29 January 2005

290105

Recommendations required:


Am currently doing about 2 hours driving a day for the next 5-6 weeks. So far I've listenened to 'David Copperfield' and 'Pete & Dud' on audio cassette. Here's my dilemma. If there's a book I really want to listen to, I don't want to hear an abridgement, ie Dickens. If there's something I don't mind hearing an abridgement of, then generally I don't want to bother listening to it at all. I have plenty of music but being a book fiend I am irked by the fact that I'm sitting down for two hours and not picking up a book. I have once had a book on the passenger seat that I grabbed up at welcome red lights but I suspect this may be a little obsessive.

So, dear readers...I ask merely the impossible of you. Give me something that's available on cassette for my car that is sufficiently high brow enough for a shocking snob like myself to want to listen to but not essential enough for me to fret about only hearing the abridged version. I wait with bated breath, much like the proverbial cheese eating cat.

4 comments:

kumquat said...

genius!


i tried listening to some sherlock holmes on project guttenberg a few months back - you know it? - horrible computerised voice.

the david copperfield was great actually. kept me going for a couple of days and i had limited guilt with abridging dickens!

thanks :)

soulmining said...

I tried listening to David Copperfield on tape but frankly the sawing-the-woman in half routine just wasn't the same...

Sorry, I'm leaving now.

kumquat said...

LMAO.

Well I bought some Sherlock Holmes today as per Lotus' recommendation. Have listened to 1 1/2 stories so far. They're ok. Didn't realise til I'd parted with my cash that they're not Conan Doyle originals. Still, it gets me from A to B.

kumquat said...

So far I've got through:

No 1 Ladies Detective Agency: I would never buy the books but there's something gently soothing about listening to it on tape as you drive. Enjoyable but with some moments of deep frustration at the superficial plot.
David Copperfield: approve
Persuasion: Intensely irritating. Bunch of pompous snobs.
Tale of Two Cities: fab.
Sherlock Holmes: as previously commented.
Pete & Dud: lame.
Now listening to Bill Bryson's Short History and it's incredible. Really good. Will be giving it 5*'s at palimp.