Commuter Rock

Happy Trails

2006-04-05T15:02:00.000-05:00

I bought one of these to go with my iPod. It's the DLO Transpod, a combination car charger, FM transmitter and dock. The coolest thing about this versus other FM transmitters (like the iTrip) is that it provides a convenient place to put my iPod. The hinged cigarette lighter charger thing lets you adjust the position, too. That means I can listen to my iPod (whenever it f-ing gets here) in the car with ease.

iDesire an iPod

2006-04-03T10:45:00.000-05:00

In the past few years, I've watched the iPod infection pick off my co-workers one by one. Still, the immunity my cheapness provided me held out. $299 for a glorified walkman? I think not.

Until now. I don't know why, but last week a strong desire to own an iPod suddenly overcame me. I spent hours scouring the pages and pages of iPods for sale on eBay. I researched and compared until my eyeballs threatened to burn right out of my skull.

Gradually, I figured out what I required in an iPod. My requirements:

1. Used, preferably with songs still on it. It's like the grab bags they used to sell at the Hello Kitty store. It might be full of junk, but it might be full of treasure.

2. Fourth generation. Has the reportedly better "click wheel" for scrolling through songs and stays charged longer than previous editions, plus each generation gets a little skinnier and lighter weight. I debated long and hard whether to spring for the latest video iPod but in the end decided I'd never use the video capacity so why pay $100 more?

3. Battery still holds a good charge. iPod batteries have to be replaced by Apple, so I don't want to have to deal with that any time soon.

4. 20gb. What I really need is something in between the 4 gb and the 20gb, but that doesn't exist in a fourth-generation iPod. I considered the iPod Nano or Mini for a while (the pink iPod Mini was particularly tempting), but when I realized I'd have to pay about the same price for a 4gb as a 20gb, that settled it. Also, a 4gb holds only 1,000 songs, which sounds like a lot until you consider that's only 67 CDs with 15 songs each. I want to have room to spare, and the 5,000-song 20gb should be more than plenty.

5. Some decent accessories, like a wall charger and new earbuds. I don't want to have to buy every little thing separately.

I found several iPods on eBay that met my criteria. I agonized about which one to buy and in the end sprung for one that had a Buy It Now option. I can't stand bidding on stuff anymore. I just want it bought and done with. So I chose the Buy It Now one, though I probably could've won one at auction for a few bucks cheaper. I'm all about less hassle.

Only then the seller accidentally shipped me the wrong iPod (from another auction), so now I have to deal with returning it to sender, and I'm not sure if he's sending me my iPod now or when he receives the other one back. Arggh.

Then the m-f'ing post office wouldn't leave the iPod (whichever one it is) in my mailbox on Saturday because it was insured. Naturally, the post office opens after I leave for work and closes before I get home. So I have to deal with leaving the stupid card in the box and waiting till tomorrow or maybe even the next day to get my package re-delivered. Gah!

They leave packages on my doorstep ALL THE TIME. Like this one's suddenly gonna get stolen.

I want my iPod!

Lame-a-palooza

2006-03-31T11:01:00.000-06:00

Today is Friday, and now that it's spring, that means windows down, music blasting, half-wet hair blowing in the wind ... and showing up to work looking like I have Edward Scissorhands' stylist.

It's casual Friday, so I'm wearing my new Wonder Woman T-shirt, cuffed rockabilly capris and the gold chain-mail-looking earrings I wore to a Halloween disco party.

I feel a little bit like a rocker chick today in spite of the fact that I've been listening to lame early '90s hits all morning. Do you have any idea how hard it is to maintain the self-delusion that you're an alt-rock, above-it-all, new-wave-grunge girl when you're singing along to Monica's "Don't Take it Personal"? (known in some countries as "Song that repeats the same line 9,000 times and encourages men everywhere to blame all their relationship troubles on PMS")

I've been playing some of the mixed CDs I made when I got my first computer with a CD burner in December 2002. They're compilations of songs from the CDs I hardly ever listened to anymore. I planned to save the "good" songs and then sell the CDs at a yard sale. At this point, I can't remember which ones sold and which didn't. Let's just say I haven't been missing my old Bon Jovi CD too much. (Of course, how can I miss it when my office mate just played "You Give Love a Bad Name"?)

Most of the songs on these mixed CDs are almost too embarassing to admit I own, let alone enjoy. Yet I get a strange pleasure from embarassing myself, so I'll reveal that TLC's "Diggin' on You," Better Than Ezra's "Good," and Bush's "Glycerine" are in attendance. And no '90s collection is complete without Oasis' "Wonderwall," Jill Sobule's "Supermodel," the Spin Doctors' "Little Miss Can't Be Wrong," and last but not least ... everyone's 9th grade dance favorite: "Cotton-Eye Joe" by the Rednex.

OK, I admit I'm a sucker for nostalgia. I was in middle school in the early '90s, and that was the time when I began to be interested in music other than what my mother played in the car, the time when I started watching MTV (you know, back when they actually played videos), the time when I bought my first newfangled "Compact Disk" (I think it was The Eagles' greatest hits compilation Hell Freezes Over.).

I could try to redeem myself now by listing all of the artists I liked in the early '90s who are still respectable today. But where's the fun in that? We all know we were lame in middle school; I say embrace the lameness ... but please oh please no more feathered bangs!

Morning Mix, Vol. 1

2006-03-20T14:51:00.000-06:00

Writing that post about the Curious George soundtrack's miraculous morning powers made me think about what type of song is best for the morning commute. What does the ideal morning song need to do?

1. Not remind me how life sucks.
2. Keep me from dozing off and swerving into oncoming traffic.
3. Put me in a good mood (or at least take the edge off my bad mood).

So I've been scrolling through every song in my arsenal to compile an ideal mix of morning tunes.

Here's Volume 1:

Everyday by Buddy Holly
(because it's so sunshiney)

Get Rhythm by Johnny Cash
(I have the Joaquin Phoenix version from the Walk the Line soundtrack)

All I Wanna Do by Sheryl Crow
(ok, so it's an obvious one)

Supermodel by Jill Sobule
(this one gets bonus points for making me laugh)

Build Me Up, Buttercup by The Foundations
(it sounds chipper even if it's not)

Change by The Lightning Seeds
(the repeated line "put your foot down and drive" makes this one a shoe in)

Yakety Yak by The Coasters
(I loved this song when I was a kid, and it makes me feel like I'm 7 years old again, dancing around in the basement singing into a hairbrush.)

