AUDIO BOOK. our dumb world

an audio book atlas from the guys over at 'the onion'. if you are unfamiliar with 'the onion', its basically a snarky fake news source in the same vein as jon stewart and stephen colbert. in this audio book they give a brief synopsis of every country on the planet, covering 'everything you need to know about' each one. some range from longer entries, such as the entry for america, to just a short sentence about other nations that they say we dont need to know anything about. its a humorous look at each nation and really focuses on the incompetence and apathy most americans feel toward other nations. they report stereotypes and ignorance as fact in such nations as italy where they say everyone is a gangster who just sits around eating their mother's meatballs. over all, the audio book is filled with wit and sardonic insights that are really funny. one warning, the 'book' is covered over three cds, but this type of humor really works best in small doses, so i wouldnt recommend listening to it all in one sitting.

AUDIO BOOK. born standing up

this is an autobiography of steve martin's life as a stand-up comedian. his story takes him to many places and gives a great inside look at this unusual comic. there are some really interesting anecdotes, such as his first job as a young boy working at disney land. he loved magic and performing all his life, and this book chronicles his start in performance theater and follows him all the way through to selling out stadiums with his stand-up routine. the author reflects on the steps that lead him to craft his unique style and some of the career decisions that lead to him being the most popular comic ever at the time. his honesty and candor is surprising as he tells of his home life, his losing touch with family and trying to rebuild the bridges burned, as well has his opinion of what it was like for him at the top. the best part of this memoir is that it is actually read by martin himself, so you get to hear him talk about his life and the events that shaped him. we learn a lot about what he did, but it still feels like he is a bit guarded about himself, glossing over many of the personal aspects of his life, instead focusing on the professional path he took. by the end i better understood and appreciated his comedic voice, even if i didnt feel like i knew the man behind it any better.

AUDIO BOOKS. love is a mixtape

a writer for 'rolling stone', rob sheffield shares his life through the music he loved. in each chapter he gives the name of a mixtape he made, lists the songs on it, then shares stories about it or about what was going on in his life at the time he listened to it. many of the stories are about having fun and hanging out, but most of them revolve around a girl named renee, his wife. he shares how they met, their relationship, marriage, and life with her. they were married five years when she had a heart problem that took her life. rob goes on to share how he tried to understand it and deal with life after renee. for a long time he hid behind his music, not wanting to participate in the real world any longer. he explains how things never get any easier after a loss, they just keep going. at the end he shares that he has been able to reenter the real world and lives his life as a memorial to renee, living as she would have wanted him to. he moves to a new city, finds new jobs, and eventually even finds a new wife. its a heartfelt tale of how to grow and love, all through the form of music.

AUDIO BOOKS. never have your dog stuffed

i've often seen alan alda on different talk shows and have always enjoyed his anecdotes about his life. when i saw this on the shelf i figured it would be worth a listen. the book is a memoir of his life, most of it consisting of his early life, growing up with parents who were traveling vaudeville performers, going to school, and starting out in theater. i had heard many of the stories before, so much of it was repeats of things he had shared on different shows. over all though, it was a nice story sharing his struggles and victories over the years. he talks of dealing with a mother who was mentally ill, falling in love with his wife, and little bits of advice for actors ('always tell them you can do everything! can i ride a horse? sure!'). he includes a few stories from his days on 'mash', but i wast that interested because i never cared for that show. even still, a fun listen with some nice insight.

AUDIO BOOKS. the year of magical thinking

this is a moving memoir of loss. didion retells the story of her husbands unexpected death and reflects on its impact in her life. after his heart attack she explains her attempt to deal with his passing and the year that followed as she tried to piece her life back together again. she shares her struggles with accepting his death and the challenges of understanding it. she talks of the days and weeks following it when she would constantly expect him to return, feeling like it wasn't real, or that she could do something to reverse what had happened. how do you mourn? what is the right way to grieve? the author researches the writings on the topic and finds that there is very little written on the subject and tries to explain her own thinking during her time of loss. the realization that it doesn't get easier, it just gets further and further away was an interesting observation. the book is filled with sadness, struggling, and ultimately embarrassing the difficulties of loss.

