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Fever Crumb by Philip Reeve
Reader: Philip Reeve
Extras: Unpublished excerpt and discussion by author about the origins of the story.Short Review: Imaginative and original steampunk story set in a distant future London and beautifully read by the author.
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Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert
Reader: Elizabeth Gilbert
Short Review: Stunning memoir of a year in the life of a woman finding her way back to a life she wants to live. Beautifully read by the author. This one will stick with me for a long long time.
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Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman
Reader: Neil Gaiman
Short Review: One of my favorite urban fantasies, read expertly by the author. -
A Mercy by Toni Morrison
Reader: Toni Morrison
Short Review: A beautiful book, but difficult to listen to at times. Dr. Morrison is a wonderful reader in small doses, but perhaps should have handed this book over to a pro to read in its entirety.
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Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim by David Sedaris
Reader: David Sedaris
Short review: One of Sedaris’ best books of essays and stories, read tenderly and hilariously and scathingly by the author. Several pieces are live performances, and many of them are downright great.
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Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris
Reader: David Sedaris
Short Review: Sedaris’ funny, self-deprecating, heart-breaking stories about moving to France with his partner Hugh, learning French, his family, and his own flaws and experiences. The author reads his own work in his distinctive voice, never flinching as he excoriates himself either in front of a live audience or alone in a studio. Sedaris is an amazing, brave writer and reader. I’ve listened to this particular book three or four times, and I know I’ll keep returning to it.
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Anathem by Neal Stephenson
Reader: Oliver Wyman, Tavia Gilbert, William Dufris, Neal Stephenson
Short Review: A pretty good but overly long book from one of my favorite authors, read less-than-ideally. This alternate future tale depicts a world where the intellectual elite are forcibly cloistered in pseudo-monastic communities around the world where they’re free to think and learn but denied access to many technologies and to “saecular,” (i.e., non-intellectual) society. The protagonist Fraa Erasmus is layered and likeable, but the book could stand to lose a couple of hundred pages and the narration isn’t as good as it should be. In this instance, I think I would have preferred the paper book to the audio book.
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Coraline by Neil Gaiman
Author: Neil Gaiman
Reader: Neil Gaiman
Short Review: A stunning story beautifully read by the author. Coraline’s boredom leads her to a place just beyond our reality. What at first seems just odd and fun becomes creepy and worth escape, but only by delicate inches. Gaiman’s voice lulls and tantalizes. He is just so good at painting images with the combination of words and his own voice.
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The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman
Reader: Neil Gaiman
Short Review: Neil Gaiman reads his Newbery Medal winning book beautifully. His nod to Kipling’s The Jungle Book is just scary enough, intriguing, inventive, well-written, enchanting . . . it’s downright wonderful. I loved Bod, Silas, Scarlett, Liza, Miss Lupescu, and the rest of the graveyard’s denizens and rooted for them throughout the story. I miss them. I’ll return to this book again and recommend it to adults and kids.
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Fragile Things: Stories Fictions and Wonders by Neil Gaiman
Read by: Neil Gaiman
Short Review: A solid book of short stories read beautifully by the author.
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The Amber Spyglass by Philip Pullman
Short Review: The third and final book in a wonderful trilogy, well-read by the author and a full cast.
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The Subtle Knife by Philip Pullman
His Dark Materials, Book Two: The Subtle Knife
Author: Philip Pullman
Reader: Philip Pullman and a full cast
Short Review: Like The Golden Compass, this is a wonderful adventure told by a surprisingly-talented author-narrator and a full cast. The book is a bit less fantastic, in a sense, because some of it is set in our world, but no less enjoyable.
