bee Season by Myla Goldberg, I can't remember who the narrator is, but she has a soft little voice which is appropriate for a book about a 9 year old girl.

I've just finished the first disc of State of Wonder by Ann Patchett, beautifully narrated by Hope Davis and I'm completely engrossed in the story. Don't quite know where it's going but I'm looking forward to the ride.

#78: susiesharp I really enjoyed Moon Over Manifest, a Newbery winner that hasn't got much press. Hope you like it!

79 Joyce:

I listened to Goldberg's narration of Bee Season - one of the few times I think the author did a better job than a professional reader likely would've.

Right, Seajack. I can't believe I didn't realize it was the author narrating. She does the little girl part very well. And I agree, frequently the author does a big disservice to the book.

I'm listening to Poor Miss Finch by Wilkie Collins downloaded from Librivox and the volunteer narrator has done an amazing and very professional job of the narration. Thanks for the recommendation, Seajack!

Thanks for the recommendation for Poor Miss Finch Seajack and socialpages. I'll definitely look up the Librivox version. I've listened to a few of their volunteer-based productions and been pleasantly surprised. A narrator that was first recommended to me was Elizabeth Klett, whom I discovered via The Return of the Soldier. Most recommended. She'd recorded a good selection of books. FYI, one can search Librivox by reader in the advanced search feature.

I'm currently listening to The White Rhino Hotel by Bartle Bull narrated by Fred Williams, who does a decent job, but is so sssslllloooowwww that it took me some time to get into the groove of things. Very entertaining story.

Glad you guys are enjoying Poor Miss Finch! I've started Edith Wharton's The Age of Innocence , read by one of my favorite narrators, Alyssa Bresnehan.

edited to add:

Love Bresnehan, the story ... not so much ... bailed

I'm listening to A Fatal Grace by Louise Penny. I listened to the most recent two Three Pines mysteries and then went back to re-listen to the whole series.

When I'm in the car with the kids, we're re-listening to the Chronicle of Narnia. It's been so long since the last listen that my youngest doesn't remember doing them.

Penn

One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich. I've only heard two disks but it feels like I've heard ten. I think I need something fun after this.

87 Mejix --

That was required reading for us in high school ... and mighty rough going at that!

finished The Subtle Knife and A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan. i don't think i'd recommend A visit from the goon squad in audio. it moves around in time and a number of characters appear at different times and in differing relationships and i found it difficult to keep the characters straight. really enjoyed it, though and the NLS narrator did a pretty good job.

tried Snow crash as i'd always wanted to try a Neal Stephenson book but got bored after about an hour and moved on.

still reading Betjeman: a life and have added 2 more. the first is The city of your final destination, another NLS book that i'm thoroughly enjoying. just discovered it's coming out as a movie.

the second is Just a corpse at twilight by Janwillem Van de Wetering. it's an early Grijpstra and De Gier novel and marvelously witty and sneakily philosophical, as are all his books. nice not to have to go to NLS for this one. George Guidall does a great job although his attempt at a Dutch accent bears no resemblance to the real thing. i don't care because he creates such good characters that very quickly whatever accent he contrives simply becomes part of the characterization. he doesn't even try to do a Maine accent. just as well, i'd say.

>88 Seajack: Seajack

A gulag for readers, yes.

So far I've had a lovely September of audiobook listening pleasure, among which was the amazing and wonderful Watership Down read by Ralph Cosham, a worthy reader indeed. Also Changeless and Blameless, books 2 and 3 of the Parasol Protectorate series, read by Emily Gray whom I usually adore but the editing in these was very bad ~ loooooong pauses in inappropriate places, odd emphases, and the like ~ so that I enjoyed the stories (mostly) but did not enjoy the reading (mostly). I also listened to Turn Coat by Jim Butcher, Blue-Eyed Devil by Lisa Kleypas, and Book of the Dead, a Prendergast thriller, all three of which were excellent. I'm now beginning Die Trying, book two of the Jack Reacher series.

sci-fi comedy audiobook Grunt RX-10 by Martin Kolacek. It is read by the Author so the English is not very good but the story is great!

http://martin-kolacek.cz/en-us/grunt-en

I'm an hour (of eight) into John Steinbeck's Travels with Charley, read (quite well) by actor Gary Sinese.

I'm listening to Carpe Diem by Autumn Cornwell and the story with it's background of travels through Southeast Asia is quite interesting; but the narrator, Lynde Houck, is as annoying as nails on a blackboard.

#93 Seajack: I listened to Travels with Charley a couple of years ago read beautifully by Ron McLarty. I wonder why a new recording was necessary? I'm sure Sinise is also wonderful .... it's a great story.

My latest Audible acquisition is the marvellous China Mieville's The City and the City read by John Lee.

Okay, feeling very silly here... The 18-disc audiobook of The Count of Monte Cristo I've been listening to from the library is only PART 1. I was getting kind of stressed out, wondering how Dumas was ever going to finish his story in a disc and a half...! Now to look up the second half.

I might take a break in between and listen to an old favorite, From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs Basil E Frankweiler.

#97

your old fave sounds delightful. and, what lo! it's available as a downloadable book from NLS narrated by Suzanne Toren and i'm totally, like, wow, how kewl is that?

good luck w/ part tCoMC part 2. i feel the same way about Proust's RoTP. except i don't ever have any sense of a wrap-up on the way, it being Proust. i just hope to finish it in my lifetime, sandwiching within its pieces parts all kinds of literary flights like the Eustace diamonds, which is quite long enough, thank you very much.

Haven't been on in a while but have done a whole bunch of audios this summer. Finished off Clive Cussler's "Oregon Files" series with Skeleton Coast, Plague Ship, Corsair, Silent Sea, and The Jungle. In between somewhere I did The Very Best of Bob and Ray and Smokin' Seventeen (Janet Evanovich).

Just today finished The Poisoner's Handbook: Murder and the Birth of Forensic Medicine in Jazz Age New York by Deborah Blum. Very good, enjoyed it immensely. A little history, a little science, a little biography - where would CSI be today without these men!

Tomorrow I start the new "Jack Reacher" - The Affair by Lee Child.

99 --

Thanks for the report as I have "Poisoner's Handbook" on my TBR pile

With the kids I'm still re-listening to all the Chronicles of Narnia. On my own I'm listening to Dead Silent by Shirley Wells. It's the second in her Dylan Scott (a private investigator) series. Enjoying it so far.

I've been listening to The Age of Innocence narrated, not completely successfully, by Alyssa Bresnahan (she kind of swallows her words some times). I'm liking it much better than I thought I would after a brief foray into The House of Mirth.

>102 Citizenjoyce:
Brenda Dayne did a version for LibriVox a few years ago. I kinda dropped out after a bit, bit that was really because of portability issues (as I didn't have an iPod yet) than for quality issues.

Finished State of Wonder by Ann Patchett, narrated by Hope Davis. Not a perfect book, but the trip through the Amazon jungle was so beautifully written, I could feel the bugs biting and the heat sweltering through my skin.

Love Davis' narration. She doesn't go all actory by trying to exaggerate the voices too much; she just tells the story steadily and well and her crackly voice adds to the dreaminess of the locale. The plot was a little out there but the ambiguous ending left a lot of possibilities for the reader to ponder.

Just finished Lethal Lineage by, Charlotte Hinger narrated by, Karen White it was a good little cozy.
and now back to some more Notaro with It Looked Different on the Model: Epic Tales of Impending Shame and Infamy by Laurie Notaro narrated by, Hilary Huber

102 Joyce --

I bailed on that after an hour or two as I found myself not caring about the characters at all.

I read the print version of The Poisoner's Handbook and loved it. I'm glad the audio version is good too.

I just finished The Lost Hero by Rick Riordan. I really enjoyed the story but the reader mispronounced many of the names. It was annoying. Once again proof that a poor reader can really affect the story.

Finished It Looked Different on the Model: Epic Tales of Impending Shame and Infamy by Laurie Notaro audiobook narrated by, Hilary Huber it was good so funny and I think hilary does a great job at the narration!

Now on to The Night Circus by, Erin Morgenstern narrated by, Jim Dale he's the reason I got this one on audio instead of paper book!

