Merry Wanderer of the Night [Search results for audiobooks] 

This semester has been absolutely crazy. I'm working at the library, I have a writing internship with a nonprofit, I'm volunteering at the Women's Resource and Action Center, I'm taking 6 classes (16 hours), and I'm living off campus for the first time. In short, I am exhausted. All of this running around has definitely been getting in the way of my reading time. Last night I sat down and read a graphic memoir, The Imposter's Daughter by Laurie Sandell

, just to feel like I'd read something. One of my friends told me I should be Wonder Woman for Halloween because she can't imagine how I manage to get all of this stuff done, and I'm wondering how I manage to do it too. I'm planning on changing my work schedule in a week though, so hopefully that will give me a little bit more free time. At the very least I shouldn't have to wake up so early every day.

One great thing about my job though is that it gives me time to read. Sort of. I started listening to audiobooks at work in addition to my favorite podcasts and I've finished two books so far, Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim

by David Sedaris and Manhood for Amateurs: The Pleasures and Regrets of a Husband, Father, and Son by Michael Chabon. I really enjoy the experience of listening to an author read his or her work and so far that is the only experience I've had with audiobooks. Over the summer I listened to a Bill Bryson book that he narrated. I've decided to mix things up a little bit though, and I got the audiobook for A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith. This is obviously not narrated by her and it's also about twice the length of any other podcast I have listened to. Fifteen hours, I actually had to download two separate files from Audible. I never really thought I'd be an audibook person, but with the job I have now I'm grateful for them because I'm getting paid but also getting some reading done.

But I must say, listening to an audiobook is just not the same as reading a physical book. When I'm done with an audiobook I just add it to my list of books read this year, write a review, and that's it. But when I finish a physical book I actually feel a sense of accomplishment. I can put the book back on the shelf, or drop it back off at the library. I get to feel the relaxing experience of reading. Of sitting on the couch with a good book in my hands. I get to watch as the pages dwindle down until I'm only 50 pages from the end, 30, 15, 5, 1. That is so exciting. On my iPod I see I have four hours left, or two, or fifteen minutes, but I just don't get that same sense of putting the book back on the shelf. I don't have anything against audiobooks, I really need them in my life right now because otherwise I would be getting zero reading done, but I do miss being able to sit down and read, read, read.

How do you feel about audiobooks versus physical books?

I am an Amazon Affiliate. If you make a purchase using one of my links I will earn a small percentage which will then go back into this blog.

I would classify myself as a walker. I love walking long distances, five miles are so, just to see that I can walk that far. Sometimes in the blazing heat I ask myself why I do it, and I want to return home, but I press on. Walking is the perfect way for me to escape from the world and the people who are around me, and it makes me a happier person. I love listening to music when I walk, and I frequently listen to book podcasts, but I had never listened to an audiobook until this summer. I really had no interest in them either, but I knew that my new job (the one I just started this week) was very iPod friendly and I figured I might as well try to get some reading done while I'm at work! So I got my first audiobook to try out, The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid by Bill Bryson. I listened to it mostly while I was walking, although sometimes while I was driving, and I actually really enjoyed the whole experience. I'll review the book at a later date, for now I just want to talk about audiobooks for those who love them and for those who are unsure if they want to try them out.

I decided to go with the Bill Bryson book because he narrates it himself. This was attractive to me because I love going to readings to hear authors read their work. It was a really good fit and I'm glad I started out with an author narration. Eventually perhaps I'll move on to a different narrator. One of the main reasons I've stayed away from audiobooks until this point is that I really dislike being read to. I find it extremely hard to follow and feel like I lose a lot of information. When I came away from Bill Bryson's book I didn't feel that way at all, but perhaps that is because it's all about Des Moines, Iowa, which is where I am from so I was very interested in it. I like to think that's not the only reason though. It seems like what I really dislike is being read to badly, because then it's easy to drift off and think about something else. An engaging narrator can hold my interest and make the audiobook feel more like a friend telling me a story at lunch than like a person reading to me.

The place I actually most enjoyed listening to the audiobook was in the car, which surprised me. When I'm walking I have a tendency to think about anything that is bothering me and it's a more reflective practice than driving. In the car I really have nothing to focus on but the road so it's easier for me to lose myself in an audiobook. I think this will be the case with my job as well, because it's a lot of repetitive tasks and I think I might really enjoy listening to an audiobook for awhile to get me away from how mundane everything I'm doing is.

Do you listen to audiobooks? Why or why not? What do you like about them or dislike about them? Where do you listen to them?

Following are the winners of the giveways for the "Love and Other Natural Disaster" and Hachette Audiobooks!

