Author: 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.

Long Review: Narrated by the author, this book carries you away with her on a very private journey of self discovery and healing. Not everyone should read their own books – Elizabeth Gilbert is one of that rare group who can both craft beautiful and expressive language while also bringing those words to life through their reading.

I don’t listen to a lot of non-fiction, but I had heard so much about this book that when I spotted it at the library it caught my eye. I listened to the first third of the first disk that afternoon – right up until a scratch on the CD made me stop. It took a few months until I managed to get my hands on a fresh copy (this time as a download from the library), but those first 20 minutes never left me. There was no way I wasn’t going to find a way to hear the rest of this story.

The basics are fairly well known. A woman has a life crisis and launches herself on a trip set for a year of personal exploration. She starts in Rome – eating her way through some of the richest food on the planet. Four months later she has gained back all the weight she had lost in her grief and become fluent in Italian. Next she travels to India to live, pray and meditate at a remote ashram for four months. Finally she travels to Bali in Indonesia for her final four months to find balance.

I have been lucky enough to travel a fair bit (I have been to both Rome and Bali, but never India) and Gilbert’s descriptions of people and places and the journey itself brought back many of my favorite travel memories. It made me want to dig up the journals I wrote during that time in my life and wish I still managed to record thoughts in the same way. It made me want to check the prices on flights to Rome.

Gilbert shares all of the journey – from the details of what she felt at the very depth of her depression to the exultation she experienced eating the best pizza in the world, and everything in between. I don’t know what it would have been like to hear someone other than Gilbert read these words. I loved hearing all the accents and rhythms of speech. I figure that she was there, so she is the best one to recreate it for us. I also can’t imagine reading this on paper. So much of the flavor of the sounds she added in the recording with her voice would have been lost to me. By the end of the book, I felt like she was an old friend who had just finished telling me her best stories of her year abroad.

Is this a book you will enjoy? Well, it talks a lot about feelings and meditation and finding your way to joy. It does describe her travels to Italy, India and Indonesia – but it is much more of a memoir than a travel book. Have you suffered a broken heart? Have you wondered about meditation? Have you wished for a path to a more joyful existence? Have you ever fallen in love with a language just for the sake of trying something new? If so, I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

Still not sure? There is an audio sample available online for your consideration.

 Author: 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.

Long Review: I adore Sedaris’ stories. I learned of his work listening to his pieces on NPR’s This American Life. I’ve read several of his books on paper, but because I fell for this writer reading his own work, I truly prefer his audiobooks to their paper siblings.

There are a few real standouts in the book. My favorites are “Me Talk Pretty One Day,” a description of his traumatic time in a French class taught by a heartless misanthrope; “Jesus Shaves,” a recounting of his French class’ strange discussion about how holidays are celebrated in their home countries; “A Shiner Like a Diamond,” about his sister Amy’s habit of transforming herself into strange characters and how it tortures their father; “The Youth in Asia,” about the Sedaris family’s relationship to their pets; and “I’ll Eat What He’s Wearing,” about his father’s strange views on food and frugality.

Some listeners may be put off by some of Sedaris’ topics. He openly discusses some medical and dental issues that may gross out the delicate. He’s gay and out, and there are some people who still take offense at that for whatever reason, though I doubt they’d settle on Sedaris’ work for entertainment in the first place. And he openly discusses some very self-destructive drug use when he was a student. None of those things throw me, though. It’s his honesty that makes me love Sedaris’ work so much, and I have a deep-seated appreciation for people who describe their faults without hesitation.

Into Thin Air

Author: Jon Krakauer

Read by: Jon Krakauer

Short Review: An author-narrated memoir of one of the most tragic seasons on Mt. Everest.

Long Review: This book was highly recommended to me by a family member, and I was very curious to literally hear the tale in the author’s own voice. Anyone familiar with the story of that tragic season on Everest is familiar with the controversy surrounding the actions of the guide companies and some of the climbers, and the flak that Krakauer himself has received. I’m certainly no expert on climbing, Everest, the 1996 tragedies, or on the validity of Krakauer’s version of events, but the book itself was riveting and seemed believable throughout.

I know some audio book fans aren’t particularly fond of author-read material, but I think it’s absolutely vital in this instance. Krakauer’s book is intensely personal in parts, and reliant on journalistic integrity and accuracy in others. Throughout, his grasp of the facts is vital–speaking for his own work as a journalist is one of those acts of bravery any non-fiction writer should face. But the personal material is even more important to transmit in his own voice. In the book, Krakauer recounts his friendship with several of the people on the 1996 climb, his own role and experiences on the climb, his work for Outside magazine, his own survivor’s guilt–and none of it would have rung as true in another person’s voice.

That said, he’s not a professional actor or speaker. Krakauer doesn’t have a Voice voice. But he does a great job all the same. His pacing is good, he’s careful in pronouncing names and words that come from other languages, and he is meticulous when he reads the really important bits–facts about elevation sickness, oxygen tanks, times and messages, historical material, and the like. At no point did I feel like his voice or pacing was keeping me from taking in the material.

Overall, I came away from the book pretty impressed by Krakauer’s honesty and his reporting skills. He’s critical of several of the guides and climbers who were on that mountain with him, but he’s intensely critical of himself as well. I’m glad to have heard his story, and have no ambition whatsoever to court that level of danger on a mountain anytime soon.