I'm halfway through Philip Pullman's The Ruby and the Smoke. It's a YA book but really it's a Victorian mystery complete with plucky orphaned heroine and deliciously evil Dickensian villains. The writing is superb but best of all is Anton Lesser's amazing narration. There are sequels to this one and much like the Ladies' Number One Detective series, the audio version adds an extra level of nuance and entertainment to the stories.

Lesser is extraordinary.

I listened to the whole series (4 books) over the last year or so and very much enjoyed them. They are books I probably wouldn't have bothered with in print but started because (a) I enjoyed the TV adaptations of the first two and (b) they were read by Anton Lesser. I think he is wonderful and have listened to books read by him that I would never have touched in print. Audible have just got a whole new batch of his books, I'm glad to say, as I have listened to most of his books already and I was thinking I would have to go on to some of the heavier classics, which as I listen in bed would not be ideal! However, even for Anton Lesser, I draw the line at Jeffrey Archer.

So excited. I went to the library yesterday to return a couple of audiobooks and, just on a whim, looked in the audiobook section for one particular book and it was there! So now I'm happily listening to the next in the Chet & Bernie series, To Fetch a Thief. Finished the first CD last night and fell asleep grinning (that Chet is a real character!).

I finished and loved The Age of Innocence now I've started The Good Earth narrated very well by Kate Reading.

#111 Storeetllr: had never heard of the Chet & Bernie series but sounds like fun so beetled off to the local library page and ordered the audiobook of the first book for myself and the hardback for my partner. thanks. :)

just finished The city of your final destination, a very spare, mesmerizing book that will, i hope, translate wonderfully to film.

i've bailed on Just a corpse at twilight by Janwillem Van de Wetering. this isn't because of the book so much as the narration. i started out comfortable with George Guidall's attempts at Dutch accents because he's a good narrator. then i found myself irritated and resistant to reading the book. decided life's too short and there's a lot i want to read.

surprised myself by picking up Side jobs by Jim Butcher on a whim--well, a whim inspired by seeing that James Marsters is the narrator. he's so good. it's fun and because it's a collection of short stories, it can be a start-and-stop book.

am presently downloading Ali Smith's There but for the narrated by Anne Flosnick, who's an excellent narrator. sounds interesting and not too long. i'm not ready for a long one just yet. will probably start that tomorrow.

still making my way through John Betjeman's seemingly endless series of schwarmes. sometimes it's hard to get past those to the rest of the person. thank goodness for a fine narrator. Anne, you're keeping me going. you and my enjoyment of Betjeman's poetry.

I'm about halfway through The Shape of Water, the first (or at least in English) book in the Inspector Montablano series, set in Sicily. It's kind of tough to get into, but I've seen reviews of the second book that say it gets easier. Grover Gardner's narration works quite well.

Edited to add: it does pick up in the second half, bringing the book up from "OK" to "Pretty good!"

mirrordrum ~ Hope you & your partner enjoy it as much as I did! I'm really enjoying To Fetch a Thief. I just love Chet ("I felt a breeze behind me and turned around. Oh, it was my tail wagging." (paraphrased)). So droll. BTW, I read Janwillem Van de Wetering in print back in the 70s/80s and encourage you to read his books in print if possible. They are so good it would be a shame to miss out just because the reader sucks.

thanks, storeetllr. she loves mysteries and dogs and drollery, so i'm hopeful.

in re: Janwillem van de Wetering, NLS has a good selection though i really don't like Jim Zeiger's narrations. the first one i listened to (Hard rain) was done by a much younger George Guidall when he was married and his name was Guidall-Shapiro. also, since it was recorded for NLS, for whom he worked at the time, he didn't overdo the accents and it was excellent. so i was thrilled to find that Recorded Books had George doing van de w's books for them but he's made the accents much stronger, drat it. maybe i should just suck it up. i love the characters and the writing. i'm way too picky. gift horse in the mouth and all that.

a lot of van de w's books do come in large print editions but it takes me 3 months or more to read one, so i'm choosy. of course, it's not like i haven't already got an embarrassment of audio riches undreamt of a mere 5 years ago. i am spoiled, spoiled, spoiled.

No, you're not too picky, mirrordrum, or else I am too. The reader can make or break an audiobook for me. Take, for instance, The Passage as read by Scott Brick, a very popular reader here on LT. Though I forced myself to finish it, it was pure torture all the way. (From my review of it on my 2011 75-book challenge thread, I see that I was pretty brutal, though I'm not going to apologize for that. However, to be fair, I've read a lot of reviews by LTers I respect that praised the book and reader. http://www.librarything.com/topic/105025#2697667)

Anyway, now I tend to listen to the first little bit of any audiobook I think I want to listen to before I either download it or upload it on my iPod or buy it so I don't waste my time or money on something I won't enjoy. Like you said, there are just too many good ones out there that I will enjoy to force myself to listen to ones with readers whose voices are like fingernails on a chalkboard to my ears.

Now moved onto Smut: Two Unseemly Stories by Alan Bennett, read by the great man himself. Very much enjoyed the first story, The Greening of Mrs Donaldson looking forward to the second.

I'm about 1/3 of the way through Farm City (The Education of an Urban Farmer), story of raising animals in an Oakland 'hood, which has turned out more interesting than I'd assumed it might.

I have finished Arnold Bennett's Anna of the Five Towns read by Peter Joyce. It was okay but lacked the humour of The Old Wives' Tale. The narrator was good, the plot was a bit bleh. I felt I'd wasted one of my Audible credits.

I'm moving on to The Locked Room - no 8 in the Martin Beck series by Maj Sjowall and Per Wahloo. I read the first seven books in the old fashioned printed form so I'm keen to contrast them with the audio version. The narrator is Tim Weiner and I'm a little disappointed as with the books being set in Sweden I was hoping the narrator would have a swedish accent.

>120 socialpages: social ~ Not sure I'd want to listen to a non-Swedish reader trying to do a Swedish accent. Unless he was very, very good, it seems to me it would be a rather painful experience.

I'm soon going to be starting A Game of Thrones read by Roy Dotrice. (Yes, I am a bit late to the party.) Game is a little intimidating, with its huge number of discs, but I've listened to long audiobooks before. (Well, one: Team of Rivals (and it was SO good).) I saw somewhere that Dotrice is playing the part of Hallyne (whoever that is) in the second season (I haven't been watching ~ no TV ~ but I've heard the show is really good). Anyway, that's the plan. I just need to load the CDs onto my iPod, which shouldn't take more than a week. But first I guess I will need to delete all the other audiobooks from my iPod in order to fit Game on. It only holds 30Gb.

I've embarked on the longest audiobook I think I've ever tackled, a reading of Ken Follett's sequel to his historical saga of cathedral building folk The Pillars of the Earth, World Without End. In total it clocks in at a whopping 45 hours and 33 minutes.

I read The Pillars of the Earth around the time of the BBC's Big Read, it which it had featured in what was, to me, a surprisingly high position. I'd thought of Follett as, at best, the Robert Harris of his day, and was curious about a book which, at the time, I knew nothing about but which seemed to held in great affection by a big chunk of the British reading public. I discovered Follett had the ability to turn his hand to historical fiction as well, although I found some of the characters quite cartoonishly two dimensional.

My main thought, I recall, was that The Pillars of the Earth was pretty mindless, and so far the sequel is in the same vein.

Finished off The Affair a week or so ago and am now working my way through the 20 discs of A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness. I am enjoying it very much but am wishing I had more drive time so I could listen more. The reader is Jennifer Ikeda and she is pretty good.

I'm listening to Sword in the Stone by T. H. White, beautifully read by Neville Jason. I've also got the whole of The Once and Future King on my kindle. I'm enjoying it so much that I'm cross that I didn't buy the whole thing on audio straightaway as I have an Audible subscription so the whole thing cost the same i.e. one credit as each individual book. I shall have to get the rest but I can't give away or sell on my duplicate Sword in the Stone - the problem with electronic forms of books!

Today I finished the 37th disc (the 47th hour) of The Count of Monte Cristo. Excellent, but goodness what a slog!

I think my limit, even when I'm really getting into a book, is about 10 - 12 hours. After that I need to break for something else, and return later.