AUDIO BOOKS. holidays on ice

david sedaris seems to be universally loved for his short stories and essays. ive listened to a couple of his audio books before, and actually had the pleasure of seeing him live. ive enjoyed his other stuff; i really liked a few of his short stories in 'dress your family in corduroy and denim', so i thought i'd give this one a try.
but after listening to it i am begining to wonder what the big deal is. some of his stories are interesting, but many of them fall rather flat. this one is a bunch of them that have to do with the holidays, and i must admit, i wasnt really that impressed.

AUDIO BOOKS. the great gatsby

it is considered a great american classic, but i had never read this book. i figured i should fix this terrible oversite, so i recently listened to it on audio book. i went in blind- i had no idea what it was about or anything. the story is set in new york's long island sound, a place that in the 1920's (when this book was written) was a haven for rich new englanders. gatsby, a self made millionaire, has devoted himself to getting back the girl he lost five years earlier to a rich man. he makes his millions and then tries to woo her back. the story is told from the voice of a man who befriends gatsby, but doesnt belong in the rich circles that the rest of them inhabit. there are trips to the city, dinner parties, and fancy drives, but all of it is shown to be so shallow.
fitzgerald does an amazing job of drawing you into this world of excess and extreme shallowness. the lost love story is captivating, but over it all is a sad sense that even if everyone gets what they want they still have nothing of value. its tragic conclusion, like that of a greek tragedy, is sad but inevitable. a truly moving story, and an incredibly interesting glance into a time long since past.

AUDIO BOOKS. making money

this is the follow-up to pratchett's other book 'going postal'. it continues to follow the adventures of moist von lipwig. he has already fixed the post office, he got it running smoothly and actually making a profit! now the king wants him to set his sights on the banking system in the city. he finds himself in the thick of a huge change happening with the local gollum population. he has to fix up the mint, stop a war, and keep himself from getting caught in the crossfire of a treason plot. its a good story, but nowhere near as good as 'going postal'. pratchett isnt quite able to recapture the fun and wrecklesness that made the moist character so much fun in his last outing. the treason plot slows things down, and the gollum story seems like it would be better suited for a different book.

AUDIO BOOKS. i am legend

wow. this is, without a doubt, the greatest audio book i've ever listened to.
i saw the movie and enjoyed it, but hated the ending. i had heard that the book ending was a bit different, so i was curious to find out how that one went. after listening to it, i have to say that the movie really dropped the ball on this one.
the story is of robert neville, the last man alive after a deadly virus killed off the rest of the population. he struggles with survival as he finds that this virus has turned some survivors into vampires. he tries to deal with keeping them out during the night as well as what it means for him to be the last human alive. the twists and turns the story takes are unexpected, but perfect. the ending? brilliant.
as always with audio books, a lot of the fun is listening to a good story well told, and that falls on the reader to perform the material in a fitting way. so many books fail because of the person performing the book. in this case, the guy they got to read the story was perfect- alternating between gruff, confused, joyful, and many other emotions. he hits it out of the park!
i cant really do justice in explaining just how amazing of an experience it was to listen, with bated breath, to this story as it unfolded. if you have any interest at all in audio books, you MUST listen to this one!

AUDIO BOOKS. going postal

ahh, the masterpiece! after listening to a bunch of terry pratchett's books based in disc world, i must say that this is by far the best!
it centers on a crook named moist von lipwig (yes, the character's name really is moist). he is given another chance by the king, and this time he has to take on the role of postmaster and try and start up the postal service which has been in decay for many years. he gives it the old college try and much to everyone's amazement, including his own, he starts to find success! this causes the natural showman to up his game and start making ridiculous claims that he then has to try and keep up with.
the characters are fantastic, the writing is witty and crisp, and the story really drew me in- this one is a blast!

AUDIO BOOKS. wintersmith

the last of the tiffany aching trilogy, this book focuses on her encounter with the god of winter. in this story tiffany accidentally finds herself the object of the wintersmiths affections. she has to use her witching ways to try and convince this god that she isnt really that into him. if she fails? eternal winter! fortunately she has the 'wee free men' to help her out! this one is certainly the weakest of the trilogy, but it was still great fun to listen to and see how it all played out.

AUDIO BOOKS. wee free men

this book is actually the first one in the tiffany aching trilogy. unfortunately, i didnt know at the time, so i started with the second book first. there were a few references to events that took place before that story, so it was nice to catch up on what i had missed.
in this story tiffany first meets up with the little creatures known as the 'wee free men'. in the story tiffany's little brother gets snagged away to another dimension and she must go in after him and get him back out. along the way she meets these strange creatures and becomes their queen (as often happens). again, i was continually impressed with pratchett's cleaver wit and his characterization of these little blue men had me laughing the whole way through! 'what do we do men?' 'drink!' 'and?' 'fight!' 'and what else?' 'we drink and fight!'