9 to 5 by the fabulous Dolly Parton
(the perfect morning commute song, peppy and full of work angst)

Diamonds on the Soles of Her Shoes by Paul Simon
(from his I'm-super-authentic-because-I-hang-out-with-Africans phase ... it starts out slow, but it picks up after the first verse. The lyrics are so weird that they're delightful to sing along with.)

I've Still Got My Health by Bette Midler
(because it's optimistic ... in a twisted way)

I Feel Lucky by Mary Chapin Carpenter
(fun song and worth it just for the bizarro line "Lyle Lovett's right beside me with his hand upon my thigh")

No Rain by Blind Melon
(remember the bee girl video? I listened to this song over and over and over in my middle school bedroom, singing along until my throat ached. Of course, then I didn't have the depressing knowledge that the lead singer would die of a drug overdose.)

3 x 5 by John Mayer
(a mellow little song)

Fast as You by Dwight Yoakam
(guaranteed to make you tap your fingers on the steering wheel)

Van Lear Rose by Loretta Lynn
(sentimental but fantastic and raw)

Don't Lie by the Black Eyed Peas
(By all rights, I should hate a band who has a song entitled, "Don't Phunk With my Heart" and whose singer pees on herself onstage. Yet somehow I can't stop myself from liking their music, especially this upbeat confessional song.)

Shoop by Salt n Pepa
(because it's so fun to sing along with ... how can you not smile when you're saying, "wanna thank your mother for a butt like that"?)

Of course, no matter how good the songs are, any CD will get old after a while. Listen to it too many times in a row, and you'll want to fling it Frisbee-style out the window and sever someone's jugular.

Next up: Evening Mix, Vol. 1

Miserably Fantastic

2006-03-17T09:51:00.000-06:00

In honor of St. Patty's Day, a tribute to one of my favorite authors, the literary world's own charming old Irish person: Frank McCourt.

His Pulitzer Prize-winning memoir Angela's Ashes is my favorite book in the world. I can't review it because who can review a book this good without looking like a pompous ass? Instead, a groveling praise-fest will do.

On the first page of Angela's Ashes are my favorite lines in all of literature:

When I look back on my childhood, I wonder how I survived at all. It was, of course, a miserable childhood: a happy childhood is hardly worth your while.

For a writer in particular, those are the truest words ever spoken. What do you have to write about if nothing tragic and miserable ever happened to you in your life?

I've read the print version of Angela's Ashes several times, but I listened to it for the first time last week on unabridged audio CD. McCourt narrates it himself, and by damn it might be even better out loud. His accent is different from the Irish accents I've heard before ... less lilting and delightful but still uniquely wonderful. He reads in a way that's mumbly and casual and makes me wish I'd had him as a teacher. I love this guy. Love him!

I listened to his Teacher Man the week before, and it was incredible, too. I may just send a copy with a sappy note to each of my favorite high school teachers. The kind who stood out mostly because they cared deeply about their subjects and their students. (If you're out there Dr. James Southern, this means you.)

Still, Angela's Ashes is my favorite of his works by a mile. It's miserable, of course. But, unlike the movie they made of it, it's funny too. Best of all is the way he captures the child's voice - the questioning, the naivete and yet the understanding deeper than adults know.

Ach, 'tis beautiful.

Magic Morning Medicine

2006-03-15T10:18:00.000-06:00

I am not a morning person. Before I graduated from college and got an 8 to 5 job, I liked to stay up late and sleep in. I did my best thinking at night.

Now, I still like to stay up late, but I'm too sleepy to get any good thinking done. Then I'm even more tired in the morning, exacerbating the not-morning-person problem.

Since I hate coffee, I don't have the primary crutch of most not-morning-people. Instead, now I have Jack Johnson.

This Monday - the worst morning of all mornings - I popped in the Curious George soundtrack, which my sister had given me the week before. I had high hopes for it. There's been plenty of hype, and I usually trust my sister's judgement.

Also, I'd previewed many of the songs on iTunes and downloaded "With My Own Two Hands" (which features Ben Harper).

Besides, I already had one Jack Johnson CD (his 2002 release, Brushfire Fairytales), and it was good, clean fun. Excellent background-noise music because many of the songs sound the same, and they aren't the kind that require me to sing along (badly).

Still, I didn't expect the soundtrack to have magical powers. Within a couple of songs, I was smiling! SMILING! While driving down the interstate! On a MONDAY! Before 9 a.m.!

The sun was shining, and suddenly the day felt beautiful and fresh, full of promise. The song "People Watching" made me giggle and notice a dude in business attire on a motorcycle beside me at a red light. The song "The Three Rs" (for reduce, reuse, recycle) made me want to go home and sort my garbage. "Lullaby" made me want to give this CD to all my nieces and nephews, even the new one who will be born in August.

I bounced into work with a smile still on my face from the lyrics, "If you have one sandwich, cut that thang in two!" (from "The Sharing Song"). My co-workers even noticed ... they gave me those sideways, narrowed-eye looks that mean, "What's up with you?" and/or "Can I have some of what you're taking?"

This CD has been spinning in my car all week. I only today switched to a mixed CD (yes, I'm still in the dark ages pre-iPod), and that was only because I was afraid I'd burn myself out.

I recommend this CD for commuters of all ages ... especially the ones who need a boost of sunny personality in the morning. Another children's CD with a similar, folksy vibe: Peter, Paul and Mommy, by Peter, Paul & Mary.

Cherubim

2006-03-13T10:57:00.000-06:00

I wish this book was available in audio form:

I can imagine an entire blog dedicated to hating other people's kids. It would be easy to find new content. Just go to the mall, the mini golf course, the park, the skating rink - aha! the movie theater!