After 37 hours of listening time, I finished A Clash of Kings narrated by Roy Dotrice. Now onto something completely different A Kiss at Midnight by Eloisa James.

Hi everyone - I'm listening to Love by Elizabeth von Arnim read by Eleanor Bron. It's driving me a bit nuts to be honest but I am persevering. I suspect it is meant to be deeply tongue in cheek but I think I might have been able to tolerate it more if I had read it. Eleanor Bron is doing her very best but I'm ready to strangle the over-enthusiastic younger lover and possibly his beloved, while I'm at it.

I'm about 1/3 of the way through Jerusalem: The Biography , 21 parts (25 hours). I must say John Lee is doing a terrific job in making the story come to life!

I guess I'm also "late to the party" as someone else said but for me the book is The Hunger Games. It's not the genre I usually read but so far I'm loving it!

goodness. haven't been here in a while. finished 3/4 of Jim Butcher's Side Jobs and enjoyed all but the final novelette by which time it was all getting redundant and predictable. liked his short stories better than the one full-length novel i read. also finished Ali Smith's There but for the, very well narrated by Anne Flosnick for NLS. enjoyed it a lot.

am now about 2/3 of the way through Betjeman: A life by A. N. Wilson. was working on that and The lady in the lake by Raymond Chandler, another NLS recording when i got browsy and listened to the start of Crossing to safety by Wallace Stegner. well! i dropped everything and am about half way through it. how have i missed Stegner, i ask you? superb narration, again from NLS, by the late Fred Major.

finally caved and bought an iPod classic 160gb because i was told by an iPod wallah that the reason my iPod 120gb was skipping was b/c the only books it would play reliably were those downloaded from iTunes. nerts! terrible selection.

so i'm also happily listening to I shall wear midnight by Sir Terry Pratchett, and glorying in the fact that i don't have to stop every 2 or 3 minutes to see where i am so that when it skips, as the old one did, i can get back to where i was. ridiculous to own 2 iPods. really.

I'm listening to Finding Iris Chang very ably narrated by Bernadette Dunn. Iris Chang's life is enough to leave a normal person breathless - she was so ambitious as to be driven. She was an indefatigable researcher, but the book promotion tours, and the relentless harassment by conservative Japanese over their denial of the atrocities committed in Nanking really got to her.
I'm also listening to The Four Ms Bradwells which I think would be an interesting book about a woman nominated for the supreme court, her 3 accomplished friends and a mystery in their past. I don't know why they would have chosen Karen White to narrate a book about sophisticated, intelligent women when she reads like a little girl pretending to be a grown up, haughty woman. Horrible, horrible. I hope she won't ruin the whole book for me.

>132 Citizenjoyce: My brother-in-law was at university with Iris. (I was in the same graduating year but different college/major and never met her.) I lways heard such amazing things about her. We were so upset when she died. Somehow I totally missed that someone had written a bio of her. I don't know if I could listen to the bio. Somehow I think I'd end up crying too much. Easier to put down a print version, which I must now get.

Penn

>133 HarlequinBooks: I don't think Finding Iris Chang is the sort of book that would make one cry. It's very factual and full of discussions of research, writing, harassment and mental illness. Even though it discusses her deep emotional problems and the effect she had on other people, the writing is not emotional at all.

>134 Citizenjoyce: I'll give it a try.

Penn

Started Sarah Waters' The Little Stranger. Saldy not read by Juanita McMahon, who did a marvellous job of the same author's Affinity and Fingersmith, but understandable really, since this novel contains Waters' first male narrator.

I just finished Helmet for My Pillow. I usually have no problems with readers, but this guy consistently spoke in a trailing-off monotone. Lawrence Welk would've done better. I think it detracted from the story.

Finished Injury Time by Beryl Bainbridge and narrated by Timothy West (thanks for the recommendation Seajack!) What an unusual book - it didn't go where I expected it to go. And the ending..... very puzzling! Bainbridge's writing is similar in style to Muriel Spark. Dark humour like Spark too. A short book and well worth a listen.

I'm not sure who recommended the Chet and Bernie series, (Storeetllr or Seajack?), but thank you, thank you! I am just finishing Dog On It by Spencer Quinn and I will be listening to the rest of the series.

Chet is a K-9 trained dog who lives with Bernie, a private detective. Chet narrates. Just delightful.

I'm not sure what is next. The Carl Hiassen I got from the library is too scratched...

That must've been Storeetler, xorscape.

Socialpages: let's just say I understood the ending to mean that the protagonist realized the situation was never going to change, so decided to end the source of her frustration. I have Timothy West's narration of The Eustace Diamonds saved up as a treat when I feel like tackling a long classic. I believe he also narrates Julian Barnes' stories in The Lemon Table, along with Prunella Scales.

Hi, xorscape ~ So glad you liked Dog On It. The next (To Fetch a Thief) is almost as good (and by almost as good I mean delightful, only just not quite as much as the first), and I just picked up Thereby Hangs a Tail, the third in the series, which I plan to listen to next, after having just finished Goliath by Scott Westerfeld, read by Alan Cumming, who is masterful at portraying the many characters perfectly!

Edited to correct misspelling.

I've been away, finishing Comfort & Joy by India Knight as lighter fare during my hiatus from Jerusalem: The Biography. At first, I didn't really care for Anne Flosnik's narration, but soon enough I came to see her as a good choice. First part was quite interesting, but the second half veered a bit far into chick-lit for me, although the ending tied things up nicely.

I'm listening to The Apothecary's Daughter and loving it.

I finished A Kiss at Midnight which was a torture to listen to, the plot was unbearable, but the narrator wasn't bad, except I disliked the accent on the hero. Now I'm beginning The End of the Affair by Graham Greene narrated by Michael Kitchen.

Now I'm listening to My Dear, I Wanted to Tell You by Louisa Young, read by Dan Stevens (HarperAudio). It's very good so far.

Continuing my Wilkie Collins fetish with The Two Destinies narrated by Samuel West. I am wondering whether Samuel West is related to Timothy West. I also have an aussie classic on the go: The Bone is Pointed by Arthur Upfield featuring a half caste aboriginal detective. Both are excellent so far.

Samuel West is the son of Timothy West and Prunella Scales - she is one of my favourite readers.

>128 alexdaw: I agree with you about Elizabeth von Arnim. She can be delightfully so right, but at times the jaw begins to throb with that tongue planted so firmly. That was my experience with Introduction to Sally.

I just discovered Kevin Hearne. I read the pb first book in the Iron Druid Chronicles, but switched to the audio for the second, Hexed, and, by golly, I'm going back to listen to the first. It was well done by Luke Daniels.

I had no idea Timothy West and Prunella Scales were a couple! I have The Two Destinies on my Audible wishlist as a potential buy.

Just finished listening to The Litigators by John Grisham and read by Denis Boutsikaris found the book to be so, so. Didn't find he developed his characters very well but I always enjoy Boutsikaris' reading.

At long last I'm listening to The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn narrated by Tom Parker. I'm loving Mark Twain's wit.

Finished The End of the Affair, fabulous narration by Michael Kitchen. Now beginning another Amelia Peabody book, Deeds of the Disturber with the incomparable Barbara Rosenblat narrating.

I finished and greatly appreciated The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Now I've started Gilgamesh by Joan London narrated by Deidre Rubenstein.

Just finished book three in the Sally Lockwood mystery series by Philip Pullman: The Tiger in the Well. I can't say enough about the narrator, Anton Lesser, who creates whole worlds with his voice characterizations. Pullman's writing helps of course - no one can make me cringe when writing about pure evil like he can. The combination of Pullman and Lesser makes me so glad that I chose to listen to these Victorian-era melodramas rather than read them in print.

#154 I've listened to all four over the last year or so and loved them and they are not books I would have read in print. Anton Lesser is my favourite reader, I think.

I have his version of A Christmas Carol and I'm wondering how soon I can listen to it again. I have (in print) The Christmas Mystery of which I read a chapter a day starting 1st December and various other of my books marked as Christmas reading but Dickens the only Christmas listening I have.

