#20(Audio)BooksOfSummer Round-Up
I did it! I did it!! 20 audiobooks, all listened to, all reviewed!!! I succeeded at a challenge!!!! I’m running out of exclamation marks!!!!!
So before we get to the books, what have I learned from this harrowing wonderful experience?
1. I prefer male narrators to female on the whole. This is not actually sexism. There is no doubt that my hearing isn’t as sharp as it once was, and I find the lower voices of male narrators easier to hear clearly. Why this should be I don’t know, but ‘tis so. More mature female voices that have deepened work fine too – Jilly Bond, Joan Hickson, Diana Bishop are some of the ones I’ve hugely enjoyed during the challenge. High-voiced young actresses irritate my ears – sorry, ladies!
2. I prefer proper old-school actors as narrators, who have been trained to enunciate clearly. Authentic dialects, authentic drunken mumbling, authentic whispering – all fine, so long as the actor remembers that the listener needs to be able to make out what is being said!
3 . Fast-paced books with simple plots work fine as audiobooks, as do slow-paced books with intricate plots. But slow-paced books with simple plots send me to sleep, while fast-paced books with intricate plots require far better levels of concentration than I have!
4. Listening to a much loved book read by a great narrator is one of the finest pleasures this life can afford! Take a bow, Ian Carmichael, Timothy West, Hugh Fraser, Steven Crossley, Jonathan Cecil!
5. The final takeaway – listening to audiobooks for a minimum of two hours a day basically does my head in. I think that’s the technical term. I never want to repeat the experience as long as I live, or even in Paradise or… anywhere else I might end up after I’m dead. Never. I remember the wonderful comedian Dara O’Briain doing a monologue on the use of the word “Listen” and how it often portends no good. To his list, I’d add that the word “Listen” has now taken on horror aspects for me – as if I am submitting myself and my poor innocent ears to self-inflicted and unnecessary torture. Half an hour – enjoyable. An hour – bearable. Two hours – cruel and unusual punishment!
Warning: Dara uses some strong language…
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I made a couple of changes to the list along the way, so here’s the final version, in ascending order:
Disappointing
The Power and the Glory by Graham Greene read by Andrew Sachs
The Rendezvous and Other Stories by Daphne du Maurier read by Edward de Souza
Cover Her Face by PD James read by Daniel Weyman
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Okay
Pied Piper by Nevil Shute read by David Rintoul
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Good
Rumpole’s Return by John Mortimer read by Robert Hardy
Notes on a Scandal by Zoë Heller read by Jilly Bond
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Very Good
The Flemish House by Georges Simenon read by Gareth Armstrong
The Woodlanders by Thomas Hardy read by Samuel West
The Misty Harbour by Georges Simenon read by Gareth Armstrong
By the Pricking of My Thumbs by Agatha Christie read by Hugh Fraser
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Excellent
Heartstone by CJ Sansom read by Steven Crossley
N or M? by Agatha Christie read by Hugh Fraser
The Mating Season by PG Wodehouse read by Jonathan Cecil
Silas Marner by George Eliot read by Andrew Sachs
Rain and Other Stories by W Somerset Maugham read by Steven Crossley
Latter End by Patricia Wentworth read by Diana Bishop
Three Men in a Boat by Jerome K Jerome read by Ian Carmichael
A Pocket Full of Rye by Agatha Christie read by Joan Hickson
The Quiet American by Graham Greene read by Simon Cadell
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Book of the Summer!
The Warden by Anthony Trollope read by Timothy West
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