Moving On, or, Going Out with a Bang

I finally closed my Audible account. At $14.95 a month, I decided it was a luxury I should forgo for now. I used my remaining 4 credits to buy:

• A Christmas Carol (narrated by Jim Dale)
• Macbeth: A Novel (narrated by Alan Cumming)
• Our Mutual Friend (Charles Dickens)
• Around the World in 80 Days (narrated by Jim Dale)

I feel like I'm listening to a Harry Potter book whenever I listen to Jim Dale, but I still love him

I also purchased two sale books:

• Adventures of Huckleberry Finn ($6, narrated by Elijah Wood)
• The Poisoner's Handbook: Murder and the Birth of Forensic Medicine in Jazz Age New York (I think the narration and production are not top quality, but it was only $1.20)

These ought to keep my busy for a while, or at least they will once I run out of audiobooks to borrow from the library!

Christmas = Road Trip =

... AUDIOBOOKS! My excitement about seeing my family, particularly Niece #3 and Nephew #1, is only slightly surpassed by the excitement of knowing I'll have 22 hours in which to listen to any of the following:

The Private Patient - P.D. James

When Will There Be Good News? - Kate Atkinson

Second Glance - Jodi Picoult

The Laughter of Dead Kings - Elizabeth Peters

Eat, Pray, Love - Elizabeth Gilbert

I'm still in a real print slump, but I'm all for audio!

Enough is Enough

I love* my public library, but three trips in one day is a bit much, even for me. Here's how it went down:

I stopped at lunch time to pick up a hold (Blue Balliett's The Calder Game), and at the same time returned two audiobooks (visit 1). Then I motored on down the street to UPS and the post office, where I opened another book in the car and discovered one of the discs from a book I had just returned.

So, after the post office I headed back to the library for visit 2 to return the errant disc. While there, I decided to ditch the J.A. Jance I was listening to (terrible narrator, stiff writing and boring story) in favor of another Val McDermid.

However, while later ripping the cd to put on my mp3 player, I found that half of disc 3 is unplayable, thus necessitating visit 3 to pick up the print copy (we don't have it at work).

I really can't complain much, however, since on all 3 visits I managed to snag a precious spot in the curbside 30 min parking, rather than having to venture into the dreaded parking garage (had to go around the block once on visit 3 to wait for a spot to open).

BTW, I finished 8 books in July, the most in a month since I started keeping track again last year. It helped that two of them were short YA's and one was Eclipse, which I started a long time ago. But still...


*Well ok, I love the idea of a PL. My feelings for my current PL are firmly in the "like" zone.

46 to ?

You may remember that I told you I read 46 books last year. In my week of doing nothing, I managed to watch 4 episodes of Veronica Mars (and one L&O) on one weeknight, and I read a novel on another night (Michael Connelly's City of Bones).

I started the book soon after arriving home from work, probably at 5pm or so. I was done and ready to go to bed at midnight or so, a fairly acceptable bedtime if you discount my plans for the summer.

This got me thinking. I could potentially raise that 46 to about 260 if I did nothing but come home every weekday and read a book. Actually, if I threw in the audiobooks I listened to, the number would be even higher (btw, I'm in a bit of an audiobook funk right now. I can't find anything else at MTSU I want to listen to, and I've exhausted all the Jodi Picoult audios at the PL...).

Audio Bliss

I'm driving to Texas on Saturday. The prospect of a 12 hour drive isn't that thrilling, but I'll tell you what is: 36 hours worth of jolly good audiobooks. It's been a long dry stretch, having tried and rejected several duds in the past month, but I'm now restocked and ready to go. Here's what's on the playlist:

The Good Husband of Zebra Drive - Alexander McCall Smith
Lincoln Lawyer - Michael Connelly
Kafka on the Shore - Haruki Murakami

I've listened to enough of all three to know they'll be winners. (Well, I'm not sure about Kafka, but I liked the first chapter. We'll have to see where it goes from there.)

In case you're interested, here are the rejects, and why I rejected them. I really should have known better, but I figured they were worth a try:

I Heard that Song Before - Mary Higgins Clark
Double Take - Catherine Coulter
True Evil - Greg Iles

I've perhaps said before that I have a higher tolerance for a bad read in print than I do on audio. I think because for me it takes more concentration to listen than to read. If I'm reading and my mind drifts, I can easily skip back to what I missed. It's more trouble to do that with an audiobook.

And the performer can really make or break an audiobook. True Evil is read by Dick Hill, a popular award-winning performer, but I just didn't like his characters. Double Take is performed by a man and woman, and I usually don't like multi-cast books--the transitions between characters are too abrupt for me, though I'm probably in the minority on this one. Finally, despite these authors' popularity, I don't think any of them are great writers, and the writing was too distracting for me to enjoy the book.