The movie theater is by far the worst place for obnoxious small humans. Try going to see a Harry Potter movie. Just try it! Even at midnight, the place is packed with ankle biters spouting such charming phrases as, "Why does Harry have a stick?" (from the younger siblings) and "Ooh, watch this part - this is where Harry fights a dragon! Don't worry - he wins!" (from the older siblings)

Still, I usually don't blame it on the kids. Even when they're giving away key plot points in a movie, there's something charming about their eagerness. It's hard not to get excited along with them and remember for a moment what it was like to be a kid.

Besides, for every brat, there is a little one who plays peek-a-boo at you from the front seat of a grocery cart. It's no wonder people keep having babies ... just one smile from a curly-headed cherub, and you can feel like the coolest person in the world.

Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes

2006-03-07T11:38:00.000-06:00

I've changed the format of this blog. Much as I love audiobooks, there's only so much I can say about them. From now on, this blog will focus on all forms of commuter entertainment. In addition to reviews of audiobooks, music and gadgets to make the commuter's life better, I'll report on news and innovations that will affect commuters. Expect more frequent posts and (I hope) better content.

Pink is My Fav-or-ite Color

2006-03-07T10:50:00.000-06:00

I want one of these:

Yeah, I'm a total sell-out for coveting the lovely magenta Motorola Razr. Any product that says these words in its promo material is clearly sent from Satan himself: "Seeded to a select group of fashion elite and Hollywood 'it' girls."

And yet ... it's so darn pretty! Can I help it that pink is my favorite color?

I scanned the eBay galaxy for more pink phones and came up with disappointingly few. Does anyone besides me miss the simpler times when you could change out the color of your cell phone with a plastic face plate bought from a booth at the mall?

Besides its delightful color, the Razr is slim and lightweight - a far cry from the Nokia Free-Beast I've been lugging around for the past three years. Yikes, has it really been that long? My phone is so antique it doesn't take photos and doesn't even let me download ringtones. That's right - I'm still going around with the classic "Toreador." (But at least it's not Fur Elise.)

My life would be so much more complete if I had a magenta Razr. I could download Project Runway ringtones. I could take photos of furniture I find at yard sales and send them to my husband to shoot down. I could watch video clips on the 2.2-inch screen, though I'm not sure the eye strain would be worth it. Best of all, the quad-band technology would let me "jet-set around the world without missing a call." Hey, if I ever decide to jet-set, that would be perfect!

And the Razr has all these cool features, even if I don't know what half of them are:

• External dimensions: 13.9 x 55 x 98 millimeters
• Weight: 95 grams
• External color display
• Picture caller ID
• Nickel-plated copper-alloy chemically-etched keypad
• Internal display: 2.2 inch 176 x 220 pixel 64K color TFT display
• External display: 96x80 pixels 4k color CSTN CLI
• EL keypad illumination panel
• Internal quad-band antenna
• Integrated VGA camera with 4x zoom
• Integrated Class 1 Bluetooth® wireless technology
• 22kHz polyphonic speaker with MP3 ringer support
• MPEG4 video Playback
• 3D Graphics Engine
• Java™ MIDP 2.0
• Dedicated Messaging & Browser keys

If only I wasn't so cheap, I'd go snap me up one of these babies right now. But why do you think I still have the Nokia phone after all these centuries? $199 just seems so extravagant when I can get a crappy free phone with my cell service.

Where Do You Listen?

2006-03-07T01:28:00.000-06:00

The results of my long-standing poll are in. What can we learn from the whopping 11 votes cast?

Unsurprisingly, the majority of Commuter Rock readers listen to audiobooks on their commute. That's when I listen to them also (obviously).

Since the commute sucks up so much of my time, I rarely carve out a few hours to curl up with a good print book. The audiobooks have quickly become my savior - they let me keep up with the latest books, and they make the commute speed by.

If you want to try them without the financial risk (after all, some people do hate them), hop on over to Amazon or eBay, or even your local library. Used audiobooks are a good bet because they've probably only been listened to once.

I Still Love You, Ayelet

2006-03-02T11:30:00.000-06:00

I wanted to love Ayelet Waldman's new book, Love and Other Impossible Pursuits, because I enjoy her column at Salon. Ms. Waldman is quite the controversial figure at Salon. In one column, she said she hoped her son would be gay. In another column, she wrote about over-zealous "attachment" parents. She has written about abortion and suicide. These are the sorts of topics that apparently get people - even supposedly enlightened Salon readers - up in arms.

I've never been offended by one of her columns or written in a letter to call her a "hack" for writing about her own experiences, rather than quoting psychologists and book authors. These people obviously don't understand the difference between an editorial column and a researched article.

I'll defend Waldman's column and her right to make her own choices all day long. But her novel? I'm not sure.

Love and Other Impossible Pursuits is the story of New Yorker Emilia, who has recently lost a baby girl. She "stole" her husband away from another woman, and he has a smartypants 5-year-old son William from the previous marriage. Emilia is responsible for the boy for one afternoon out of the week, and their hatred for each other seems mutual, especially since he spouts horrible comments (fed to him by his mother) about his dead half-sister.

But Emilia and William inevitably bond, mostly over their shared love for Central Park. That's not a spoiler because of course they do. We've seen this plotline a thousand times. Gruff adult hates precocious child, child charms adult, adult almost loses child, adult realizes he/she loves child. Think Big Daddy or even Savannah Smiles (anyone remember that movie?).

Still, Waldman does it well. The characters feel like real people. Emilia lies to herself, wallows in misery, misinterprets, and sometimes acts like a spoiled brat. And Waldman has four children, so it's not surprising that she paints William so perfectly. Narrator Ellen Reilly helped preserve the reality of William because the voice she did for him was perfect, childlike but with the perfect hint of smart-kid snobbery. He's a child smart beyond his years - at 3, he could recognize an anatomically incorrect stuffed dinosaur - and because of it, Emilia assigns him motives more cunning than a 5-year-old can manage. Emotionally, he is still a child, and Emilia has to realize that to fully set aside her animosity toward him.

In a book like this, where you can anticipate the outcome, it's not the ending that matters but the journey. Still, that left me without much to look forward to to keep me speeding toward the end. Though this is an abridged version, it still read slowly and dragged in the middle. I like the book, especially thinking back on it, but unlike the best books, I wasn't sad when the last CD ended.

