What are we listening to? (audiobooks)

[SeaBookGuy]

Less than Angels is one that doesn't interest me much, so I'd be willing to see what the samples of the forthcoming ones are like when available.

[issybird]

Originally Posted by Catlady

Jane and Prudence, No Fond Return of Love, and Some Tame Gazelle are also scheduled for June release. Sadly, like A Glass of Blessings and Less Than Angels, they are all narrated by Mary Sarah. I listened to a sample of her narration of Less Than Angels, and it's horrible. I'm pretty forgiving of less-than-stellar narration, generally, but it's horrible.

I’m not at all forgiving, so I appreciate the caution. Pity. When Excellent Women read by Jayne Entwistle was, uh, excellent.

[Catlady]

Originally Posted by SeaBookGuy

Less than Angels is one that doesn't interest me much, so I'd be willing to see what the samples of the forthcoming ones are like when available.

Originally Posted by issybird

I’m not at all forgiving, so I appreciate the caution. Pity. When Excellent Women read by Jayne Entwistle was, uh, excellent.

I listened to a few other samples of Mary Sarah's narration at Audible, and they didn't seem as bad as Less Than Angels. So maybe I'm being overhasty in condemning her.

I have library holds on Less Than Angels and A Glass of Blessings; I'll force myself to listen.

[taosaur]

Originally Posted by issybird

I had a rocky stretch where I didn’t much care for the books I listened to

I just had two DNFs in a row, but N.K. Jemisin's Inheritance Trilogy seems like a winner. The Tad Williams book I put down was such a slow start, the setting was bog-standard and flavorless, and Andrew Wincott gave it the sing-song treatment. It's possible the long run of Tim Gerard Reynolds narrations had me spoiled. Jemisin's reader, Casaundra Freeman, is solid so far, and her style suits the material.

[SeaBookGuy]

Originally Posted by issybird

I’m not at all forgiving, so I appreciate the caution. Pity. When Excellent Women read by Jayne Entwistle was, uh, excellent.

I'm listening to Excellent Women now. Jayne is such a perfect fit that I don't want the book to end! Still, she's great at being Mildred as a character, so I'm going with her being excellent for this book specifically. I wish they'd just give us the Audible UK books by Patience Tomlinson instead of recording the others again in the U S.

[pwalker8]

Finished up Hero in the Shadows by David Gemmell. Good book, good narration. I'm starting The Anvil, book III of Drake and Stirling's The General series.

[issybird]

Originally Posted by SeaBookGuy

I wish they'd just give us the Audible UK books by Patience Tomlinson instead of recording the others again in the U S.

I’m not all that fussed about geographic restrictions on ebooks, but rights issues in regard to audiobooks can break my heart a bit. As one example, because I know you’re also a fan of Timothy West’s narrations, I discovered he’d narrated several of the George MacDonald Fraser Flashman books which aren’t available in digital audio at all, by West or anyone else. Unfortunately, the model more and more seems to be new recordings released as “Audible exclusives,” which means fewer and fewer of older releases. Generally speaking, my favorite narrators are those who’ve been around for a long time, if they’re still alive at that. I’ll always be glad I bought the Simon Vance narrations of the Aubrey/Maturin books before the rights were pulled, but there are too many other examples of the practice.

[ApK]

I finished "Big Damn Hero" and "Magnificent 9," the first two Firefly books by James Lovegrove. I have the third on pre-order at Audible.

As I mentioned before, the books capture the tone of Firefly well, and the narration is good (This is one series where I wouldn't have minded a full cast performance...as long as it was mostly the original cast....), but the plot and stories are formulaic and predictable. If you're looking for captivating and original stories, and haven't already seen them, I refer you to the Firely TV show and Serenity movie.

To me, listening to these books felt more like hanging out with old friends, happily retelling stories you had probably heard before. I'll probably still enjoy the third book, because hanging out with these old friends can be fun.

The books are all fairly short, easy reads/listens.

Having had my appetite for modernized Old West-style gun-fighting whetted by Firefly, I've just started Elmore Leonard's "Pronto," featuring the character Raylan Givens, who would later be featured in the excellent TV series "Justified."

ApK

[CRussel]

Originally Posted by issybird

I’m not all that fussed about geographic restrictions on ebooks, but rights issues in regard to audiobooks can break my heart a bit.

I couldn't agree more. I did manage to find several narrations at Audible UK that weren't available in North America, but it's still frustrating at times. Of course, at least in part, this has been driven by a lot of consolidation in the industry, which is rarely an unalloyed good.

[issybird]

I recently finished Liza of Lambeth, W. Somerset Maugham’s first novel, novella really, read by Davina Porter and I found it quite gripping. It’s not terribly plotty, but as a slice-of-life account of life from the woman’s perspective in a London slum in the late Victorian era it was very powerful. Maugham was writing from life; it was based on his experiences as a medical student in Lambeth. Porter did a fantastic job with the dialect.

[issybird]

I’d been holding out on the last Sharpe book, Sharpe’s Devil, read by Frederick Davidson, just because they’re such good swim listens. But since swimming’s going to be problematic at best this summer and quite possibly flatly impossible, I decided to go ahead.

Early yet, but I wonder if a story where Cochrane’s a character is a nod to the greatest of all Napoleonic war series, Patrick O’Brian’s Aubrey/Maturin novels? Speaking of which, this was going to be the summer I finished them, the Vance narrations, with two plus the fragment left. I’m only allowed to listen to them in the summer, so do I let them go another year, or do I burn them this year? I don’t have to decide quite yet, as I have a couple of options to explore. It’s obvious, though, my summer daily swim can’t happen.

[CRussel]

Tough decisions, issybird. Of course, you could listen to the remaining Vance versions of the Aubrey/Maturin series, then turn around and start back at the beginning with the Patrick Tull versions. Seriously, though, the lack of swimming is a tough one. I've got my own pool but still can't swim because of my shoulder problems, and I'm very much missing it. (And at this rate, I'll have forgotten everything that happened in my current swimming book, With All Dispatch by Alexander Kent (Douglas Reeman). )

FWIW, we've started working our way through the ITV Sharpe series, with Sean Bean and Daragh O'Malley, on Acorn TV. They start at Sharpe's Rifles.

[SeaBookGuy]

And now for some nonfiction...

Disclaimer: I'm not a Jane-ite. These days I'm really enjoying Jane Austen at Home by Lucy Worsley. Material far from dull with great narration.

[issybird]

Originally Posted by SeaBookGuy

And now for some nonfiction...

Disclaimer: I'm not a Jane-ite. These days I'm really enjoying Jane Austen at Home by Lucy Worsley. Material far from dull with great narration.

Lucy Worsley writes fun books. I greatly enjoyed her The Courtiers: Splendor and Intrigue in the Georgian Court at Kensington Palace , read by Heather Wilds. Is it the same narrator?

[SeaBookGuy]

Originally Posted by issybird

Lucy Worsley writes fun books. I greatly enjoyed her The Courtiers: Splendor and Intrigue in the Georgian Court at Kensington Palace , read by Heather Wilds. Is it the same narrator?

This one is narrated by Ruth Redman. I liked Worsley's If These Walls Could Talk.