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.
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.
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.
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.
Coraline
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.
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.
Posted: February 25th, 2009 ˑ
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Filled under:
Audio Books Read By The Author,
Award Winning Audio Books,
Best Audio Books,
Children's Audio Books,
Fantasy Audio Books,
Intrigue Audio Books,
Mystery Audio Books,
Mythology Audio Books,
Vampire Audio Books,
Young Adult Audio Books
Read by: Neil Gaiman
Short Review: A solid book of short stories read beautifully by the author.
Short Review: The third and final book in a wonderful trilogy, well-read by the author and a full cast.
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.
His Dark Materials, Book I: The Golden Compass
Author: Philip Pullman
Reader: Philip Pullman and a full cast
Short Review: A fantastic tale of adventure, rebellion, childhood, growth, and bears told by a surprisingly-talented author-narrator and a full cast.
Long …
Read by: Neil Gaiman
Short Review: An assortment of magical trips into assorted Gaiman worlds in the form of short stories and poem, all narrated by the gentle cadences of the authors voice.
Read by: Jon Krakauer
Short Review: An author-narrated memoir of one of the most tragic seasons on Mt. Everest.