Love and Other Natural Disasters

Gwendolyn B.

The Terror (audiobook)

Windycindy
Sara
Kaye

The Survivors Club (audiobook)

Alyce
Stacie
Sheri S.

Congratulations to all of the winners! Please email me at jenlaw77ATearthlinkDOTnet with your mailing address. All books/audiobooks will be sent directly by the publisher.

Thanks to Anna at Hachette Book Group, I have FOUR, yes FOUR great audiobooks to give away!

They are:

• CROSS COUNTRY By James Patterson, read by Peter Fernandez and Dion Graham
• A LONG STONE’S THROW By Alphie MCCourt, read by the author
• DIVINE JUSTICE By David Baldacci, read by Ron McLarty
• OUTLIERS By Malcolm Gladwell, read by the author

• I have three copies of each audiobook to give away
• Only residents of the US or Canada are eligible to win.
• No PO Boxes please!
• Audiobooks will be send directly from the publisher.
• Contest ends at midnight, Saturday, December 13

To enter:

• to be entered once, please comment on this post. In your comment, please state which audiobook(s) you are interested in winning. Be sure to include either a link to your blog, or your email address. If I have no way of contacting you, your entry is automatically withdrawn.
• to be entered twice, blog about this giveway. Be sure to include a link to your giveaway post.
• to be entered three times, become a follower of my blog.

Good luck!!

Thanks to Anna at Hachette Books, I have an amazing selection of audiobooks to give away!
I have three copies each of the following titles:

RUN FOR YOUR LIFE (Unabridged)

By James Patterson and Michael Ledwidge, read by Dallas Roberts and Bobby Cannavale

Detective Bennett realizes he has just hours to save New York from the greatest disaster in its history. From the #1 bestselling author who introduced readers to Alex Cross and the Women's Murder Club-comes the continuation of his newest, electrifying series.

Available in CD and Digital Download formats.

Also available in hardcover and e-book.

DROOD (Abridged)

By Dan Simmons, read by Simon Prebble

DROOD explores the still-unsolved mysteries of the famous author's last years and may provide the key to Dickens's final, unfinished work: The Mystery of Edwin Drood. Chilling, haunting, and utterly original, DROOD.

Available in CD and Digital Download formats.

Also available in hardcover and e-book.

Listen to the excerpts:

Excerpt No. 1, Excerpt No. 2, Excerpt No. 3, and Excerpt No. 4.

Get an OpenBook™ Widget for your site.

Listen to an excerpt.

Listen to the Podcast.

MAX (Unabridged)

By James Patterson, read by Jill Apple

Comfortable in their new safe house, Max and the rest of the Flock finally begin to feel optimistic about their newly-gained freedom. Then the Machine Geeks appear--part machine, part human, totally destructive. They are in the service of an ominous Mr. Chu, who has his eyes on the Flock and their unique abilities. And if he can't have them, he'll make sure nobody else can either!

Available in CD and Digital Download formats.

Also available in hardcover, hardcover in a large print, and e-book.

Listen to an excerpt.

WOMEN'S MURDER CLUB

James Patterson and Maxine Paetro, read by Jeremy Piven, Suzanne Toren, Carolyn McCormick, and Melissa Leo"Now, for the first time, the first three books in this series are available in an audio box set that will delight fans of the series, as well as anyone intrigued by thrilling mystery stories that feature strong women characters..."

RULES:

• To be entered once, comment on this post! Be sure to indicate which audiobook(s) you are interested in winning!
  
• To be entered twice, blog about it. Be sure to include a link to your posting in your comment.
  
• To be entered three times, tweet about this contest (be sure to send me a link to your tweet).
• To be entered four times, become a follower/subscriber!
• US and Canadian residents only. No P.O. Boxes, please!
• Please provide an email address in your comment. Any entries without email addresses will be deleted.
  

Contest will end Saturday, April 18. Winner will be announced on this blog.

Wow, it's weird writing 2010 in my Weekly Geeks post title, but here it is a new year. With a new year beginning, I like to think this is the year I'm going to get organized. At least I'm starting out that way. So it's time to put a plan into action, clean out the closets and whatnot. Why shouldn't we do that for our blogs as well?

For some of us, this will not be so difficult as many bloggers are joining Bloggeista hosted by Maw Books this weekend, but if you are not up for 24 hours of blog cleaning you can still do something.

This week take a look at your blogs and do a little generally cleaning. Fix those broken links, straighten out those blogrolls, make some labels. Stuff like that.

Your blog is perfect, you say? How about your email? Time to delete some of those old messages. Have a look at your blog subscriptions in your blog readers. Maybe it needs a good going over. Are you a member of LibraryThing? Add those Christmas gifts to your virtual bookshelves. Upload your audiobooks to your ipod. Download some ebooks.