AUDIO BOOKS. a hat full of sky

the only other audio book that my library had by terry pratchett was this one. its the second book in a trilogy, but i didnt exactly know that when i listened to it.
this is the second adventure of tiffany aching, an 11 year old girl who is training to become a witch. she goes to live with a witch to learn the ropes, but is always plagued by these little blue men called nac mac feegles. they are scottish and use funny terms like 'crivens!' and 'waily waily waily!' they try to help tiffany, but usually end up making matters worse. the story revolves around a scary entity known as 'the hiver' as he tracks down tiffany. a fun book- i think i found my new favorite characters: those nac mac feegles are hilarious! and stephen frears, the man who reads all of pratchett's books, does an amazing job of creating all the different characters and even does a great job with the scottish accent!

AUDIO BOOKS. thud!

i had no idea what i was missing. you know how people say 'you havent lived until...'? well now i know i hadnt lived. now that i have been introduced to the universe of 'discworld', i now realize that i can start living!
my only introduction to terry pratchett was through 'good omens' an apocalyptic book pratchett co-wrote with neil gaiman. i saw this book, 'thud!', on a shelf in the library and recognized the name (and enjoyed the cover art), so i gave it a try. it is set in discworld, a world created by terry pratchett (he has written dozens of books set in this fictitious land) that involves all kinds of fantasy characters: vampires, orcs, werewolves, witches, elves, zombies, dwarfs, etc. just about anything you can name. they all live in this world and are all used by pratchett to comment on our own culture in very comedic ways. these books are really funny! its obvious pratchett is british, because his writing has that sort of monty python style of humour (notice the british spelling).
this particular story is set in the city of ankh-morpoc and follows the watch as they try and solve a case that involves ogres and dwarfs and a historical battle in coom valley. the watch must solve the case of the dead dwarfs or face a civil war between the two species. the twists and turns along the way are brilliant, as well as the funny commentary on everything from art museums, to cell phones! this is the book that got me hooked on discworld!

AUDIO BOOKS. digital fortress

ok, i'll admit it, i got swept up in that whole 'di vinci code' nonsense a couple years ago. i read the book and really enjoyed it as i was reading it, but once i was done with it i realized just how badly it had been written. i even got suckered in to 'angels and demons'. those two books, as well as this one, suffer from the same problem: terrible writing! each chapter is only about 10 pages long and they all end in a cliffhanger, it sucks you in to the peril and quick moving pace that you forget to realize just how stupid the story really is!
digital fortress though, is not fast enough paced to distract you from the bad writing. this one is about a government organization that decrypts emails and stuff in order to catch bad guys. they run into this code that is supposedly unbreakable and they have to try and break it. as it goes along it pounds you over the head with the same basic information and constantly refers to how smart the characters are, yet when faced with a problem they take forever to solve it! most of the puzzles and challenges they face i was able to figure out as soon as it is presented, but they dont get to the solution until after about twenty minutes of guess work. a sure sign of a lazy writer: when a character explains something and then another character replies 'so you saying...' and then just rephrases what was just explained. and this happens all the time in this book! it was about a 6 hour book that could have easily been whittled down to about two hours if the characters had any brains about them at all. oh, and this is a technology based thriller, so it is wildly out of date to boot. definitely a waste of time.

AUDIO BOOKS. cs lewis

ive been a big fan of c.s. lewis' christian writings since i first read 'mere christianity' my freshman year of college.
i found this collection of lewis' books and figured i'd catch up on some of them. ive read a couple of them before, so two of them were new to me.
The Problem of Pain: this book goes through and tries to answer the question of why God would allow pain in this world. it was very fascinating and went in directions i hadn't expected. he spent some time looking at what perfect man was like in the garden before sin, and even spent a chapter looking at the question of if our pets will be in heaven with us!
The Screwtape Letters: i had read this one before, but it was really cool to hear it read. it just allows the mind to wander even more and imagine what is going on. this is a correspondence between two demons: screwtape, the mentoring uncle, and wormwood, the novice demon trying to corrupt his first soul. the fun of this book is that it turns the faith jurney upside down- these demons are happy about bad things, but frustrated by the good things that happen.
The Great Divorce: unlike the title suggests, this book has nothing to do with a failed marriage. the great divorce referred to in the title is actually in reference to the divorce between heaven and hell. in the story a man arrives in the afterlife. he somehow finds himself on a visit to heaven. while there he observes many people in heaven trying to talk with those who they loved on earth who ended up in hell. they try to explain to them what happened and how they can make things right. its an odd little story with some rather strange doctrinal overtones, but an interesting portrait of heaven, none the less.
Mere Christianity: what can i say, really? this is one of the finest books ever written. it is lewis' defense of chrisitanity in general. the first part of the book takes us logically through an explanation of how this faith makes sense. the second part is a study of God, and the third part is a look at how it all effects our life.