Look at Things and Try New Drinks

2006-02-15T14:58:00.000-06:00

I love it when the audiobook companies release audio recordings of the classics. I have so little time to read print media these days and so very many "important" books left to read.

This spring, Simon & Schuster Audio is re-introducing several Ernest Hemingway novels and stories in audio form, including For Whom the Bell Tolls and A Farewell to Arms.

Ernest Hemingway the man, the adventurer, I find terribly dull - he's just another chauvanist hunter, like 90 percent of my male relatives.

But I'd like to read his books because his story "Hills Like White Elephants" is one of the few things I studied in college that burrowed down in my brain and clung there, even when the tide of years washed everything else away - especially quadratic equations.

Like so many writers before me, my highest goal is to achieve such powerful simplicity as Hemingway's writing in that story. The least I can do is listen to his books.

More Than Zero

2006-02-03T16:19:00.000-06:00

I've never been a Bret Easton Ellis fan. In fact, until Lunar Park, I'd never even read one of his books. I'd barely heard of him. Maybe that makes me a hopeless yokel, but so be it.

This is what audiobooks should be. While it isn't the quiet, beautiful sort of book I've been praising lately, this is one of the rare kind that makes me anxiously await my commute. Part memoir (but which parts?), part family drama, part mystery, part horror. It's impossible to define this book and refreshing because of that. It is an exciting, action-packed read but full of emotion, too. It is surreal - there's an attack by a hairball with one eye - but full of reality, too - the struggle of a drug addict to reconcile his old hard-partying life with his new role as suburban dad.

I'm no James Van Der Beek fan either - he was the narrator - but I loved him here. I've heard complaints that his reading was too flat and monotone, but it was exactly the right tone for the character. In the author interview at the end of the last CD, Ellis confirms that he chose Van Der Beek (who starred in the movie adaption of Ellis' The Rules of Attraction) and that ex-Dawson was on the mark.

I may just convert to a fan of both Ellis and Van Der Beek.

Sex, Lies and Leonardo DaVinci

2006-01-27T14:47:00.000-06:00

If you've noticed, I like historical fiction. I anticipated a good read in Leonardo's Swans by Karen Essex, a book about two competitive, noble sisters living during the Italian Renaissance. OK, the presence of Leonardo daVinci in the book did give me pause.

I should've paused a little longer, then returned the audiobook to the shelf. The scheming sisters' political maneuverings - blech. The comical sex scenes - double blech. The historical aspects seemed incidental to the taudry romances, and in spite of the massive amounts of intrigue, I was bored.

And daVinci? Does every book have to feature daVinci these days? Damn you, DaVinci Code.

I can see how this book would appeal to a certain type of reader - probably a big fan of romance novels. Maybe I would've even enjoyed it if I had gone into it anticipating that deliciously sinful sort of book. Instead, I was disappointed.

A Story Quiet and Loud

2006-01-18T10:36:00.000-06:00

Never Let Me Go has received plenty of acclaim this year. Kazuo Ishiguro’s book landed on the top books of 2005 lists of the NY Times Book Review, Salon.com, and probably several more esteemed publications I’m too lazy to look up.

The acclaim is deserved. Never Let Me Go is quiet, lovely, haunting and strange. And the audio version – silkily narrated by Rosalyn Landor – is perhaps the ideal way to enjoy it. Ms. Landor transmits the melancholy and the muted beauty in the words.

This is a book that made me feel things. It tweaked my social conscience. It made me cry a little. It made me marvel at the way Ishiguro could capture so perfectly what it means to be a human.

I won’t tell you anymore about it. I’ll just say read it. It isn’t exciting or action-packed by any means. The main character Kathy H. tells her tale slowly and fastidiously, evaluating the fallibility of her own memory as she goes. But sometimes – even in audiobook form – action is secondary. You can get lost in a book like this one.

Bare Bones

2006-01-09T14:23:00.000-06:00

Ah, the drastic abridgment rears its ugly head. At least, I hope that was the problem with Memoirs of a Geisha. I expected such good things from this book, mostly based on name recognition and the movie previews. Sadly, I was unimpressed. At a meager three CDs, I wonder just how much this abridged version cut out. This version was little more than a list of events, not much detail and not much in between to let us get to know the characters or care enough about their fate.

I definitely recommend listening to the unabridged version of this audiobook. I plan to check out the print book from the library, because the bones of this story are so good, I know the flesh of it must be even better.

Listening to this abridged version reminded me of watching a movie, only I think the movie will be better. I hope so – I’m planning to see it tonight.

The one thing I loved about this audiobook was the narrator. I’m not sure who she is, but her Japanese accent and pronunciation of the Japanese words really set the tone of the novel. I’ve had all these geisha terms floating in my head ever since I finished the book.

Stepping Stone

2005-12-27T12:09:00.000-06:00

I've been enjoying the holiday revelry so didn't post last week's review. It's not much of a review anyway. Just Forever Odd by Dean Koontz. It's a sequel to his delightful 2003 novel Odd Thomas, which I enjoyed thoroughly.

Forever Odd features the same main character, Odd Thomas, a young man who "sees dead people" and tells about his adventures in a light, sardonic way, voiced in both audiobooks by David Aaron Baker. In this second installment of what appears to be a series in the making, Odd is coping with a tragedy dealt him at the end of the first novel. He wakes up in the middle of the night to see the ghost of a friend's father. He investigates and finds his friend has been kidnapped. Odd uses his talent for "psychic magnetism" to track down the friend and encounters more than he bargained for in the kidnappers.

Unlike most of Koontz's books, the first of our adventures with Odd was tender and pure. Very little heavy-handed horror. Just the story of an ordinary young man who is not, after all, ordinary.

I imagine it's hard to capture the magic of such a character twice, but Koontz manages it, with the help of David Aaron Baker. Forever Odd is a nice visit with Odd again, but the plot is overblown at times, boring at others. This book, unlike the first, can't stand alone. It feels like the stepping stone it is.

Hey Girl, Let’s Research!