CDVicarage: I agree, I'm not sure I would have read the whole series were it not for Lesser's masterful narration. I feel the same about the The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series; I wouldn't have gone beyond the second book but Lisette Lecat's beautiful voice pulls me back each time a new one is published.

Off to get A Christmas Carol!!!

One of my favourite audio books was Tulip Fever by Deborah Moggah, the reader Rula Lenska was wonderful.

My husband is vision impaired so we always have an audio book on the go in our home, he has just finished Birthday Girl by Stephen Leather. His latest is The Coming of THe Third Reich, he listens to great variety of novels', these are supplied by a wonderful organisation" Vision Australia" and free of charge, they also supply a super CD player named "Daisy" that can play many many hours on the one disc.

Every so often if I have read book that I think he would enjoy I order it for him from V.A. website.

Listening to The Weird Sisters and enjoying it very much. The one by Eleanor Brown, that is.

Just finished part 1 of 4 of 11-22-63 by Stephen King. It's a lot of fun.

#157 I listened to all three of the books in the series by Richard J. Evans. I think his books are going to replace The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich as the authoritative work on Nazi Germany.

since last i visited, i finished Crossing to safety by Wallace Stegner, which was excellent, I shall wear midnight by Terry Pratchett, Injury Time by Beryl Bainbridge, and Charles Dickens' Great expectations narrated by Anton Lesser. wowzer.

GE is probably my least favorite Dickens thus far, but Lesser left me wanting more and the characters are still in my head. i was doing something in the kitchen today and heard Joe Gargery's voice saying, 'what larks, Pip, what larks.' thanks NarratorLady for browbeating me into listening to Lesser's narration. ;)

I'm now staggering down the backstretch of Betjeman: A life w/ less than an hour to go (gasp) and revisiting Fire from heaven by Mary Renault both from NLS.

Reading Girl who played with fire by Stieg Larsson and Carpe jugulum by Terry Pratchett on my iPod. Wasn’t sure that I’d read any more of Larsson’s but it was the only thing I could tolerate after listening to Anton Lesser ace Great expectations. I hadn’t realized he (Lesser) voiced Iorek Byrnison in Northern Lights. My favorite character in the book, wouldn'tcha know. :)

I thought the audio of Injury Time was splendid!

I've started William Maxwell's The Chateau, which is fairly good so far (one hour out of twelve).

#162 seajack, did you listen to the Timothy West narration? the audio made it for me.

Yes, I did. I liked it so much that I went out and dropped a credit on his narration of The Eustace Diamonds, which I haven't listed to yet. I later heard him and Prunella Scales read the stories in Julian Barnes' The Lemon Table.

hah! i'm eyeing Eustace diamonds as it sits in Trollopian patience on my iPod and i, too, dropped some dimes on The lemon table. great minds, my dear, great minds! :)

and Prunella Scales, well, what can one say. she will forever be Miss Mapp to me, but i'm willing to allow her horizons to expand. i can't believe that audible.com has Nadia May reading the Mapp and Lucia books when they might have had Scales and Geraldine McEwan who recorded the books after they did the BBC series w/ Nigel Hawthorne as Georgie. Scales can make you hear Miss Mapp grinning horribly even in audio. smashing!

so glad i got them when i did, lo these many years ago.

I just finished listening to a wonderful account of Japanese women brought to America to be brides and their life experiences until being deported to internment camps in WWII, The Buddha in the Attic by Julie Otsuka narrated very well by Carrington Macduffie. Now I've started 13 1/2 by Nevada Barr narrated by Dan John Miller.

166 i checked out The Buddha in the Attic on audible.com where it is described as 'incantatory' yet gets poor reviews from listeners for its repetetiveness. i listed to about two minutes of it and think it sounds worth a listen. i was immediately fascinated by the skills these women possess--like the girl who can carry an 80 lb bag of rice 2 miles to town without breaking a sweat. i like that it's not the carrying of the 80 lbs for 2 miles but the 'not breaking a sweat' that is seen to be remarkable. i look forward to reading it. thanks, cj.

Incantatory, what a perfect word. One part of The Buddha in the Attic talks about the resentment Americans felt toward the Japanese immigrants. They said there were two things a Japanese knows nothing of - a clock and a bed. They just worked and worked and worked some more and seemed to be impervious to the heat. (They weren't of course. They just seemed that way to onlookers.) One woman says there were no days off, but once a year they'd walk to town and buy something little, like a cold drink - once a year.

//168 CJ i'm hoping that it's the incantatory part, which suggests repetitiveness, that i'll actually enjoy. depends on how it's used and how the narrator does it, of course. i'm a non-Buddhist who does Buddhist-based practice that comprises a prodigious amount of repetitiveness so the 'Buddha' part of the title sounds appealing.

i finished Betjeman: A life last night, mirabile dictu!

i'm glad i stuck with it to the end. i had dreaded the last chapter and it was one of the best in the book. a good ending to a rather sad life story not terribly well told. i am so very ready to move on. also indebted to Anne (NarratorLady) for being so fine a narrator that she really did keep me going, faux cockney accent and all. ;)

'Currently listening to We Die Alone. Fascinating, harrowing.

just finished The girl who played with fire by Stieg Larsson, a man who was definitely on a mission. pretty good. kept my attention, that's for sure. now what? i dunno.

i know, i'll read The lady vanishes by Ethel Lina White narrated by Finty Williams, the daughter of Judi Dench and Michael Williams. it's short, the audio version gets good reviews and Hitchcock made it into a movie. how bad can that be?

mirrordrum: Yay! The end of Betj has finally come!

Hope you enjoy Finty Williams. She's the cartoon voice of Angelina Ballerina and I'm sure she'll do a good job with A Lady Vanishes. Should be in the genes, no?

I'm halfway through The Chateau by William Maxwell, where not a lot really happens, but that's okay as the narrator does a great job with the characters.

I haven't been over here in ages but I did listen to Good Omens. It was read by Martin Jarvis, who did an absolutely excellent job. Anyone else enjoy anything by him?
I just started In the Garden of Beasts. I love Larson.

I've restarted The Art of Racing in the Rain for my RL bookclub. I didn't like it the first time I read it but was cautioned not to be so judgemental. In just the first chapter I'm realizing why I so much disliked it, so I can't guarantee I'll finish. I did finish 13 1/2, and I have to say I prefer listening to a story about a multiple murderer over one about a dog who can't wait to be reincarnated as a human.

I'm listening to Little Women, read by Kate Reading. It's very good.

That was quick. The Daughter of Time came in so I've started that - narrated by Derek Jacobi- and will leave The Art of Racing in the Rain again, maybe never to return.

I finished Deeds of the Disturber by Elizabeth Peters, narrated by Barbara Rosenblat and am now beginning 11/22/63 by Stephen King narrated by Craig Wasson.

Just finished The Night Circus. It was beautiful, magical, mysterious.... but too long and not enough happens.

Now listening to Raven Stole The Moon, by Garth Stein. I am really enjoying it.

//179 CJ--i think you'll like Daughter of time. of course, i like anything by Tey. i first read it as a teenager at my mom's suggestion and have read it since at least twice. having recently watched Sir Ian McKellan's excellent film adaption of Richard the Third, i think it would be worth rereading Tey's book in audio to compare views of Richard and his treatment of the young princes. who's the narrator?

i just finished a thoroughly gripping narration of The lady vanishes by Ethel Lina White very well done by Finty Williams. no wonder Hitchcock made it into a movie. i'd listen to Williams again. she didn't try to do too much and what she did do was well done.

i'm now going to try The lemon table by Julian Barnes. it was the next thing up on the iPod and how can i pass up Timothy West and Prunella Scales?

The Daughter of Time is very well narrated by Derek Jacobi.

I'm about a quarter of the way through Blue Nights, and although the narration is good, Didion comes across as both entitled (as she did to me in her previous book), and bitter.

Just finished Smut written and read by Alan Bennett. Two short stories. Very, very funny. I prefered the first one but both were good. Good re-use of his phrase 'not happy, but not unhappy about it' from The History Boys. Couldn't have been read by anyone else of course, it really is a comic treat to hear Bennett's flat northern tones describing sex scenes, hilarious.

