This past summer had been a great renaissance of sort for me in that I have listened to way more audiobooks (and podcasts) than I have listened to in a while. Don’t take it the wrong way, I still haven’t been all haven’t been all high brow and fancy. After all I still haven’t been doing a lot of reading with my eyes. Most of the enjoying of books and media has been through my ears.
I listen to audiobooks when I clean up the kitchen at night and when I prepare dinner. I do a little bit of it in the car but my car CD player doesn’t work anymore thanks to Mr. Man getting a little happy with stuffing too many CDs in the CD player at one time. (And really, who am I kidding? Even if the CD player was functioning, I won’t be able to listen to an audiobook for myself while they are awake. Now Arthur’s Halloween, we did listen to that one for weeks on end in the car last fall and I let me tell you, the theme song on that disc is an earworm waiting to happen.)
So what have I been listening to?
Audiobooks:
- Mr. Katie and I listened to the entire His Dark Materials Series on audio at the same time but separately, in that he listened while he was in his car driving and I listened in the house. The book series consists of three books: The Golden Compass, The Subtle Knife, and The Amber Spy Glass. All together they make one complete, very long story that is amazing. Now I might get some death threats for saying this but the His Dark Materials books are like the Harry Potter stories if those books where better told, more imaginative and with more to chew on for adult readers. (I loved Harry Potter but His Dark Materials are better). The main character of His Dark Materials is a twelve year old girl, who like Harry, has prophesies surrounding her. The narrative contains both political and religious allegorical elements but these facets never bog the story down. The series’s author, Philip Pullman, like JK Rowling,is also British and both series were published around the same time. Currently, the His Dark Materials books are being made into a series for HBO that will be coming to HBO on November 3rd. The audiobooks are great because they are recorded with a full cast, not just one reader! Additionally, listening to the same books at the same time as Mr. Katie also gave way to some fun discussions about not only the plot of the book but the nature of reality and other fun “deep” conversations.
- Mr. Katie and I also listened to The Book of Dust also by Philip Pullman. This title is the first book in a new trilogy that is the “equal but not sequel” to His Dark Materials. It was read by Michael Sheen. It was a little hard to get used to listening to one person read a book after listening to three books that were recorded with a full cast but Mr. Sheen did a great job. I actually finished this book by reading the last quarter of it on an airplane since the CD player in our kitchen also broke. I loved Malcolm Polstead, the protagonist, in this book even more than than Lyra His Dark Materials. I also highly recommend it but I won’t recommend it for children; it is definitely young adult and up. It has some violence and some traumatic situations.
- Currently, I am listening to Cuckoo’s Calling by Robert Galbraith, a pseudonym for JK Rowling. It is a 2013 detective novel in the first in a series of novels about the character Cormoran Strike. I am only on the third disk so far but I like it very much. It makes me question myself as to why I don’t read or listen to more mysteries. I love a detective novel.
Podcasts:
- To Live and Die In LA- A true crime podcast about unpacking the facts in a missing person and murder case. I found it addictive when I listened to it.
- Patient Zero: This is a podcast that is still being made about Lyme Disease and the controversy surrounding it. It is made by New Hampshire Public radio, the same people who made one of my favorite podcasts of last year, Bear Brook.
- Room 20: An LA Times Studios podcast about a journalist who is trying to figure out the name and story of a relatively young man who has been in a nursing home since 1999 and is only known by the name Sixty-Six Garage. It deals heavily with immigration issues and Border Security.
- The Clearing: I am currently listening to this one. It is good but can be creepy at times. It is also a true crime podcast. It is about a serial killer, Edward Wayne Edwards, who was tipped off to the police by his oldest daughter, April. In The Clearing, April and Josh Dean, the podcast host, work to figure out what unsolved crimes her father might have also committed and what crimes have been assigned to him by conspiracy theorists. April and Josh Dean are very likeable and mostly the podcast isn’t too uncomfortable. This podcast is made by Gimlet.
That’s all for now. What did you do this past summer?