AUDIO BOOKS. grammer snobs

i had paged through another grammar book called 'eats, shoots, and leaves', which is a witty look at the importance of understanding grammar. i saw this on the audio book shelf and thought it might be in the same vain, so i gave it a shot. big mistake. this book is about grammar and the english language, but it has absolutely no wit or humor about it. it just delves into lame dissections of the smallest minutia of adverbs, adjectives, and punctuation. boring! after listening to the first disc i gave up and realized that this author is one of the big meanies she is railing against. and seriously, grammar snobs?!? i guess i should have expected what i got...

AUDIO BOOKS. there and back again

during the whole craziness and obsession that was going on while the three 'lord of the rings' movies were coming out, i always thought that sean astin was the most interesting of the whole bunch. he always seemed the most normal and accessible. the rest of the guys involved were cool too, but i was always rooting for sean and his character sam.
come to find out all this time later that he actually had written a book chronicling his experiences during the filming and releasing of the films!
the book deals a little with his life before 'lord of the rings', but only as a context for his experiences with those films. it talks about him first getting the job and then meeting the rest of the cast. he goes into some interesting anecdotes about their time together. its a very interesting and enjoyable listen, but it does suffer from over thinking. every time sean is about to express his own opinion he first apologizes and insists he means no disrespect and that this is only his opinion. at times this is a necessary reminder, but he goes overboard with making sure he doesnt offend anyone involved. and as a result, the book suffers in that it feels too edited. it feels like all the good stories were cut out at the last minute because he got worried about how the others would take it.
its watered down, but its still fun to hear about the experience from his perspective.

AUDIO BOOKS. marley and me

i was on a non-fiction kick when i checked out this audio book. i had heard some good things and knew they were making a movie about it, so i gave it a try.
now, before i get into the book itself, let me just reiterate one thing: never underestimate the importance of a good reader. i have listened to a fair share of audio books, and one important thing it who reads it. to be honest, its almost more important than the book itself. if the reader is able to convey great emotion and portray many different characters convincingly, then it doesnt matter what book it is because it will be enjoyable. a story well told is always better than a good story poorly told.
having said that, this book might have been good, but the reader totally ruined it. the unfortunate realization is that the reader is actually the writer of the book john grogan. its nice when an author can read their own stuff, but sometimes its worth getting a professional... i started listening and was so startled by the terrible reading that i almost gave up after the first five minutes! after about ten minutes i was completely mesmerized by the voice, trying my best to duplicate it with my own voice because it was so ridiculously bad. i actually got through about two cds before i finally gave up. i didnt care at all about the story, im sure the book is marvelous and really touching, but i couldnt possibly tell you why because i was just trying to repeat what was being said and trying to get the same ludicrous intonations in my voice so as to mock it better! the best way i can think to describe the voice is that it sounded like a gay lispy forrest gump. and seriously, who could concentrate with that?

AUDIO BOOKS. freakonomics

about a year and a half ago i rediscovered a very cool part of the local library: audio books! i walked up and down the isle and came across this one. i had heard a lot about it and figured id give it a try.
the book basically details how social situations effect and are effected by the economy and society in general.
some of the more interesting things covered are questions of why drug dealers still live on their moms couch, how the passing of roe v. wade might have changed this countries crime rate, how names may effect our social standing, and the most interesting of all: how superman took down the klu klux klan.
it sounds boring, a book about economics, but it was actually a very fascinating listen. it was sometimes a bit confusing to read though, due to the fact that the book has charts and graphs and in the audio version they have to explain each of them. im sure much of the information would be a ton simpler to understand by looking at the charts.