2005-12-14T11:36:00.000-06:00

I finished listening to The Rule of Four this morning. Usually, after I finish an audiobook, I like to give myself a little breathing room. I turn on the radio for the rest of the ride home or else ride in silence, thinking about the book. The amount of time I need for post-listening contemplation directly correlates to the amount I liked the book.

After The Rule of Four, I immediately tore into the plastic wrapping of another book.

It’s not that I hated The Rule of Four. It had some interesting elements and a lovely turn of phrase here and there.

In it, two seniors at Princeton are on the verge of solving the mysteries contained in a massive and complicated 500-year-old book called the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili. But the closer they get, the more people want to beat them to the punch and steal the thunder for themselves. Murder and mayhem ensues.

My issue with The Rule of Four is that, like its main characters, the light comes on in its eyes only when it’s discussing the Hypnerotomachia. These are simultaneously the best parts and the worst – fascinating and energetic on one hand, dense and complicated on the other. Listening to the information about the Hypnerotomachia is sort of like trying to watch an intriguing History Channel documentary while fighting sleep.

Then there’s the rest of the book. The murder, arson and romance that the authors use to turn this into a novel rather than a fictional research paper feels secondary and, frankly, half-assed.

The murder mystery is clunky and predictable. Did I care who murdered Bill Stein? Not really. Did I care who murdered the next guy? Eh. Did I guess who did both? Of course.

So when the main characters finally figure it out, I rolled my eyes. These are guys that can solve complex riddles and codes no other scholars before them in 500 years could decipher, and yet they can’t determine who the murderer is? Come on.

The two authors, Ian Caldwell and Dustin Thomason, are young Ivy League graduates who’ve been friends since elementary school. This fact is totally unsurprising to me because the book feels like something two buddies got together to write.

Reminds me of that time during a snow storm in 9th grade when my best friend and I holed up in her bedroom and wrote a passionate story of going on a Caribbean cruise with our fantasy boyfriends and wearing clothes chosen from Teen magazine.

The Rule of Four, like our tale of teenage debauchery, is a fairy story. The only difference is that instead of daydreaming about wearing thigh highs and making out with boys, Caldwell and Thomason daydreamed about making a magnificent academic discovery.

Okay, there’s one more difference – their writing isn’t putrid teenage drivel.

Poor, Unfortunate Souls

2005-12-07T11:38:00.000-06:00

Somehow it’s harder to write a review of a book I love. It’s difficult to explain why, exactly, The Last Days of Dogtown by Anita Diamant thrills me so. And difficult to say, “Everyone should read this book,” when I don’t believe everyone – or even most people – would love it as much as I do.

So I recommend this book for a certain person, someone who …

1.Loves the history of everyday life. Not the battles or the politics but the ways people cooked and slept and washed and loved. The professional critics say Diamant transplants characters with modern sensibilities into a faux-historic setting. Maybe that’s so, but at least it makes you feel you’re experiencing what it must’ve been to live in the early 1800s.

2.Enjoys a character-driven story. Dogtown is light on plot and tends to be episodic. But it travels into the minds of a whole cast of characters, each one of whom is interesting enough to warrant the journey. There’s even a brief chapter exquisitely told from the point of view of the dog Greyling, who lives on the outskirts of the dog pack and sleeps at the feet of Judy Rhines, the story’s chief heroine.

Dogtown is a story of the poor and unfortunate inhabitants of a fading settlement in the hills outside Gloucester, Mass. It is a miserable place in almost all respects, and like it, the book offers few bright spots. Yet somehow Diamant keeps it from being a miserable book. Her language is clean and straightforward – mostly devoid of sentiment. It is like the attitudes of her characters – hardy and not deluded about their own meager prospects. Each character is a jewel, even the drunk/pimp John Stanwood, who thinks he sees an angel in a tree and tries to reform.

Then there’s the narrator, Kate Nelligan. She is a wonder. A revelation. So good I want to rush out and listen to all the books she’s narrated and rent all her movies, even the ones on Lifetime.

Okay, I change my mind. I DO recommend this book to everyone. Especially the people who love the history of the everyday and character-driven novels, but also everyone who likes a good yarn. Everyone who lives in a small, gossipy town (or even a big one). Everyone who has been down and out. Everyone who has never been poor and trapped but wants to know what it’s like. Just everyone.

And maybe, as the delightful Kate Nelligan reads the last words of the book, you will shed a tear or two. Not because the words are sad but because Dogtown, the book and the town you love, have come to an end.

I'm in Love and I've Never Even Met You

2005-11-23T09:57:00.000-06:00

The natural first impulse when reviewing John Berendt’s second book The City of Falling Angels is to compare it with his first blockbuster bestseller Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil. That’s the first thing people ask, too – is it as good as Midnight? Did Berendt fall victim to the sophomore jinx?

I read Midnight long after the initial buzz about both book and movie had faded. Hubby and I spent a night in Savannah, Ga., on our honeymoon (the rest we spent in Charleston, S.C.), so I read Midnight the week after we returned. As usual, I prefer the book to the movie.

The City of Falling Angels follows a similar pattern. Berendt lives for a while in a city, interviewing its inhabitants and documenting the unique patterns of life there, all the while slowly reeling out a true mystery.

The mystery in Midnight was a murder in Savannah. The mystery in Angels is the burning of the last centuries-old opera house in Venice.

I’ve been fascinated with Venice since reading Palladian Days: Finding a New Life in a Venetian Country House several months ago. Berendt portrays a similar view of Venice – deceitful and charming, vibrant and mysterious, ancient and beautiful. After reading Angels, I’m even more desperate to visit the city with no cars and more art and history than one tourist can digest.

Angels is a pleasant, easygoing book, in some ways more poignant and insightful than Midnight, particularly the parts about the master glassblower who documents the fire in art glass.

But I don’t always need a book that’s packed full of excitement. Berendt narrated the abridged version himself (and an interview with him is included at the end), and that made me feel I was there, sitting in on the conversations with him.

In Midnight Berendt described Savannah through the people he introduced. The same is true of Venice but to a lesser degree. In Angels, the interviews at times seemed more about telling a story – a sometimes uninteresting story – than telling about a person.

But maybe this is the fate of all abridged books – to be edited down to bare story, no frivolous extra things like character development.