Nothing to do online? How about looking at your bookshelves at home? Organize them anyway you see fit. (Take some pictures.) Take unwanted books to the used book store or give them to charity. Get a library card.


After you've done your cleaning, write a post about it or vlog or haiku. Just let us know what you did. Come back see what others have done.

If none of this appeals to you, write a blog resolution post. Or a blog to-do list. Or tell us about your upcoming projects (a challenge you're hosting, newsletter, new blog).

Remember this is just a prompt. Take the idea and do whatever you choose with it. There are no hard and fast rules.

Have fun!

Today, as a guest, I have Kate from Literary Explorations. She was awesome enough to agree to writing a post when school wasn't quite so busy for her, and she read a book I also loved! See what she thinks!!

Rating: ★★★★★ Review: Tell Me a Secret by Holly Cupala was the first audiobook I'd picked up in years, and I'm so glad that I gave it a fair chance. Jenna Lamia's narration was flawless and in my mind she perfectly captured Rand's voice. Since I downloaded this to my iPod I was able to take it anywhere and found myself listening to it whenever I had a spare moment.

Rand was a great character and she definitely grew-up throughout the novel. Her pregnancy was scary and I couldn't believe how heartless her friends and family were. I also wanted to punch Kamran in the face many times because he was such a jerk to Rand. Her so-called friends weren't any better, especially Delaney who spread rumors about her, which idiot Kamran believed to be true. My favorite character was Shelly, for awesome reasons that I can't go into without spoiling the book, but just trust me, she is amazing.
Tell Me a Secret totally changed my mind about audiobooks and now I listen to them all the time. This was a wonderful contemporary read that drew me in and left me in tears once it was all over. I will now listen to anything that Jenna Lamia narrates and cannot wait to read Holly's second book, Don't Breathe a Word, that is due out in January.
Check out these fantastic reviews:

Ashley @ Basically Amazing Books
April @ Good Books and Good Wine

In each of our interviews this Fortnight, Misty and I have been asking the authors a series of fun and silly questions. Then, we asked you the same questions in one of our giveaway (enter! enter!)
We thought it would be a great to ask each other the same questions. So now you get to experience the inner (possibly twisted) workings of mine and Misty's minds. Misty's answers are here, and you can hear what I had to say on Misty's blog.

So Misty, as you know, I got crazy excited when you announced Fairy Tale Fortnight. So now, I'd like to know why. ~Why fairy tales?

I could go on and on with this answer. I don't think it was until I started going through things for this event that I even realized the extent of my fairy tale obsession. I mean, I knew; I've always known. In my Adv. Comp. class in college, when we had to pick something to do a huge research project on, and were told to pick something we wouldn't get sick of, when everyone else around me was choosing a topic that would impress the teacher, I chose fairy tales. I've hoarded my fairy tale books from my childhood, and read essays and research on fairy tales for fun. They hold my fascination like nothing else.

But why?

I'm going to say there are many reasons, and I couldn't begin to touch on them all. But for me, the biggest reason is that they are communal and ingrained in our pysches as a result. Fairy tales are interactive. Yes, now you can read them all alone, curled up in bed. But for centuries (and beyond, if you expand "fairy tale" to include all original oral mythology), they were told in groups around campfires, or between parent and child at night before bed. They connect people, and they provide these common tropes for the rest of our lives. You say glass slippers and everyone knows: nothing more need be said. That's powerful.

Beyond that, I love the contradiction of them. They are thought of mostly as kids stories, but they can be incredibly dark. They show us people at their weakest and meekest, becoming something great. Nothing is ever what it seems, and yet you know just what it will be. I love the magic of that.

I love that your research project was on fairy tales! That's so awesome!

~Rapunzel is named after lettuce; what odd thing would you be named after if you were in a fairy tale?

I haven't the foggiest. That's the thing about naming — we have no control over it. So I'm going to go with the name I almost had (in real life. Don't ask me how this was even a possibility): Blue. Forgive me... All I can think of is Little Boy Blue. (Come blow your horn...)

~ Using that name, give us a line from your life as a fairy tale:

Blue sat tucked away as always in the tiny little garret room; she knew her wicked stepmother was looking for her, and that the longer she dallied, the worse it would be — so for now, Blue was content to stay curled up with one of her favorite books, her rat Faustus on her shoulder, both of them dreaming of a different world.

Aww. Poor little Blue. You should send the rat and his buddies into step-mother's bed at night... Teach her what it's like to be on the short end of things.: P

~Best fairy tale villain and why?

