Read Me a Story, Part 2

When I took a job 19 years ago that required me to commute 30 minutes one way, I began checking out books on CD from my local library.  My road rage went down and sitting in traffic was less annoying if I was listening to a book.  With the innovation of downloadable audio books (also from my library) and a smart phone, I discovered even more opportunities for listening.  Now, when I walk most mornings, I plug in my ear buds and hit play in Overdrive (the app that communicates with my library) and I’m off.  Thanks to modern technology (again, my smartphone), I can continue my book when I am driving (as it syncs to my car) and while I’m cooking or painting.  In this way, I usually finish an audio book in a week or two, part of my secret of reading so many books in a year.

As to that, I long ago quit thinking about whether listening to a book really constitutes “reading” it.  It’s true that it is a different experience than turning a physical page or swiping on my Kindle.  It’s hard to go back and find a passage from earlier and impossible to highlight or write margin notes.  For those reasons, I generally don’t listen to a book that my book group will be discussing, but for pure pleasure, having a professional reader essentially tell you a story is wonderful.

The quality of the reader is definitely an issue and I have returned some books without finishing them because the reader was so grating or too monotone.  There are writers who insist on reading their own work and generally, I have found that to be a bad idea.  One exception is David Sedaris, a humorist writer of essays and short stories.  Sedaris isn’t everyone’s taste; he drops the f-word frequently and he is unapologetically gay (so if that bothers you, skip forward), but I think it’s hard to find someone who tells a better story and he makes you laugh out loud.  Having discovered his audible books, I would not conventionally read one; he’s just that good with his voice.  Another author who reads his own work is Bill Bryson, the travel author.  I recently listened to In a Sunburned Country, his book about his travels in Australia.  Bryson is rather dry – not unlike much of Australia’s landscape, as it turns out – but he also makes frequent understated observations that, with his delivery, can also make you chuckle aloud.  A third writer who narrates her own books that I listened to this year is Donna Tartt (My Secret History).  Tartt has a soft, Southern accent that I initially found at odds with her setting of an elite New England college, but she grew on me.  I got lost in her story and forgot she was there.

Most authors hand their work over to actors or professional readers.  One of the best books that I listened to this year was a science fiction novel by Ernest Kline entitled Ready, Player One.  The novel was read by professional actor Wil Wheaton (Wesley Crusher on “Star Trek, the Next Generation” and a recurrent role as himself on “The Big Bang Theory” ) and, in addition to the great voice acting, Wheaton was a particularly good choice for Kline’s allusions to space movies and t.v. shows, creating inside jokes for sci-fi fans. 

It is fun to begin listening to a book and realize that you recognize the voice – not because the reader is famous or a friend, but because the voice has told you other stories.  I quite coincidentally listened to two books narrated by Rebecca Lowman within a month of each other:  Curtis Sittenfeld’s Sisterland and Rainbow Rowell’s Eleanor and Park.  The latter actually alternated two voices, Lowman’s and that of a male reader, each portraying one of the title characters.  The Mare, a novel by Mary Gaitskill that I have written about before, is read by four different voices, a technique that emphasizes the different points of view offered in the novel and which works to help you keep the narration straight without the benefit of written chapter titles in front of you.

And then, having stumbled upon a series via audio book and loved the reader, I find that I want to listen to the next one too.  Such is the case with Alan Bradley’s series featuring 11 year-old sleuth Flavia DeLuce.  Jayne Entwistle, who I am guessing is a 20-something British woman, perfectly captures the whimsy and wonder of young Flavia’s voice.   One of my favorite listens this year was Fredrik Backman’s My Grandmother Asked Me To Tell You She’s Sorry.  His reader, Joan Walker, also narrates his newest, Britte-Marie Was Here.  She’s quite good with the interior contemplations of her protagonists, reflecting their angst, their joy and their revelations about themselves.

When my daughters were children, I read them to every night, usually for 45 minutes to an hour.  We started with picture books, moved on to the multiple adventures of the Magic Tree house kids and on to the complete Harry Potter series. We bought audio books for long car trips (first as cassettes and then as CDs – we had all of Harry Potter in both versions).  I credit this nighttime reading as well as the excellent voice of Jim Dale (“This is Listening Library. . .”) with enthusing my youngest daughter with a true love of listening to books.  She has her own Audible Account (where you pay for books rather than borrowing them) and – don’t tell – she’s shared her password with me.  My 83 year-old mother visits “the old people” in nursing homes each week and she brings along books to read to them.  Even though she was never a teacher, she reads like a veteran first grade educator, doing voices, and I think she enjoys the experience as much as her listeners. My conclusion?  It doesn’t matter how old you are – hearing a good book is good for the soul.