I have kept up with my “reading” on Audible Books for another year. Still climbing my local mountain. There is some concern that I won’t hear the bears, but so far I have seen them a long way off so my sense of hearing has not, so far, been necessary.
This year I listened to some books I have read before (some of them multiple times). These include
Man’s Search for Meaning by Victor Frankl,
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy and The Restaurant at the Edge of the Universe by Douglas Adams,
Shogun by James Clavell,
Great Expectations by Charles Dickens,
The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood, and
Dracula by Bram Stoker.
I loved these books when I read them, and got even greater pleasure from them this time around with Audible.
A lot of my enjoyment of Audible Books is the performances–Especially good performances were :
Medium Raw by Anthony Bourdain, was performed by Anthony Bourdain himself.
A Spy Among Friends by Ben Macintyre was read by John Lee
Excellent Woman by Barbara Pym was read by Jayne Entwistle
Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison was performed by Joe Morton
The Pickwick Papers by Charles Dickens was read by Simon Prebble
The books I would most strongly recommend are:
William Manchester’s The Last Lion: Winston Spencer Churchill, II: 1932-1940. I own all three volumes in book form and read and loved reading volume 1. Volume 2 on Audible was very, very good. Volune3 was fine. The issue here is Manchester passed away before he could write volume 3. Using Manchester’s material, Paul Reid wrote volume 3. He’s good, but his prose isn’t as engaging as that of Manchester.
Ready Player One by Earnest Clone is pure entertainment. Great story and you will especially love it if you grew up playing video games in the late 70s early 80s. Apparently this book is being made into a movie and I can’t wait to see it.
The list below rounds out the books I listened to since my last post about Audible Books I have “read.” I enjoyed all of them.
The Godfather by Mario Puzo
A Little History of Philosophy by Nigel Warburton
The Innocent: A Novel by David Baldacci
The Idiot by Fydor Dostoevsky
The Guns of August by Barbara Tuchman
Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
The Last Lion: Winston Spencer Churchill, III: 1940-1965 by William Manchester and Paul Reid
Our Magnificent Bastard Tongue by John McWhorter
The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood
Reframe: From the God We’ve Made to God With Us by Brian Hardin
Battle by John Toland
One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
The Island of Knowledge by Marcelo Gleiser
The Sea Wolves by Lars Brownworth
If you regularly drive or walk for any significant amount of time, you must consider an Audible Books account. I love it.