Best Books on CD

What are the best books you've listened to on CD? (Fiction or non-fiction.) I am wondering partly because of my upcoming roadtrip to southwest Virginia, and partly due to my lack of listening material the last time I drove there.

To Kill a Mockingbird read by Sissy Spacek. I hadn't read this since high school (the late 60s), and I listened to it about a month ago driving through northern New England. Her reading is dramatic and superb.

But CAUTION! Harper Lee uses the "N*****" word probably more often than Twain did in Huckleberry Finn. Its use is appropriate to the natural speech of Alabama in the 1930s, but make sure you've got your windows rolled up, and if you have to drive through toll booths make sure you turn the audio off before you roll your window down. Also, be aware of this use of the "N*****" word if you've got young children driving along with you and there's some danger they might mistakenly pick up on its use.

De-lurking here, because I really enjoy having a story read to me.

I recently listened to Lonesome Dove , read by Lee Horsley. It was absolutely delicious, and the characters truly came alive. I'm not sure if this is because of the writing or because of the reader - but I immediately ordered a hardcopy online so that I could go back and re-read it! I believe it's available on Audible.com, although if you're on the cheap side and have very fluid moral standards (like me), you'll also find it on thepiratebay.org.

Franzou

Hard to find, but Sir John Geilgud's readings of Wilde's short stories are wonderful.

Wuthering Heights

Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, the original radio drama

Os

Anything Bill Bryson. He reads his own stuff, and I love his voice. Come to think of it, his Shakespeare book probably doesn't lend itself to audio as well as the rest of them, since it doesn't involve enough anecdote-type stuff, which is what it's so fun to hear him read. I have made many, many car trips by myself from the tri-state area to central Virginia, and Bryson's the best thing I've found to pass that time. A Walk in the Woods is great, and the somewhat abridged version of A Short History of Nearly Everything is even better.

Oh, also Dan Simmons' book Drood. It's very long (it'd take you there and back, I have no doubt), but the guy who reads it has some great voices up his sleeve, and the story is entertaining. As you can tell, I tend to think of car trips as time for lighter fare. I think it suits the venue.

I just got Against the Day, which weighs in at 54 hours on 42 CD's!

Is it read by Prof. Irving Corey?

i'm trying to gird myself for Ulysses as a friend just gave me the Audible reading as a present. I need to find the usb cable for my mp3 player. I've never gotten far into the book so Mary thought that this might help me out.

It's a lecture series rather than a book, per se, but I've been very much taken in with Clare Kinney's lectures on Shakespeare's tragedies. I really am quite sure i never had a college lecture leave me in tears as her final (of 4) lectures on Othello did the other evening while driving home from work.

>8 bobmcconnaughey:
Sounds like you might need to consider a designated driver. :-)

Anything read by John Greenman, (namely Mark Twain) on Librivox:
http://librivox.org/newcatalog/people_public.php?peopleid=107

I am not sure what the best would be but last year when I had an hour commute each way I tried War and Peace read by Neville Jason and I absolutley could not follow it and all. I tried several times, too many characters, I wasn't always sure who was talking. I gave up.

Not to go off on a tangent, but do you think it is a prerequiste to have read a book before listening to it?

I have not yet read War and Peace and am wondering if that may be one reason why it difficult to listen to.

Beach reading novels on the other hand like James Patterson are much easier to listen to for me probably because they have more action.

We've had a couple of road trips of late and have been enjoying listening to Bill Bryson (including his A SHORT HISTORY OF NEARLY EVERYTHING). He's a lot of fun and I also recommend David Sedaris, who is hilarious and an excellent reader...

I'm not a big audio person, but I loved The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery on CD. There are two readers (older woman and younger girl) and they are both really good but Barbara Rosenblat reading Renee' ,the main character, is simply perfect. It is great to hear all the French properly pronounced.

We (well, I) have the complete LoTR on cd, as well as a 4 cd bbc radio adaptation. I was recently given Ulysses and i've downloaded it - but unless i get a mp3 player instead of a cd player for the car i'm not sure when i'll actually listen to it....

David Sedaris (a local boy gone bad, made good) is actually better heard than read.

>14 bobmcconnaughey:
Bob,
You may already know this, but some newer car CD players will play MP3s burned to a CD.

i know...our new car is a 2001 Toyota Echo..and though we replaced the cd/radio about 3 yrs ago, i didn't have the forethought to spend a little more and get on that would play mp3s as well. penny wise, pound foolish.

Can't you get a cheap CD/MP3 player off eBay and plug it in through your car's cigarette lighter port?

>17 CliffBurns:
Yes you can. Either one that plugs into you're cassette player (which may not work if it plays both directions and auto-switches because the switch may get confused) or one that broadcasts a weak FM signal. I've used the FM variety for awhile (two different models). They're okay, but suffer from static and occasional interference from reflected signals. As long as the 'intrinsic' volume of the recording is high enough, you don't have to turn the volume up so much that the static/interference becomes too annoying. I'd recommend it only for spoken word, though. Even mild static ruins the music experience for me.

Os.

Thanks for the confirmation, Oz--have to admit, I'm useless with most technology. If it wasn't for my wife and sons, I'm be writing this out on papyrus...with a QUILL.

>19 CliffBurns:
That would be my preference anyway. I'm a Luddite at heart, pulled kicking and screaming into the iPod/iPhone/Blackberry world.

Os.

Have you ever held papyrus? I wouldn't want to write on it. I sometimes enjoy writing with a dip pen, although I mostly write with a fountain pen or a computer. But I would not like the bother of starting and maintaining a quill.

I don't go around smashing ballpoints, though, so I think I am not a luddite.

Robert

>21 Mr.Durick:
As long as I never actually do it, I can continue to enjoy this little conceit. :-) However, a quality dip pen on good rag paper I could probably enjoy. The regular pause for ink forces one to stop and think, something I tend to do too little of when ripping off another email or LT post.

Os.