You can check out my list of recently read books for other audiobooks I've enjoyed (since we just established that I'm not going to finish it if I don't enjoy it).

On My Wish List

Check this out: a self-contained audio book, smaller than a deck of cards.

If any of you visit Barnes & Noble, Borders, or Brookstone and see one, let me know. Or maybe you'll be lucky enough to have your public library buy some . . .

Actually, some of you are lucky enough to be able to get these at your public library. Check out page 7 of this .pdf newsletter for a picture of someone listening to Hoot. I'm jealous!

The Life of a Librarian

I don't have much to report, but figured I ought to say something! Over the weekend I went south for a last visit with Curly and Sweetpea, who are both just as adorable as ever. Alas, I forgot to take my camera, so you'll just have to take my word on the adorable part.

Work progresses well, if quietly. I have a few projects to work on, and I'm working about 25 hours a week, so I'm happy.

Progress on the move is non-existent. Still no contract in my mailbox, and I'm burying my head in the sand about packing and moving. If you know the way I live and the amount of Stuff I have, you understand my reaction.

On a happy note, I happened across a fabulous find last week while browsing for an audiobook at the Plano library. On a whim, I picked up The Pale Blue Eye just because the cover looked good and it was billed as a mystery. Well, it turned out to be top rate. Audiobooks can be tricky, because the performer can ruin or redeem a great or lousy book. In this case, it was a perfect match. I often have difficulty listening to male performers in the car because their voices are so low that they are hard to hear clearly. Not so here. The mystery is set at West Point in 1830, and features Edgar A. Poe as a young cadet enlisted to help a retired New York City constable investigate the suicide and subsequent mutilation of another cadet. Despite the old-fashioned setting, the performer sounds straight out of the 21st century, and it's a nice fit. The story and writing are also top notch, and I recommend it to any mystery lovers in the audience. It's one of those books that has an unforeseen twist at the end, and for once, the twist actually works.

All Good Things . . .

Today is my last day at UNT, though if I don't quit fooling with my blog and get back to work, it's going to be a l-o-n-g day. One thing this means is that I will have few opportunities to listen to audiobooks in the car. It's good timing though, since I'm almost through the current book, with no new ones on the immediate horizon.

The other thing this means is that my library item count will be back to a less-inflated number--15 once I turn in the two I still have from UNT. Guess that's good--I need all the shelf space I can get at home!

Severe Crisis

It's 1 am and I really have to get home from work and to bed, so I can return in less than 9 hours. However, I was just thrown into an absolute catastrophe, so I had to stop and tell you.

While I wasn't looking, THREE of my audiobook holds at the library came in, and all three are waiting to be picked up. How on earth am I supposed to listen to four audio books in the space of three weeks? (I'm already on Disc Two of Anne of Green Gables.)

On top of that, one of the books is a sequel to Night Work, and if you've been paying attention to the sidebar, I've been sitting in the middle of that for weeks.

5 minutes later:

Oh, cancel that. I looked more closely at my account before I finished this post, and only one of the three is an audio. The other two are print versions of The Fourth Bear and Break No Bones. That's much better. I didn't really plan on reading those two anyway, because I'm on the list to get both audios. But I'll pick them up anyway, and we'll see what happens.

It's obvious that 1) I need some sleep and 2) work is starting to interfere with my "real" life.

Disappointments: A Short List (Revised)

• Reaching into the box of Nature Valley Chewy Trail Mix Bars in the backseat of the car to retrieve a snack, only to realize the box is empty.


• Spending a dollar on a soda from the vending machine, thinking the drink will be colder than the can I put in the refrigerator a couple of hours ago, only to find out that the machine soda is much warmer.


• Coming to the end of a fabulous audio book, with nothing to listen to after.

Audio-less

Did you notice that the Off the Shelf feature in the right hand pane shows I am currently without an audiobook? I'm not very happy about it. Despite diligent catalog perusing and careful management of my hold list, I'm currently stuck waiting for even one of my library holds to come in. Of course, I know that when one comes in, it will arrive along with one or two more, so that I won't be able to listen to them all in the checkout period. Although I've been known to read more than one book at a time, listening is a different matter.

Of course, you think that with my healthy-sized cd collection, I could get by commuting one day without an audiobook. On the other hand, I'm fickle, which means that I want what I want when I want it, even if I do have other options available. Today I listened to the Beatles on the way to work (thanks, Mary!), which I guess was the next best thing to another Narnia audiobook. Maybe on the way home I'll give Elizabeth Zimmermann's Digressions a try. I'm sure it's good, it's just that it isn't what I want right now.