Just started A Game of Thrones by George R.R. Martin read by Roy Dotrice and I have to say I am really dissapointed. I bought this in anticipation of all the long boring night shifts I will be doing in the run up to Christmas and am feeling very let down. I'm afraid I think Dotrice is awful. Firstly I think his accents are terrible, he can't seem to make his mind up about who should have an upper or lower class accent with members of the same family varying wildly, all his upper class characters sound exactly the same, male or female, like hammy thespians, and all his lower class characters sound like cartoon pirates. Aside from the accents he is constantly making awkward glaring mistakes with pauses and emphasis in the wrong places as though he is not thinking about what he is reading at all! I am relatively new to audiobooks and it may be that I have been spoiled by having started with a very high standard (Stephen Fry, Alan Bennett) but I don't think I can bear much more of Dotrice. It is such a shame as I was really looking foreward to this.
I have read all the Song of Ice and Fire books already so I am thinking about skipping foreward through the audiobooks to the later books which are read by someone called John Lee, has anyone else listened to him? Is it worth my buying them? or should I resign myself to just reading the books out loud to myself :P

I like John Lee. He narrated the version of The Count of Monte Cristo that I finished a few months ago. It was 37 discs; thankfully he wore well.

I am listening to a 21-part (25 hour) book read by John Lee (Jerusalem: The Biography), that he reads with great enthusiasm.

//187--if there's one thing i like, it's a reader with enthusiasm. chuckle

i just got in a book that's been on hold: With the Old Breed: At Peleliu and Okinawa by E.B. Sledge narrated by George Wilson. i doubt that i'll read the entire thing as i'm not sure i want to read the Okinawan bit but will try to get through Peleliu. war is so completely beyond my comprehension that it seems essential to me that i try at least a bit to grasp its realities. i can't, of course, without being there but it seems a sort of responsibility to know what we ask of our children and what my tax dollars pay for.

am about half way through With the old breed: At Peleliu and Okinawa and greatly impressed. have also started a very strange book Train dreams by Denis Johnson. started very not happy with the narrator, Will Patton, who narrates in a secretive voice, sometimes almost a whisper. he over-read in the first bit but i've settled in with him now and have decided that his interpretation fits just fine with the, indeed, dreamlike nature of the story.

because i was feeling a bit gloomed by the preceding two books, i started The lady of the rivers by Philippa Gregory narrated by Bianca Amato who wowed me with her narration of the thirteenth Tale. she's wowing me again.

I'm listening to Walking Across Egypt by Clyde Edgerton. I have mixed feelings about a male author and male reader Norman Dietz writing and reading a book with a little old lady as the main character. I'm not too happy with the dog catcher slant in the beginning either being a dog lover but I'll see how it turns out.

i loved Walking across Egypt. for one thing, my partner is a mountain woman, like Mattie, and was able to explain things to this ignorant California transplant to Appalachia and to verify that the occurrences in the book were consistent with the culture. it's one of my favorite books. caused me eventually to read The floatplane notebooks, also by Edgerton, and also, imo, exceptional.

i don't know if it helps to be familiar with the culture, even at one remove, but i do encourage you to go on into it a bit. i struggled with just the first part but it didn't take me long to love and honor and be awed by Mattie and to find myself laughing with real joy at a true and delightful heroine.

i thought Dietz did quite a good job.

meanwhile, i finished Train dreams. it was eerie and quite good. also short. :)

I liked Walking Across Egypt, too, and I lived most of my life in the northeast.

I have lived in the southeast for 32 years so I don't think it's the cultural aspects of Walking Across Egypt that are bothering me. I listened to some more yesterday and I must say Mrs. Rigsby is growing on me a little.

I finished the wonderful The Daughter of Time. Of course Derek Jacobi is delightful, but I had a little trouble with his narration of the American. It doesn't sound like any American I've ever heard, however the character is from Boston, maybe I don't know enough people from that area. Now I'm listening to Other People's Dirt narrated by the author Louise Rafkin and One Thousand Years of Laughter narrated by Griff Rhys Jones. It seems fart jokes have always been with us

#194 Citizenjoyce: I'm from Boston and no, no one sounds like that here. But I still enjoyed Jacobi's reading of The Daughter of Time. I know it's ridiculous but I always think of him in his role in "I, Claudius" and am so pleased that he got over his stuttering problem!

I'm re-listening to Interesting Times by Terry Pratchett.

#195 - I feel the same way about him! LOL!

Just finished listening to The Ruby in the Smoke by Philip Pullman, read by Anton Lesser. It took me awhile to get into, but by midpoint I couldn't stop listening and have already reserved a copy of the next two in the series (though sadly they are not audiobooks).

I am only a little way in but can already highly recommend A Christmas Carol: An Original Performance by Tim Curry I think my review will just say Pure Perfection!

#199 I am not currently an audio reader, however I did read A Christmas Carol not long ago and thought that it was wonderful.
I always check on this site as you listen to some very interesting books.

I'm waiting for a version of A Christmas Carol by my new favorite narrator, Anton Lesser.

#193 well, see there? that's what comes of making assumptions. i had the same reaction you did about the dog and dog catcher in the beginning but the biscuits and gravy thing gave me hope. hope you ended up liking it.

#195 it's true, it's true. and didn't he also stutter or stammer in Breaking the code?

there is absolutely no narration of A Christmas Carol that will top the old adaptation with Basil Rathbone that we had on 33 rpm when i was a kid and that's been reissued and i think is on audible.com. i know it by heart. however, for the full book, i'll pick Charlton Griffon's version over any of the others i've tried and there are some good ones. Simon Vance does it well, too. i just like Griffon's basso profundo.

as for my reading, whatever possessed me to think i'd like Lady of the rivers i do not know. well, i do, actually. it was the mention of Melusine and Joan of Arc. i managed about an hour and threw it over. waste of money, unfortunately. oh well.

I just started The Next Always by Nora Roberts. It is slowwww going and the reader is not the right fit (MacLeod Andrews). I hope it gets better.

I enjoyed the second book in Bernie and Chet, Thereby Hangs a Tail by Spencer Quinn. Jim Frangione does a wonderful job. I've ordered book three from the library.

#202: When I saw "The King's Speech" last year I got a kick out of seeing Derek Jacobi in the role of a priest as he patiently waited for Colin Firth's King George to spit out his words. I wondered if Jacobi gave Firth lessons on how to effectively play someone with a speech impediment so it wouldn't be too gimicky.
But I STILL expected Jacobi to answer him with a stutter!

Talk about putting your seal on a role, it seems like Derek Jacobi's done it.

My latest in car listen is Colin Thubron's stately, meditative travelogue To a Mountain in Tibet, read by Jonathan Keeble.

//#206 have you read Peter Matthiessen's The snow leopard? if you haven't and enjoy the spiritual aspects of Thubron's book, which i haven't read but may, you might like Snow leopard. it's become a classic.

it's supposedly available on tape from Books-on-tape but i don't know anything about the narrator. i think i've read it 4 times, once in audio format, and have it downloaded from NLS to listen to again. i enjoyed it more in the print version as he does tend to ramble on periodically and it's nice to be able to speed-read here and there.

it's the story of Matthiessen's trip to Shey Gompa, the crystal monastery. he went with George Schaller who wanted to find a snow leopard. they went in winter in the early 70s when westerners could still get into the Himalayas in Nepal. i enjoyed the zen Buddhist bits, even though i find him a bit, um, self-conscious? self-absorbed? about his spiritual quest and periodically wanted to smack him upside the head. so much for compassion in action. ;)

it's a good read, though, if you like cold, snow, mountains, Buddhism, acute observation, ramblings, spectacular scenery and traveloguery.

starting Girl who kicked the hornet's nest b/c i discovered that i can now download books from the library to my iPod and that was available. wow!

I've started my first ever Zane Gray, The Last of the Plainsman narrated by Adams Morgan. Morgan obviously has many voices in his repertoire, so I can't figure out why he uses such a la de da one to narrate a western. It doesn't work for me even though the ones he uses for the other characters are just fine.

//209 chortle i don't think I'll be listening to Adams Morgan anytime soon.