And in the case of Angels, the main story and all the subplots are weak. Because I love reading about Venice, I enjoyed most of the book. But if it had been set in a city less fascinating in its own right, Angels might’ve been downright dull. Even the investigation and trial over the opera house’s possible arson lacked suspense.

I recommend reading it but not for the mystery. Read it for the city.

Oh, High School

2005-11-16T16:42:00.000-06:00

Prep by Curtis Sittenfeld is the first book I’ve read both in hardcover and on unabridged audio CD. In the hardcover version, I sped through it in one long night, eager to find out what all these critics were talking about. Sittenfeld was getting compared to J.D. Salinger, her character to the beloved Holden Caulfield.

I didn’t see it – not exactly. I wrote an Amazon review at the time titled, “Fine writing but not the finest ever.” Sittenfeld’s tale of a lonely middle class teen at a preppy boarding school struck me as true at times, tedious at others. After this second reading, I still feel that way.

Like the main character, Lee Fiora, I was shy in high school. Hyper-aware of everyone around me. Observant and terrified of misstepping.

But even I grew impatient with Lee as I listened to her story on CD. I wanted to shake her and say, “Get over yourself!” (I’ve been reading all the Amazon reviews and noticed several other people had this impulse.) While I was at it, I’d shake the narrator and tell her to stop using that whiny voice!

During the first few CDs, the audiobook couldn’t hold my attention. I started thinking I’d made a mistake buying it. But somewhere along the way, it drew me in. I admit I’m a sucker for coming-of-age stories, especially ones that capture so beautifully that heart-tugging regret you can feel for unrequited loves, even now that you’re a happy adult. I always wonder, what if? Even when I don’t want a different end result. The adult Lee looking back seems to feel this way, too, and I identified with that more than anything in the book.

Sittenfeld portrays that emotion, and so many others, perfectly. Perfect is a strong word, but I think I’m safe here. Lee experiences a few moments in the book when she is amazed to realize someone “gets” her. That’s the way I felt reading about Lee – Sittenfeld gets teenage girls, gets me.

This is the reason I like Prep. It outweighs the things I don’t like – the slowness, the skipping back and forth in time within a scene, the anticlimactic ending – and leaves me with a good feeling about the book. It is the reason I’m keeping this book instead of sending it back into the eBay mill. I just might want to read it again one day.

Enabling Addiction

2005-11-09T12:51:00.000-06:00

So I was in the library the other day and ran into my friend, Milissa, who is as addicted to audiobooks as I am. We were bemoaning the lack of new material—the library was between deliveries from the central place where it gets a rotating collection of audiobooks. We resorted to looking through the regular collection, and for some reason it came out that she hadn't read Angela's Ashes yet. I recommended it to her, highly. In return, she recommended Gap Creek, reminding me that this was the one she had been desperate to get back into her car to hear.

Well, not only is Milissa enjoying Angela's Ashes, but I loved Gap Creek, and coincidentally, they're very similar. Gap Creek is about a very young couple in Appalachia in the early 20th century, and includes all the expected hardships and traumas—indeed, more than you expect. Where Angela's Ashes rises above the struggle of its story with humor, Gap Creek rises above it with language.

The author, Robert Morgan, is a poet and it shows. The narrator, the very young wife in the story, tells the story in her dialect. (And the reader on the tape is a very effective one.) The simple words and down-to-earth story contrast with unexpected poetic passages that sneak up on you if you're not paying attention, kind of like high triangle notes in a deep, brassy march. The repeated words and phrases reminded me of folk music refrains.

The story itself is moving, though I wanted to rattle these people a couple of times for not seeing and preventing some of their troubles.

The author, who based the story on his grandparents' first year of married life, gives an interesting interview on the last tape.

Tic, Tic, Tic

2005-11-03T23:12:00.000-06:00

As I mentioned in one of my comments below, Motherless Brooklyn by Jonathan Lethem is a twist on the detective genre. The protagonist/narrator has Tourette's Syndrome, which affects both his behavior in the novel and his narration. One of a group of boys who have grown up in an orphanage in Brooklyn, he and the rest of them are hired at a very young age by a thug who runs a limo service/detective agency. The boss is murdered at the beginning of the story, and the protagonist, Lionel, spends the rest of the book figuring out who did it.

I confess I didn't always follow the plot twists, because it was on audio and I was driving, after all. But Frank Muller does a pretty amazing job on the voices, and on Lionel's compulsive speech. I have no idea how accurate the Tourette's depiction is, but the narrator explains all his tics as they're happening, and what he does to try to stop them, or how he gives in and uses them to his advantage. It helps that the character's well read; his echolalia, or verbal tics, turn into absorbing poetic narration.

Jonathan Lethem was interviewed recently on Studio 360; you can hear the interview here; click on Lethem, Bird, Dolly.

Shake Some Action

2005-10-28T15:12:00.000-05:00

Since starting this blog, I've noticed something about myself. I expect different things from an audiobook than I do from a print book. If I'm lounging in a sunny spot (or staying up all night) reading a print book, I don't necessarily need action or surprises or intrigue. I enjoy a good character study, anything that reveals something about human nature, anything literary.

But for some reason, I can't get into those kinds of books as much in audio form. I've had Bret Easton Ellis's Lunar Park riding around in my car for a while now, but in spite of the significant buzz surrounding it, I haven't felt the motivation to begin it. I gravitate more toward the mysteries, adventures and chick lit - most of which I don't bother with in print. Most of which I inevitably dislike.

Maybe this difference between what I want in audio vs. print occurs because I get distracted more easily in audio. With a print book, I get so absorbed that I'm more in the book than I am in the real world. But it takes a really special audiobook to suck me out of the world of interstate driving ... though maybe that's a good thing for the other drivers around me. ;)

Ambling Along, La-Dee-Da

2005-10-24T15:38:00.000-05:00

Apparently, Anita Shreve (or her editor) likes generic titles. Last year, I read her Light on Snow. Now A Wedding in December. Let’s see – The Last Time They Met, All He Ever Wanted, Where or When, Resistance. The only one with a title I can get interested in is The Weight of Water (which was made into a Sean Penn movie).

