What are we listening to? (audiobooks)

[ApK]

I'm commuting by train again after many years, and thought that would mean I'd be back to eye-reading rather that ear-reading audiobooks. But it turns out that with transfers, I'm getting on and off trains too frequently to get settled and immersed in a book, so it looks like it's going to still be audio for a while.

I'm between books right now. Neither 'Recovery Man' nor 'Ark Royal'* hooked me enough to pay money to continue the series.
I think I'm next going to listen to the free shorts from Audible I found here:
https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...58#post3217509

ApK

* Having just finished 'Ark Royal,' and having been prompted thereby to read about the various real British ships of that name, I was rather tickled to be watching an old James Bond movie the other day and learn that 007 served on Ark Royal. I did not know that. I wonder if that was established in any of the books?

[WT Sharpe]

I just finished Three to Get Deadly by Janet Evanovich (audiobook read by C.J. Critt) and enjoyed it immensely, although by now Stephanie Plum's reluctance to admit her attraction to Morelli has reached the stage where she more resembles a tease than a woman unsure of her own emotions. I wasn't surprised when at one point Morelli told her she wasn't worth it. But that aside, I have a real question for long time fans:

Spoiler:

Did I miss something, or did she leave Ranger hanging in the breeze at the end of this one? Sure, he said he'd handled similar situations like that in the past, but the last I saw of him he was in the house that Stephanie & co. saw being blown up. Then in the next and final chapter, everything is back to being hunky-dory in Plumville, or at least as hunky-dory as things ever are in her life, and there's no mention of Ranger's fate. And the Rangers football team is playing on the telly. Is this a tease on the part of the author? Of course, I know he survived, I peeked far enough ahead into the next book to settle my mind on that question, but what was she doing here? Did I skip something?

[CRussel]

WT Sharpe: I promise, the more you read Janet Evanovich, the more each one seems like all the others. and your spoiler question will come around again, and again, and again, for various flavours of essentially the same question.

I found the books hilariously funny for the first few, then still enjoyable for the next few, and finally gave up around #9 or #10. Nothing ever changes for Stephanie. Or rather, the more it changes, the more it stays the same.

[silverraven]

I think I gave it up at 10. I love the other characters in her books, especially Grandma, but I felt they got kinda repetitive.
Any longer time listeners, does this change? Or just more of the same ole same ole?
S

[badgoodDeb]

I picked up book #12, started again at the beginning, (the books, not audio) and got a bit jaded after #2. I see I didn't even write them down in my "Books I've Read" list. Only #12 appears in that file. Sigh. Slightly fun, but .....

[issybird]

Originally Posted by issybird

I've started John Quincy Adams by Harley Giles Unger, and the early indications are that this will be merely okay.

Yep. Just okay. The reading was marred by mispronunciations. I suppose I should overlook mispronouncing Elbridge Gerry and Haverhill, but quay?

On a happier note, I've started Captain Blood by Rafael Sabatini, read by Robert Whitfield, aka Simon Vance. This bodes to be a rip-roaring listen. While I wouldn't quite say I'd listen to anything Vance read, as he's got a colossal audiography (the Millennium series, ugh), it's always a huge plus!

[rjcchan]

Captain Blood was one of my favorite books as a kid.

Why do these readers have "stagenames" if they use their regular names anyways?

[rjcchan]

Thanks for mentioning this one. It and Scaramouche..also by Sabatini...and also read by Vance....are available as whispersync deals.

[ApK]

Originally Posted by rjcchan

Captain Blood was one of my favorite books as a kid.

Why do these readers have "stagenames" if they use their regular names anyways?

Same reasons some authors do.
Sometimes it was originally to conceal identity, then when that was no longer an issue, the name was already known out in the industry, or had a following.
Sometimes it's to maintain different "brands" with different reputations for different genres. Sometimes for various business reasons.
Perhaps someone who actually uses a nom de plume can chime in with their reasons.

[CRussel]

I don't use multiple names, but my DW deliberately used her maiden name to allow us to look like we weren't a married couple, just collaborating authors. And because, of course, she'd always used that name, and saw no particular need to change it.

I know in the case of some readers the multiple names was to keep different audio publishers separated. So BOT got Donada Peters, but Wanda McCaddon was used for a different publisher.

[WT Sharpe]

Originally Posted by CRussel

WT Sharpe: I promise, the more you read Janet Evanovich, the more each one seems like all the others. and your spoiler question will come around again, and again, and again, for various flavours of essentially the same question....

So, essentially, what you're saying is that she has a bad habit of not always cleaning up properly behind herself; that she frequently leaves threads hanging.

[pwalker8]

Just finished up Brian Daley's "Requiem for a Ruler of Worlds", the first of the Adventures of Alacrity Fitzhugh and Hobart Floyt". I was pleased with the narrator, one Brian Holspopple, which was a bit of a surprised given that I didn't care for the narrator in Daley's Coramonde series. All in all, well worth the listen.

Next up, Patricia Bray's The First Betrayal.

[booklover6]

Listening to Flesh and Bone by Jonathan Maberry. Some really creepy characters in this one.

[CRussel]

Originally Posted by WT Sharpe

So, essentially, what you're saying is that she has a bad habit of not always cleaning up properly behind herself; that she frequently leaves threads hanging.

Actually, more that she repeats the threads over and over and over, with slight variations on the same theme. It's like she's reading from a Chinese restaurant menu -- one from column A, two from column B, etc.

[issybird]

Originally Posted by issybird

On a happier note, I've started Captain Blood by Rafael Sabatini, read by Robert Whitfield, aka Simon Vance. This bodes to be a rip-roaring listen.

This was great fun and highly recommended for anyone with a taste for swashbuckling tales of yesteryear. I don't know how I missed this one out in my adolescence, when I would have eaten it up. Now I'm quite aware of how preposterous and predictable it is, but I loved it anyway. This is the type of book that keeps you exercising just that bit longer.