Just started A Morbid Taste for Bones, the first in the Brother Cadfael series. Patrick Tull is the reader, and I always like what he does, though sometimes his words run together just a little too much, making it easy to space out if I'm at a complicated bit of a knitting.

#211 oh, i liked that one. i love Patrick Tull's work. i'm a great fan of his narrations of the Aubrey/Maturin books by Patrick O'Brian. here's a video of him reading about 6 minutes ofReverse of the Medal by Patrick O'Brian. fun to see how easily he voiced all those characters! he was exceptional and is very much missed. :(

fortunately, i don't knit. i do Zentangles, though, and when i want to do them mindfully, i daren't listen to anything or else i'm lost. i was not raised to be a multi-tasker. good thing i'm (nearly) 68!

I am listening to Nothing with Strings: NPR's Beloved Holiday Stories by, Bailey White narrated by, Lorna Raver a great selection of short southern stories enjoying it very much!

I associate Patrick Tull with Rumpole of the Bailey. If I recall correctly from years ago, he did a terrific job reading The Moonstone.

Enjoying New York to Dallas, the latest in the In Death series, by Nora Roberts writing as J.D. Robb.

//214 oh, seajack. how wonderful. i have had the moonstone on my mental wishlist for a long time and didn't realized PT narrated it. well, alrighty then. i just purchased 3 credits on a sale from audible and i know where one of them is going. huzzah!

Mirrordrum: I may well end up using a credit on that one myself; it's been so long that it'd be like reading it anew.

I actually posted to say that I've just finished listening to The Chateau by William Maxwell, a sort of impulse buy at Audible a while back. The story held together well enough, though a bit long and chock full of characters, but the audio narration was terrific!

Susie, I love Bailey White, I'll have to look for that one.

Currently working nights for the run up to Christmas, need audiobooks to keep me sane! Any good Christmasy recommendations?

//219 what kind of thing are you looking for? i mean, other than christmasy? what genre?

naturally the first book that comes to mind is A Christmas carol and if you shop audible.com, you've a choice of some excellent versions.

my other yearly holiday read is Murder on a bad hair day by Anne George. it's a light and very well-written southern mystery that takes place during the Christmas season.

Anne George taught English Lit, iirc, at the University of Alabama-Birmingham, was nominated for the Pulitzer for poetry for Some of It Is True and was the founder of Druid Press. she's a good writer and funnier than, well, she's very, very funny.

Ruth Ann Phimister does a fine job on the narration, imo, especially w/ the two sisters in their early 60s, Patricia Ann and Mary Alice. for me, these books are comfort reading. they're smart, sassy, funny and articulate. the mysteries themselves are simply the vehicle for the characters so don't expect anything that will tax your brain. raise your endorphins with delight, yes; leave you puzzling over whodunnit, nahsomuch.

Susie, I'm delighted to hear of another Bailey White title too. I just ordered it from the library.

I thought someone on this thread had recommended About Alice by Calvin Trillin, but I guess not. It's read by the author and made my eyes brim with tears. I'd like to read the print version as well, as there are parts to linger over. The audio was brief and sweet, on one disc.

I just started The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland In A Ship of Her Own Making, read by the author Catherynne M. Valente, and I am captivated. It's delightful.

I finished The Last of the Plainsmen and, in spite of the rather irritating narration, feel privileged to have discovered this author. I had no idea Zane Gray was so passionate and inspirational in his description of the west. Now I start a book first mentioned by Susiesharp, Nothing With Strings: NPR's Beloved Holiday Stories by Bailey White narrated by Lorna Rayer.

#206 I've just got a paperback copy of The Snow Leopard for free, so I shall certainly be checking it out in due course. All those aspects sound good. Thubron's account isn't so much concerned with Buddhism, although it is obviously part of the fabric, but with recent bereavement back home.

I've finally finished the epic World Without End by Ken Follett, nearly 46 hours listening. In comparison, my next Audible listen, Justin Cronin's The Passage should be a breeze at a mere 37 hours.

I finished Bailey White's Nothing With Strings and loved the title story and many of the others which showed growth and adventure at any age, but holiday stories? No, only in that they may have been broad cast during the holidays. Now I've started Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters narrated by Katherine Kellgren. I can see Jane Austin writing this. I never read Pride and Prejudice and Zombies even though I like Pride and Prejudice better than Sense and Sensibility because I never developed any interest in zombies. Sea monsters though, now there's a threat I can sink my teeth into, as do the characters.

>224 Citizenjoyce: -Citizenjoyce- I said that in my review too I didn't get the holiday angle either I said more like stories about aging & gardening but I still enjoyed them!

You'll have to let me know what you think of Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters of course I may listen to it just because it's Katherine Kellgren!

#223 Snow Leopard also involves bereavement back home.

Susiesharp, I'm on the 4th CD of Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters, and it's delightful. So funny to hear these proper ladies fighting sharks and drinking slug blood, and I agree, Katherine Kellgren is worth listening to whatever she reads.

i don't think i've ever listened to Kellgren but i checked her out on audible and like her. i shall have to find something she's done that appeals to me.

finished With the old breed: At Peleliu and Okinawa and have started Holding the zero by Gerald Seymour b/c it arrived from inter-library loan (ILL) an i can only have it for 2 weeks. The girl who kicked the hornet's nest will have to move to the back burner along with The lemon table.

Holding the zero is very intense so i'm also listening to Because of Winn-Dixie by Kate Di Camillo. it's a Newbery Honor Book very well narrated by Cherry Jones. they apparently made a movie out of it but i ain't watchin' it. the book, especially as read by Jones, is just too good. they couldn't match it.

i'm on the last tape of each of the books. ready to finish the first, not ready to let go of the second. ain't that the way.

FYI, Winn-Dixie is a southeastern supermarket chain with branches stores in Florida, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana.

You're right Ellie, they didn't match it. Great book, disappointing movie which so often happens.

Kate Di Camillo wrote a couple of other great books for kids: The Tale of Despereaux about a mouse and The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane about a stuffed rabbit, which I narrated for NLS to my great delight.

I think Despereaux won the Newbery Medal. Both are very good: she's a mighty fine writer and appeals to all ages.

I've just started Merle's Door: Lessons from a Freethinking Dog by Ted Kerasote narrated by Patrick Lawlor. I think I recently read something narrated by him, but I can't remember if I liked him. He's doing a fine job here. I sure hope this isn't one of those books in which the dog dies.

Just started Thereby Hangs a Tail, a Chet and Bernie mystery and already I caught myself giggling out loud on the Gold Line commuter train this evening. Doubtless why there was an empty seat next to me on the crowded car.

//230 hah, Anne, just as a i suspected: a ruinacious interference by the movie industry. it could only turn out either too terribly cutesy or boring. or both.

i've already ordered The Tale of Despereaux from interlibrary loan. it's narrated by Graeme Malcolm who does the aunt's voice beautifully within the first minute or two. i can see her. can't wait.

had forgotten that you do a lot of kids' books, Anne, but have now downloaded several of your Kate Di Camillo books from NLS. very exciting.

finished Holding the zero last night. it was suspenseful and well-written but i doubt that i'll read others by Gerald Seymour. subtle hints of 'the white man's burden,' to my mind, anyway, and a premise i really couldn't buy (into), or maybe just didn't like, at the denouement.

i think i'll just blow off everything i was reading before i plunged into Holding the zero and visit with Agatha Christie for a while. Murder on the Orient Express read by David Suchet should be fun and i've never read it. and then i can get back to something that's both new and longer.

another 'hah!' JB, my partner, just arrived with two tapes i'd had on hold: Murder on a bad hair day, my annual holiday book, and Last of the wine by Mary Renault, which was rather badly done aeons ago by NLS and i hope will be better from recorded books. i read it every few years and have done since the early 60s. my cup runneth over with joy of books. :) contented sigh

it seems almost criminal to reread books when there are so many i haven't read, but pleasure is pleasure and who am i to say it nay?

I've frequently thought I should reread some Mary Renault. I did love her in my younger days.