Tough one. I like the villains. (Or, I like to dislike them.) I like to try to figure out their motivations. I'd say Rumplestiltskin. He's just so bizarre and hard to understand, and that's always creepy. I always wanted to know why he wanted the baby? (???) And then, anyone who tears themselves in half when they're angry = serious cray cray. Close second would be Snow White's stepmom, who wants to cut out her heart and eat it.

I almost picked Rumpelstiltskin too! He's so creepy! But, cursing babies to die and eating the heart of young girls won out over dancing baby snatcher. (although, putting it light that, maybe not. Ugh.)

~Favorite tale from childhood? Favorite tale as an adult? Least favorites?

As a child I was obsessed with The Elves and the Shoemaker and the 12 Dancing Princesses (and occasionally, Puss in Boots). I can't say why I loved the Elves so. I just wanted them, I think. And I wanted to make them tiny little clothes. The 12 Dancing Princesses is easier to say why: I had an absolutely beautiful
copy of it (still do!), and I just wanted to dress up in those gowns and see that underground world with the silver-leafed trees and the 12 princes and their boats. (And Puss in Boots had a kitty.)

As an adult, I tend to like the darker stuff. I have a fascination with Little Red Riding Hood (did as a kid too), but I really find myself drawn to the lesser known or seriously distrubing tales, like Donkeyskin or The Rose Elf (which I rewrote in poem form for a creative writing class. I think it's probably too long to repost for you guys, but it was fun. I'd love to do an actual story with it some day.)

Least favorites... I always had questions about some. Jack and the Beanstalk made me indignant. I mean, he's basically a thief. That is not his hen, and he had no business climbing that beanstalk anyway! Plus, what the hell was he doing with the magic beans? Who trades their cow, their only source of income, for beans? I always wanted to shake him.

Jack always did strike me as a bit of a skeeze.

~If you could be any fairy tale character, or live through any fairy tale "happening," who/what would it be?

I would be one of the 12 Dancing Princesses — I really want to see that underground world with the trees made of silver and gold and jewels. That was such a stunning image to me when I was a kid, so awe-inspiring, that I've been a little obsessed with it ever since. I'm not much of a dancer, though... (see answer to last question)

Misty, do you realize — if we are both among the 12 Dancing Princesses... We must be, sisters! Hello to my sister in fairy tales! Let us flee from the creepy Evil Queen together!

~Would you rather:
- — live under a bridge with a troll, or all alone in a high tower?

I bet that trolls got stories to tell...

I bet that troll really smells...

- — ride everywhere in a pumpkin carriage (messy) or walk everywhere in glass shoes (uncomfortable)?

Pumpkin carriage. Glass shoes freak me out. Unless they were the ones from Ever After, and then I'd have to reconsider.

Oooh. Ever After!

- — have a fairy godmother or a Prince Charming?

Um... the prince, I guess. I find the godmothers a little dubious...

- — eat magic beans or golden eggs?

Eggs! I don't even want to know what eating magic beans would do to a person... O_O

I'm definitely with you on that one! And, you know how I feel about golden eggs... Makes the outside match the insides, if you know what I mean.;) (still humble...)

- — style 50ft long hair or polish 100 pairs of glass slippers?

I bet you could do some pretty awesome couture things with 50ft of hair. I wouldn't want to wear said hair, but style it?

Sure.

- — be forced to spin straw into gold for hours on end, or dance every night until your shoes are worn through?

Spinning and weaving fascinate me, and spinning straw what certainly be an interesting skill — and one hell of a party trick. Alchemy, anyone? And though I'm sure it'd be pretty mindless after awhile, I could listen to audiobooks or something while I did it. I'm not really much of a dancer (sober, anyway), so I think I'd have to go with spinning. Couldn't be much worse than most jobs, right?

Until creepy Rumpelstiltskin pops up, asking if you need help!! Uber creepy villain, remember? Are you going to offer him your first born?! Come to the enchanted ballroom with me Misty. I'll teach you to dance. (or ply you with liquor until you can't tell the difference!)

*Misty reconsiders*

I want to take a second to say thank you to Misty. I saw her post about Fairy Tale Fortnight, and I knew that I wanted to be a part of it, knew I wanted to do as much with it as I could. So, when she asked me to co-host with her, I gave a very, very enthusiastic YES! I have had so much fun preparing for this event with Misty. We've had some awesome email exchanges, and some very definite Twilight Zone moments. I don't think there has ever been a time when we weren't on the same page about things, and our ideas for certain elements of the Fortnight were eerily similar.

