Hey, I'm leaving on Wednesday afternoon and driving down to Charlotte, NC, which is a seven hour drive minimum even in non-Christmas Eve conditions. I'm going to download a book on tape or two to my iphone and am open to suggestions.
Something beach-read-y would probably be perfect. If I don't get a suggestion I like more, I may get Harry Potter 6 since the movie is coming out, but I'd like to do something I haven't read. At the same time, it needs to be amusing enough to make me not hate life when I'm stuck in traffic.
Suggestions welcome.
I like mysteries, soft sci-fi and contemporary fiction, not so much the romance fan.
For non-fiction it would have to be, like, Freakonomics-level entertaining.
CC
14 comments:
I'm a big fan of the Harry Potter and LOTR books on tape. (I've never read the Harry Potter novels, but I have listened to the whole series on long drives.)
I also really liked PD James's "The Lighthouse." I seem to prefer British actors for my books on tape, apparently!
(I'm also going to spy on your bleg, since I need an audiobook for my own Christmas travels.)
I highly recommend the Harry Potter books, and am grateful (relieved?) to see that Philocrites said the same.
I don't know if it's available as a download, but I have a book on tape of John Cleese as Screwtape in the Screwtape Letters. He does the perfect British Bureaucrat voice, which is perfect for Screwtape.
As long as we're on the British actors kick, Sean Connery narating Peter and the Wolf is amazingly good, too.
Is the soundtrack of the Johnny Depp version of Sweeney Todd available yet?
I'll piggyback on Philo's recommendations on fiction.
The non-fiction that might meet that high standard you've set--that I've actually listened to--are "Blink" and "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle." Oh, and "A Short History of Nearly Everything" (hard to beat the description of just how brilliant Newton was, coupled with how stark raving bonkers he was--poking around one's eye socket with a bodkin to see what happened. And lucky, too--no apparent harm done...).
Eww!!! Eww!! Eww!!!
CC
who has a little thing about eyes.
Ps. I've read Blink. I'm not sure I bought what it was selling, but it was a fun read.
The Graveyard Book, as read by the author with an awesome version of Danse Macabre on banjo by Bela Fleck.
Great book, great music, where can you go wrong?
Oh, the author is Neil Gaiman. Forgot to mention that part.
Or John Hodgman narrating his "The Areas of My Expertise" should be pretty good.
Or anything by Sarah Vowell, who gets great people to read her stuff. "Assassination Vacation" or "The Wordy Shipmates" are good places to start.
I'll stop now.
I can't remember if you've said whether you like Terry Pratchett or not. He gets lots of good readers for his novels.
If you are in the mood, Harvard's Memorial Church puts the sermons of its minister, the Rev. Peter Gomes, available as MP3s online. Gomes is a Christian and the sermons reflect that, but UUs comfortable with the Christian tradition will not feel excluded. If you like a good sermon, these are good ones. Each sermon is about 15-25 minutes long.
Alternatively, I find that celebrity memoirs -- perhaps of the sort that you ordinarily wouldn't be caught dead reading -- make great road trip listening. (Although Barbara Walters reading her own memoir might be a little much even for me.)
If you haven't read any of the Dresden Files series (or even if you have) I recommend the taped version, as read by the ever popular (with geekdom, at least) James Marsters.
I have the same "little thing about eyes."
I was thinking of Terry Pratchett too. Anything of his is good, and funny, but his best book is Small Gods.
Maybe Another Roadside Attraction, though I have no idea if it's on tape. It's by, it's by, what was his name? He, I think, also wrote Even Cowgirls Get the Blues. Tim Robins?
Tom Robbins. "Skinny Legs and All" is pretty good, too.
For the record, the bit about Newton caused a complete eeeeuuuuw, yuck! in the van when the boys and I heard it. *shudder*
But you've got to admit that as a way of affirming that Newton was quite mad (mercury level in his hair may explain why) even though he was stunningly smart--was brilliant. Everyone got it, and it didn't have to be argued further or expanded upon to confirm it.
Mad. As. A. Hatter.
Thanks for doing this--I'm going to look for The Graveyard Book, too. I'm a Gaiman fan...
Would you believe that the word verification for this post is "eyepok"?
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