//234 you should, CJ. and no, i don't get paid by her estate to shill for her. ;) she's better read in print with one exception: The charioteer exquisitely read by Davina Porter for Recorded Books LLC. this was written before MR started her historical novels but you can see them coming. the charioteer of the title is drawn from Plato's Phaedrus. it's the last of her WWII-era books, iirc.

the remarkable Alexander Scourby did a very fine narration of Fire from heaven for NLS for which i shall be forever grateful. there's also a tolerably good narration of the Persian boy done by Aviva Skell for Recorded Books in the US.

I've just started The Snack Thief, third in the Inspector Montalbano series set in Sicily -- Grover Gardner's narration is terrific!

I'm listening to Compulsion by Keith Ablow and am enjoying it so far.

reluctantly finished Because of Winn-Dixie. Cherry Jones really did a fine job and oh, how i love that book!

Murder on the orient express didn't fly and the narration for Last of the wine didn't work. it's a difficult book to narrate b/c of the spare style Mary Renault used in attempting to make it sound as she thought ancient Greek dialogue ought to sound based on her research and her reading of many translations from the ancient Greek.

George Wilson is a narrator i'm usually okay with. in this case, he was continually bucking and chaffing at Renault's efforts by trying to make the dialogue sound more contemporary. he also kept ignoring her hints about pronunciation. for example, she spells proper names in such a way that the reader is intended to pronounce them more nearly the way they would have been pronounced rather than the way they've been anglicized. for example, Alcibiades is spelled 'Alkibiades.' Mr. Wilson overrides her and pronounces it with the 'k' as a sibilant. there are numerous instances of this. they wouldn't bother the ordinary reader, i expect, but i'm a Renault freak, i've read the books in print and i know her intent and just kept getting more and more irritated. the NLS reader was suddenly raised to great heights by comparison. :)

sooooo, i started The black tower by Louis Bayard, which i've started 3 times before. this time, it worked. i've also gone back to Carpe jugulum with renewed enjoyment. am getting read to drift into a cheerful mood with Patricia Ann and Mary Alice, the marvelous southern sisters, in Murder on a bad hair day.

jeez i'm chatty.

Trying to listen to Mossflower by Brian Jacques. I say trying because it's the *dramatization* style of audio book which different actors doing the dialogue for the characters.

I really don't like those kinds of audio books. I mean if you're going to all that trouble go one step farther and make it a radio play. I think this style just takes away from the writing (makes it harder to notice quality prose).

I'm almost finished Haruki Murakami's Dance Dance Dance narrated by Rupert Degas. From a slow start it's grown on me and I can't wait to go to work each day just to listen to another chapter. It's hard to describe the plot but I'm enjoying the crazy ride with no idea how it's going to end.

240 Socialpages: I really liked that one - Degas' narration was terrific!

i had a happy 20 minute interval with our Narratorlady reading Mercy Watson fights crime for NLS by Kate DiCamillo. i listened to the sample of the audible.com version narrated by Ron McLarty but Anne's narration is better. delightful, in fact and i loved the book. sometimes, a book with chapters that are about 2 paragraphs long are exactly my cup of tea. :)

Oh Ellie you are something. You actually read one of my "pig books'! If I'm ever lucky enough to get myself a grandchild, I plan on buying those Mercy Watson books since they're beautifully illustrated. I dream of the day when I can read aloud to a little one instead of into a microphone. (Although I don't plan on giving up the microphone.)

I am humbled by your comparing me to the great McLarty who is one of my favorite narrators. I fell in love with his reading of Steinbeck's Travels with Charley.

Just finished The Winter Sea by,Susanna Kearsley Narrated by, Roselyn Landor I really enjoyed it good story good narration!

Now starting The Boy in the Suitcase by,by Lene Kaaberbøl, Kaaberbol Friis narrated by,Katherine Kellgren alot of buzz about this book so hopefully not going to be disappointed!

With the death of Kim Jong-Il, I wanted to remind folks of Nothing to Envy - one of the best uses of an Audible credit I made since joining them.

Many thanks to whoever recommended The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of her Own Making. It's obvious the author/reader loves words, she places them so nicely and then caresses them. It is a rich dish, and I'm glad for the introduction to this writer.

A quick and humorous listen is The Strange Case of Origami Yoda.

About a third into Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention. The reader is good and the text is brilliant. My only reservation about the reader is the way he deals with the quotations.

The CD player I'm using remembers the exact place you stopped last time you were using it. How very convenient for audiobooks.

I finished Merle's Door a very good and very macho book about a man and his dog narrated by Peter Lawlor. He does Merle's huffy voice perfectly.

I just finished Making Rounds With Oscar which is more an objective book about dementia and end of life care than an animal book. Neither the narration, by Ray Porter nor the writing by David Dosa is top notch, but it is quite interesting. Next up is World and Town by Gish Jen, narrated by Janet Song.

> 146 socialpages: Just checking in after a long while and noticed your mention of the Upfield book. I have read all of the Bony books in print - how are the audios?

More drive time lately. In the past month I have listened to If You Ask Me (Betty White), Return to the Hundred Acre Wood (David Benedictus), Explosive Eighteen (Janet Evanovich), Alanna: The First Adventure (Tamora Pierce) and am presently working on Mastiff, book three in the Beka Cooper series, also by Tamora Pierce.

#251 heyjude: Are the Tamora Pierce audiobooks good? I read lots of her stuff many years ago and am aware that quite a few new books have been published since then, I keep meaning to read them and not getting round to it. Maybe audiobooking them would be the answer.

I have just finished listening to The Raven in the Foregate one of Ellis Peters' Cadfael books. Trying to read/listen to as many books about or set during Christmas as possible at the moment. It was read by Vanessa Benjamin and was very good. My only quible (because I am a broken record) is that she didn't give Cadfael a Welsh accent. I know it is hard not to hear Derek Jacobi's voice when you think of Cadfael after his wonderful performance in the TV series, but I read the books before I watched the series and Peters does make it clear that Cadfael is Welsh. Still very good narration, I would recommend it as a good icy, snowy Christmas whodunnit.

>251 heyjude:, heyjude,

I listened to the Alanna quartet several years ago and loved it. I tried one of the next series set in the same world in audio and didn't like something about the production, so didn't finish listening to it. How are you liking the Becka Cooper series? Is the audio well-done?

>252 KayEluned: KayEluned,

I loved the audio of the Alanna quartet, but your question to heyjude makes it sound like you've already read that series? I guess if you want to re-visit it, I would say the audio is a nice format.

With the kids, I am listening to 13 Gifts by Wendy Mass and enjoying it. We recently listened to 11 Birthdays set in the same town, but didn't know that there was a story in-between, so we've requested the middle one from the library.

By myself, I'm listening to All Together Dead by Charlaine Harris. It's a Sookie Stackhouse Southern Vampire mystery - I'm not sure which number without looking (7? 8?). I really enjoy the reader of this series. I'm not sure I would enjoy this series at all if I read it with my eyes - I don't think I'd get some of Sookie's sarcasm or charm by myself, but the reader sure does. It's been the same one so far for the whole series.

Penn

I finished Stephen King's 11-22-63 which I thought was great on audio, narrated by Craig Wasson, who did a great job. I loved all his different voices, many of old movie stars I recognize. He really brings the book to life, almost as if I were listening to a movie! I highly recommend! One of the best books of the year, and one of the best time travel books ever!

Now I'm beginning The Lady Most Likely...: A Novel in Three Parts by Julia Quinn and Eloisa James and Connie Brockway, narrated by Rosalyn Landor.

//hey kt--i've never read an SK book but this might be the exception. i remember exactly where i was when i heard that JFK was shot. i kept saying that it wasn't true. i don't think i really believed it until i saw the riderless horse in the funeral cortege with the boots reversed. that about did me in. it seemed only the blink of an eye later that i was watching with friends as Bobby was shot. unbelievable.

#255, I was too young to remember when JFK was shot, but I def. remember Bobby and MLK's funerals. I was only about 7 years old then and just couldn't understand why there were all these funerals on TV, and people in black and wearing black hats. Obviously, I was too young to understand, but those funerals left an impression on me that something very wrong was going on in the country, not to mention the weekly pictures in Life and Time Magazine of scenes from Viet Nam and the soldiers that I so took for granted, having no memory of life before Viet Nam at the time.