It's been such a blast working with you Misty! You've been amazing! It's a little bit sad to see the Fortnight end, but this just means we get to start planning for next year! I can't wait!

I'm not much for mysteries or thrillers, but I love true crime and true mystery. It adds so much to the mystery when you know the events are true; it always makes me feel like I'm in on a big secret of some kind. Lately I've been listening to audiobooks of books I already have on my shelves in an effort to clean my shelves off faster. I have a lot of time to listen to audio while I am working, so I decided to do this with Simon Winchester's The Professor and the Madman because I wasn't sure I would really enjoy the book after hearing mixed reviews of it. The audio is read by the author, which was fine. He added a lot of drama to the story with his British accent.

The story is about the making of the Oxford English Dictionary, but really more about one of its avid contributors. When the OED started they put out advertisements for readers. People who would read books looking for words and then write quotations where the word appears in an effort to trace the evolving definition of the word. You can see that this would be a tedious process, but the man in the story, Dr. W. C. Minor, had a lot of time. Because he was in an insane asylum.

Professor James Murray, the man in charge of the OED, becomes curious about the prolific Minor because of the volume of letters he sent to the OED. Murray has no idea the man is mentally unwell, and this is where the story really gets interesting.

I can't decide how I really felt about this book. It was a great story and something I'm interested in. There was a lot of drama and intrigue which made it fun and really different from what I expected, which was a straight forward account of the making of the OED. If you're interested in dictionaries and words then I'd say this is one worth checking out, but if you're really not I'd move on. The story got a little slow in parts and I didn't find myself running back to finish it.

I am an Amazon Affiliate. If you make a purchase using one of my links I will earn a small percentage which will then go back into this blog.

September was a bit of a hard month for me because I got so used to reading 10 books a month during the summer and once school started I had to cut down my reading a lot. October will probably be even worse because I have so many midterms and projects coming up. Still, I read quite a few books last month.

1. About a Mountain by John D'Agata (B)
2. Best American Essays 2008 edited by Adam Gopnik (B)
3. Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim by David Sedaris [audiobook] (B)
4. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larson (C)
5. Manhood for Amateurs by Michael Chabon [audiobook] (B)
6. The Imposter's Daughter by Laurie Sandell (C)
7. Slouching Towards Bethlehem by Joan Didion (B)

As I said earlier this month audiobooks are pretty much saving me right now. I listen to them at work and then I feel like I'm getting something done at least. What I've discovered this month is that I need to be much less harsh on myself in regards to how much I'm reading. I feel like if I go to bed without reading I wasted the day. On the flipside of that, I feel now more than ever that I need to read just to keep my heads on my shoulders. This semester I'm not reading full length books in any of my classes, most essays and literary criticism, so I have to work a little harder to get whole books finished.

How was your month?

As someone who has taken a lot of nonfiction writing classes I've heard endless excitement over David Sedaris. In high school I was often given recommendations to read him because I loved authors like Chuck Klosterman and Nick Hornby. But for some reason I've never really felt that driven to read Sedaris, maybe because he gets so much attention and there are a lot of great nonfiction writers out there who don't. At a coffeeshop my friend talked about how much fun she had listening to Sedaris recordings after she finished one of his books, so I decided to take the Sedaris plunge but simply listening. I listened to Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim

while at work last month and was often laughing out loud at his outrageousness.

Dress Your Family is really a memoir of Sedaris' family. They're all rather bizarre and he imitates them flawlessly-- particularly his brother who has a very thick Southern accent and is basically the epitome of "white trash." Sedaris acknowledges his family member's strangeness, but I think he manages to make us see them as real people and not just characters. What moves them beyond character and into the realm of real person is their relationship to Sedaris and their relationship to their family. Sedaris acknowledges his own quirks in this book as well, and is very self-deprecating. I particularly enjoyed his memories about being a teenager and wanting to be a total hippie, which was very funny, and also his stories about coming out as a gay man in a family that was proud of "manliness."

While the book was hilarious as a whole, I felt the last few essays didn't quite fit with the whole book. There was an essay about Santa Claus in the Netherlands, and while I could kind of make the connection to family I was a little put off by the whole thing. It was very frustrating because I really enjoyed several of the essays I didn't felt fit with the book, in fact I enjoyed some of them more than the essays I did think fit, but overall it was jarring and difficult to reconcile in the end. As an audiobook I thought this was a great listen, and something that was really hard to ignore. I feel like that is something a lot of people have said about audiobooks, they are easy to ignore. I have experienced that a little, but never with this one. A great choice for the reluctant audio listener.

I give this book a B.

I am an Amazon Affiliate. If you make a purchase using one of my links I will earn a small percentage which will then go back into this blog.