You can’t always judge a book by its title. I found Light on Snow - told from a 12-year-old’s point of view - charming and touching.

But in the case of A Wedding in December, the title fits - both as a plain-jane description of the plot and a sign that nothing terribly exciting is on its way.

The novel brings together seven high school friends, who went their separate ways after an eighth friend’s tragic death. They meet at Nora’s inn in Massachusetts for the wedding of Bill and Bridget, who were high school sweethearts but broke up in college and married others. They are only now, 22 years later, reuniting.

The story rotates point of view among three characters – Bridget, the bride, who may be dying of breast cancer; Agnes, a schoolteacher who harbors a secret sadness and is writing a fictional account of a large-scale tragedy; and Harrison, who has fought with guilt and regret since high school.

The story is about regret and the role our choices play in it. Each of the three main characters changes direction over the course of the weekend, but nothing that happens surprises. Nothing that is revealed surprises.

This is not to say the book is bad. The characters are appealing, the writing clean, the emotions true. And I loved the forays into Agnes’ historical fiction short story, though I often wondered why Shreve didn't just devote a whole novel to it instead of interrupting this one at intervals.

I expect a certain amount of roller coaster in a book – highs and lows and in-between. A Wedding in December travels at an ambling pace, a stroll. It has highs and lows, but they’re so subtle that they’re more like shallows and gentle rises in the road than any roller coaster.

Protracted Listening Experience

2005-10-22T01:36:00.000-05:00

It's taking me 100 years to listen to A Wedding in December. First the vacation interrupted. Then this week, my hubby was sick, so I took two days of spare vacation and stayed home to pamper him (aka, lay around on the couch with him and intermittently fetch Gatorade and/or Tylenol).

No work naturally means no commute, which means no audiobooks. If this were a suspenseful novel, I might be losing my mind right about now. Fortunately - or is it unfortunately? - A Wedding in December is more of a slow and serious drama.

But I'm finally on the last CD, so expect a review early next week, probably Monday!

When this book is finished, I'll get back to The Rule of Four or maybe my new unabridged copy of Prep.

A Preservationist’s Fantasy

2005-10-17T14:57:00.000-05:00

My favorite kind of book/audiobook is one that leaves me feeling an echo of emotion, like in the few moments before you fully wake from a dream.

A book doesn’t have to be perfect to make me feel that way. Robert Hicks’ The Widow of the South has its flaws, but at the end of 5 CDs, I wasn’t ready for it to end. The readers – Becky Ann Baker, Tom Wopat (yes, from the Dukes of Hazzard TV series), David Chandler and Jonathan Davis – bring the story and characters to life. The voices are warm and hypnotic, and the accents are right.

And for once the abridgement doesn’t leave gaping holes in the story. Hurray for good abridgements! Abridginator Andrew Loschert is my new hero.

Author Robert Hicks, as he says in the author commentary on CD 5, is a member of the preservation board for the McGavock house in Franklin, Tenn. He based the novel on the true story of Carrie McGavock, a Southern plantation owner’s wife whose house becomes a makeshift hospital and garden becomes a graveyard after the Battle of Franklin, “five of the bloodiest hours of the Civil War.”

Like Cold Mountain (the movie … I still need to read the book), the story focuses on two people who fall in a sort of love based more on an idea of each other than on any real intimacy.

The story starts off strong with a moving battle narrative from soldier Zachariah Cashwell’s point of view. The hospital scenes, too, are heartbreaking and vivid. This is the kind of stuff that comes back to you when you close your eyes to go to sleep at night.

Carrie McGavock’s point of view is fraught with emotion as well. She is a mother who has lost several children to disease and can’t pull herself out of depression. She sees something in Zachariah – a desire to live? – that pulls her toward him and lets her feel again.

If this all sounds awfully sentimental, you’re right. But the innate sadness and beauty of this tale lift it out of potential sappiness. The romance is not really the true heart of this story. It’s Carrie’s growth into a living, breathing woman again – in spite of the fact that she has to use death to get there.

Goldberg’s Remedies for a Blah Protag

2005-10-13T17:03:00.000-05:00

Myla Goldberg’s novel Wickett’s Remedy hooked me with the packaging. As an owner of a turn-of-the-century house and a collector of vintage paper items, I was thrilled by the image of the old-fashioned “medicine” bottle label. (The heft of the 9-CD unabridged version didn’t hurt either.)

See? Pretty. Cover Designer People (T. Oliver Peabody & Jean Traina), I want to shake your hands.

The audiobook almost lives up to its cover’s promise. Wickett’s Remedy is an unusual combination of elements. A straightforward – if unexciting – tale of a Boston shopgirl’s experiences during the 1918 Spanish influenza epidemic coincides with the evolution of her husband’s faux-medical remedy. Like Fannie Flagg, Goldberg augments her story with period news reports, public service announcements, newsletters, brochures and letters.

Oh yes, and one truly unique element – the voices of the dead speaking in the margins.

At first, I found the hollow-sounding marginal voices distracting and a little annoying. But as the story went on, I grew to love them. I smiled each time one interrupted with a correction. Their purpose at first seemed only to be to poke fun at the fallacy of memory, but as the influenza epidemic’s death toll rose, they became a poignant medium for expressing the great loss.

Another feature that could’ve been annoying but escaped with a gold star instead – Goldberg’s apparent use of every multi-syllabic word in Roget’s 20th Century Thesaurus. I’ve been a lover of language since childhood when I corrected my mother’s grammar instead of vice versa (to her everlasting annoyance), but I usually despise overuse of big words in novels. The trouble with most big-word usage is that it’s out of place in the story.

In Wickett’s Remedy, the somewhat antiquated words fit with the setting. But more than that, they are used correctly. Goldberg knows not only the definition of the words she’s using but also all the little nuances. She doesn’t throw them about willy-nilly, and she doesn’t try to shove them in awkward places. These big words fit, and that’s enough to give a word nerd a tiny shiver of pleasure.

Add up the old-big-word fun, the marginal voices and the fascinating backdrop, and it’s easy to forget that the main character’s story isn’t particularly interesting. Who needs excitement when you can broaden your vocabulary?

