Reading Updates

Too many “failed” listens this week sadly.

I was previously listening to Robert Heinlein’s “The Moon is a Harsh Mistress”. I tried listening to it earlier this year, didn’t like it much (after only about 10 mins of listening), but kept the the book around as I felt it must be my frame of mind when listening to the book rather than the book itself that put me off. Started listening again earlier this month and I did more than half the book … but we had a week long Eid holidays here so it was about 9 days of me not listening to the audiobook as I didn’t have my usual commute. I lost my interest after that so this week I simply marked it as complete, checked Wikipedia to know what happens, and left it at that. Was a good book with an equally good narration by Lloyd James. Nothing over-the-board, perfect!

This week I started off with Kurt Vonnegut’s “Mother Night”, narrated by Victor Bevine. I bought the book mainly because I liked his “Slaughter House 5” narrated by James Franco, and also because I heard Victor Bevin in Audible’s “Menu Excerpts from Our Favorite Newark Restaurants” and wanted to listen to something else by him. I think I listened to about a quarter of the book, but left it eventually. It was a good story, but I wasn’t too hooked and couldn’t be bothered to stick on with it. Upon return it turns out I had purchased this book during a 2-books-for-1-credit sale from Audible, so I wasn’t even eligible for the credit return, but the good folks there returned it nevertheless. Audible (and Amazon) are great when it comes to customer satisfaction!

Next up, which I only listened to about 20 mins of (the book itself is only 3+ hours) is Colm Toibin’s “The Testament of Mary” narrated by Meryl Streep. I didn’t like the narration – too much emotion in it, wasn’t for me. I didn’t bother returning the book so just marked it as finished so it’s hidden in my library. Maybe some day in the future I’ll want to listen to this again.

Update 1st Sept 2018: Listened to “The Big Over Easy” by Jasper Pforde and unfortunately returned it too. I had bought it (and it’s sequel) as I was looking for books narrates by Simon Prebble and came across this (and it had excellent reviews). I couldn’t get my head around the story. Nursery crimes and all that, I guess it’s partly because I don’t know my nursery rhymes. :) Simon Prebble’s narration is amazing as usual but I left the book nevertheless.