The Sunday Salon: National Audiobook Month

National Audiobook Month

June is national audiobook month and as I am travelling this weekend I thought I would collect the audiobooks I have reviewed on the blog and give some comments on why I liked them. For a post on how I discovered audiobooks go here!

The Namesake by Jumpha Lahiri. Narrated by Sarita Chowdry. I found this book to be a bit of a disappointment. Although I felt somewhat of a connection with the main character overall I didn’t connect with the story. I found it to be very meandering and didn’t really say me at all. The audio production was flawless though. The narrator was perfect, using accents where appropriate and reading at a good speed. I would definitely listen to more books narrated by her.

Vengeance in Death by J.D. Robb. Narrated by Susan Ericksen. I love the In Death series and I will in all probability get more of the books on audio (I also have Naked in Death) that said, I did find the narrator of this book to be slightly annoying. It is a question of accents (something you will see I have some major issues with). I just found them to be completely wrong for the character. Now some of the problems that I had noticed while listening to Naked in Death had disappeared from this version, such as the coming and going of accents for Roark, still I had a hard time.

Harper Hall Trilogy by Anne McCaffrey. Narrated Sally Darling. At first I found Darling’s narrations annoying. Her voice grates on my nerves and I don’t like the way she pronounces the names. I did get used to it though and in the end I found it very soothing. I really love these books. I read them as a teenager and they will always have a very special place in my heart.

 

The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini. Narrated by the author. The book itself left me feeling very ambivalent. It wasn’t a book I loved but it was a book I’m glad I liked. My biggest problem was that I had a very hard time feeling for the main character. I found many of his actions to be very wrong. I thought the production was very good. I liked hearing the authentic pronunciations of the Afghan words. As always it is interesting to hear the authors work read by himself. I am currently listening to A Thousand Splendid Suns by Hosseini but narrated by Atossa Leoni and am really enjoying that too.

Harry Potter and the Order of Phoenix by J.K. Rowling. Narrated by Jim Dale. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince by J.K. Rowling. Narrated by Jim Dale. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J.K. Rowling. Narrated by Jim Dale. I love the Harry Potter books, there is no beating around the bush about that. However, I was actually a bit disappointed by these audio productions. I found the voices to be very off. Both Dean and Bellatrix were completely WRONG. Dean, who is an Aston Villa fan, CANNOT (in my mind) have a Scottish accent. Not to mention that Bellatrix should not have a French accent. It was just very wrong. As you can see from the post mentioned above my love for audiobooks came very much from listening to the Stephen Fry version and I think I am seriously biased to that production.

The Giver by Lois Lowry. Narrated by Ron Rifkin. I loved loved loved The Giver, so much so that I ended up writing my MA Thesis on it. I found the whole concept absolutely fascinating. The way the control had been completely normalised. The way the society was organised. This was an awesome listen. The one thing I didn’t like about this particular production was the occasional inclusion of music. I found that it really distracted me from what was going on in the story.

1776 by David McCullough. Narrated by the author. This was one of my first audiobooks from audible and the first audiobook I listened all the way through without having read a hard copy of first. I really enjoyed this book. I found it very easy to follow along in, even though there is a lot of moving around without the benefits of maps. I particularly liked the fact that the author himself narrates the story. It gave an extra depth to it. If you are interested in American history I highly recommend this book.

Copyright ©2010 Zee from Notes from the North.This post was originally posted by Zee from Notes from the North. It should not be reproduced without express written permission.