Our house is listening to A Fortunate Life by A.B. Facey, I have read the novel and now have it on audio for my husband, it is a wonderful novel, the reader,(very Australian ) is doing a wonderful job. The novel is listed as "An Australian Classic", it is a autobiography, very special.

I've just started Barbara Tuchman's The Guns of August. It's read by Nadia May who I always love and love even more when reading Tuchman.

I was trying to listen to Tarzan The Untamed but they gave it an American reader for some reason (who does an annoying German accent). I know Burroughs was an American but the book deals with Englishmen and Germans. Tuchman was an American too but they're wise in having an English woman reading her books primarily set in/dealing with Europe.

^258 mabith ~ The reader is important to my enjoyment of an audiobook too. Accents for the different characters, style of reading (slow, fast, breathless, sombre), timbre of the voice, ~ all of those things can make or break it for me. Thanks, I'm putting Guns of August on my TBLT list for 2012.

I am currently listening to The Rum Diary by, Hunter S. Thompson narrated by, Campbell Scott not sure what I think of the narration or the story yet.

//258 multi-reading does make strange bedfellows: Guns of August and Tarzan the Untamed. such fun.

finished The black tower by Louis Bayard. it's a good read narrated well by Simon Vance. knew nothing about France during the Restoration and may now know a tiny bit more than that. hope to find more Bayard in audio.

of all things, i'm finding that Paradise lost is what i want to hear before i go to sleep. i'm in the very early part and as i was listening to it last night thought, 'oh good grief! Tolkien used Milton, especially in the battle of the Pelennor.' i'm so bloody illiterate. anyway the narrator is the redoubtable, though retired, Patrick Horgan. being a yank, i don't always understand him but he so sweeps me away with his narrative zest that i don't care. the recording is one of the great ones done by NLS! how i should have liked to hear the late Michael Williams narrate this.

lessee, um, after i finished with the black tower, i started Claire DeWitt and the City of the Dead by Sara Gran. i liked the bit i heard before i purchased it but the narrator is beginning to grate a bit. maybe it will pass.

am also trying to read This book is overdue: how librarians and cybrarians can save us all by Marilyn Johnson, obtained through interlibrary loan. this is a book that either needs a narrator other than Hillary Huber or to be read in print. i'm doing my best. the delightful New York Times review made it sound so exactly my kind of book that i'm loath to give up on it. 'patience' shall be my watchword.

oh, and when nobody but Sir Terry will do, i'm still working on the last third of Carpe Jugulum.

I'm about half way through World and Town and it keeps getting more complex, drawing me further into the world of the Chinese-America immigrant older woman, her Cambodian refugee neighbors and the fundamentalist church that seems to be taking advantage of them. The narrator, Janet Song, does a wonderful job on all the voices, including that of the baby. I've also started listening to The Leftovers which started out kind of funny but now we're into the part of men being overwhelmed with desire for underage girls. I try to keep all that Woody Allen stuff out of my reading, but I'm going to give it another CD and see if he can pull back a little from the testosterone.

i thought i'd start a new thread for us for the new year some time next week after folks have had a chance to read what's been posted. that way the page doesn't take quite so long to load. any objections?

Sounds good to me. I hear if you use the continue this topic link at the bottom of the page it will direct to the next page and folk won't get lost.

i do use that now and it works a treat and saves two steps. it's been a great thing and i've no idea whom to thank. :)

It's just LT magic, I think.

listening to my 1st audiobook ever at this moment (Storm of Swords), while browsing LT and watching football...

I finished the "pilot" one for a new series featuring Anglican vicar Father Tom Christmas Twelve Drummers Drumming - overall it dragged, but interesting that he was raised in a same sex household.

#250 heyjude. The Arthur Upfield books are narrated by Peter Hosking. Hosking perfectly suits narrating these books as his voice is very "ocker" and typically knock-about, no nonsense Australian. Hosking also narrates the Cliff Hardy series by Peter Corris which are worth a listen.

#257hazeljune. I loved A Fortunate Life - what a great story. You don't mention the narrator's name in your post. Can you tell me who it is?

I went a little crazy over Christmas with Audible purchases so now I'm spoilt for choice regarding my next book but racked with indecision.

#271 The reader is Peter Hosking. I am pleased that you enjoyed it.

finished Claire DeWitt and the City of the Dead by Sara Gran. what an unusual book. i started out disliking both the book and the narrator (Carol Monda). in the end, i became interested enough to finish it and thinking the narrator made a tolerably good job out of what must have a rather difficult read.

tonight went back to The lemon table, reread the first story, which i like very much despite its bleak tone, and listened to the second, also bleak. i expect the entire book to be bleak and very well written. Julian Barnes is probably not going to be someone i'll want to read in great gulps. at least not this Julian Barnes.

after that i tried the 2nd Inspector Gamache novel, A fatal grace by Louise Penny. it irritated me, rather, and i decided it was the wrong book so scrolled through my iPod and settled on Rebecca, hauntingly narrated by the late Anna Massey. i think i'm gonna like it a whole lot. one of those books my mother said i should read and one of the rare occasions when i ignored her advice. well, now i know why she recommended it. at last, i shall meet Mrs. Danvers! :)

I finished The Lady Most Likely... which was a waste of time, although Rosalyn Landor did a good job with what she was given.

I'm now listening to The Scarlet Lion by Elizabeth Chadwick, narrated by Christopher Scott who narrated the previous book, The Greatest Knight which was very good.

I'm about half-way through Great Expectations read by the wonderful Anton Lesser. I also have the latest BBC adaptation waiting to be watched but I'm going to leave it until I've finished the book.

>273 mirrordrum:-Mirrordrum- I hope you enjoy Rebecca it is one of my all time favorites and Anne Massey does a great job on the narration she enhanced my re-read of it this past year!

mirrordrum: I can't imagine a better combination: Rebecca and Anna Massey! What a treat to begin the new year.
I did not much care for A Fatal Grace. In fact, riding against the tide of the many Three Pines lovers on these boards, I don't care much for the entire series. I'm afraid that the sweetness of the people in that Brigadoon-like village (save the many warped murderers) make my back teeth ache!

Mirrordrum: The only story that I really didn't like at all was the one that was straight historical fiction. Prunella Scales' stories (I think there are three) were outstanding.

I'm usually stacked up with audio books, so I rarely need to browse the shelves at the library, but I tripped over several of Scott Westerfeld's titles this week. I'm enjoying So Yesterday. I think Westerfeld has so many ideas packed entertainingly in his books, that he should be a standard on high school reading lists.

I'm about 1 1/2 CDs into Factory Girls about, guess what, young women who work in factories in China. I don't believe I'm going to sign up for that, but the book is great, ably narrated by Susan Ericksen.
I finished, and was quite disappointed by, The Leftovers. As cardboard as I found all the characters to be, the story was made even worse by the snide narration of Dennis Boutsikaris who ends many, many sentences in that uptilted questioning mode of teenagers. I don't see what all the praise was about.

Was idly perusing the shelves of Books-on-CDs at the library yesterday and found The Last Werewolf by Glen Duncan, which was a happy happenstance since I've been wanting to read it.

^279 I like Westerfeld's Leviathan trilogy a lot and have also been meaning to read more of his stuff.

Mary- A friend of mine at work listened to the audio of The Last Werewolf and loved it. Of course, I read it in book form and was also crazy about it.

The only problem with listening to the Leviathan trilogy, is you miss out on the great illustrations.

I would gladly start the new thread but are we counting up or should we start fresh? So, should it be 12 or 1?

I'm for fresh.

a new thread would be great I think it would be part 12

Yes, please, Mark! A new thread would make loading so much easier! It would be No. 12.

^282 I listened to Leviathan, then went to the library and got the book so I could look at the illustrations. I did that for all three of them. lol

BTW, more good news. I just got a notice that the CDs of The Dog Who Knew Too Much by Spencer Quinn is waiting for me at the library!!! From having nothing much to listen to to having an embarrassment of riches in the audiobook dept. in just a couple of days!

yes a new thread would be lovely. i'd said i was going to do it this week and was waiting to be sure nobody objected as i've tried starting new threads on other games and have met strenuous resistance. i rather like the idea of keeping going with part 12, but don't really care all that much.