The Un vs. the Ab

2005-10-12T16:33:00.000-05:00

A quick glance at eBay Pulse tells me most audiobook reader/listeners prefer unabridged books. And who wouldn’t? With abridgements, I’m often left wondering what I missed. It’s like watching Dirty Dancing edited for television – you’ve seen it so many times that you know something is missing but you’re not sure what.

Then again, if the book isn’t that great to begin with, I appreciate an abridgement because that means the dullness is over sooner. I can get to the resolution of the story with little fuss or muss and move on to the next book.

Either way, I like to vary my audiobook fare. After I read a nice, long unabridged book, I’ll shake things up with a lightweight abridgement or two.

I think it would be fun to be an abridger (Is that what they’re called? Or maybe abridginator? Abridgidaire?). As an editor, I take great joy in trimming the fat from stories. It’s like a puzzle, and you figure out how to make things fit together in the best, sleekest way.

Okay, I’m getting all squiggly-feeling just thinking about it. How does one break into the abridging game?

Why I Need Headphones

2005-10-12T11:17:00.000-05:00

My trip wasn't as bad as I anticipated, but I still missed the audiobooks. I couldn't listen to so much as the radio because every time I'd turn it on, my charming mother-in-law would start trying to talk over it. *sigh* She even tried to talk to me while I was reading Object Lessons on the ride up. You can tell a person never reads when they interrupt you with questions about your book or life in general or the cure for cancer. A frequent reader-for-pleasure knows that a good book sucks you into its world, and you don't want someone screeching from the back seat sucking you back out.

Anyway, I'm home. I managed to enjoy Object Lessons. Not as much as Black and Blue, but the teeth-gritting situation might have affected my feelings about the book. The third-person omniscient point of view is something I haven't seen a lot in literary fiction. In a way, it was refreshing and different. In another way, I couldn't get as deeply inside the heads of the characters - particularly the main character, 13-year-old Maggie, whose distinct voice was diluted by all the action inside the other characters' minds.

A Road Trip Without Audiobooks

2005-10-07T19:14:00.000-05:00

Ingredients for an unpleasant vacation:

Road trip with in-laws

No audiobooks

I'm going on vacation with the in-laws for four days, with a four-hour drive there and back. That's eight hours of abject misery and 88 of only moderate misery. Actually, I'll be sleeping for 24 of those hours, and I hope they will be at least neutral.

If you can't tell, I'm not particularly looking forward to this trip. One of the reasons is that we'll be driving, but I won't be able to listen to my audiobooks because of our passengers. I'm right in the middle of A Wedding in December, and it always annoys me to interrupt a book for a few days because I can't remember what's going on when I get back to it.

I went to the library on my lunch break today and checked out two print books - Blessings and Object Lessons, both by Anna Quindlen. I read Black and Blue recently and became an instant fan. I'm hoping her literary superhero powers will keep me from exploding all over the vehicle on this sans-audiobook, not sans-in-law vacation.

I'm beginning to see the benefits of an iPod.

Southern Gothic

2005-10-07T10:19:00.000-05:00

I've been hearing a lot of buzz about the new Karin Slaughter novel, Faithless, in the book blogging world. This was my first time to read/listen to Slaughter's work, and I found the abridged audiobook version entertaining enough to keep me awake on the commute but not remarkable.

Faithless stars Slaughter's recurring characters medical examiner Sara Linton, her ex-husband/current boyfriend police Chief Jeffrey Tolliver, and Detective Lena Adams, who’s struggling with her own inner demons. They stumble upon a murder victim who was buried alive in a wooden box in the forest near their small Georgia town.

The victim, they soon discover, was a member of a strict religious family that owns a cooperative farm. Their investigation leads them to several suspects around town, particularly at the farm, which hires down-on-their-luck folks, many with criminal backgrounds.

Because these are recurring characters, Slaughter seems to be investing in a long-term character arc. Which, for this single book, means that nothing much happens to the characters personally. Sure, they run around interviewing people and poking at dead bodies, but I didn't feel I got to know them.

in Faithless, Slaughter avoids the kind of twist ending I hate, the kind that’s so twisty it comes out of left field. But she also creates little suspense. When the killer – or is it killers? – was revealed, I had no “a-ha” moment. I had an “oh – right” moment. No emotion, no excitement.

I just didn’t care what happened at the end, and none of the characters intrigued me much. It’s fair to say I cared less about the outcome of this story than about the average episode of Law & Order: SVU.

More Like Straight Into a Black Hole

2005-10-06T13:17:00.000-05:00

As a quick look at the History Channel on any given night will attest, the American people are obsessed with World War II. In many ways, I can see why. So many compelling stories of human tragedy, and nearly everybody has a relative that fought in it (for me, there are two grandfathers and a great-uncle).

But I’ve nearly reached my limit on World War II television shows, movies and now audiobooks.

Straight Into Darkness by Faye Kellerman is a serial killer murder mystery set in pre-Nazi Germany, during Hitler’s rise to power. If there’s any storyline more ubiquitous than World War II, it’s serial killers.

But I must give Kellerman credit for trying one thing a little different than what I've seen in many murder mystery/detective novels. She is honest about human beings. Her characters aren't heroes or saints ... or even likeable.

Her protagonist, homicide detective Axel Berg, accepts bribes, frequents whores and generally looks out for himself. In a way, I appreciated this. In another way, where's my motivation for caring about a dispassionate, charmless main character?

I made it through the audiobook – I often shut them off if I get bored – but just barely. Add on top of the unlovable characters grisly, CSI-worthy descriptions of dead bodies and eyes dangling from sockets – let me pause to shudder – and violent, horrible scenes of sexual assault.

Now, I’m no prude and I love me some Law & Order: SVU. But nonstop horrible stuff – especially when it seems to be in the book strictly for the shock factor – is not my cup of tea.

As for the narrator, I think Paul Michael did his best. Every single character had to have a German accent and also had to sound distinct from the many others. That must’ve been a challenge, and I think he pulled it off well for the most part. Sometimes it was hard to tell who was speaking in a scene, but that may also have been due to the writing or to the abridgement.

Perhaps I would like Faye Kellerman’s books better in print, where at least I would have more time to learn about the characters and where I wouldn’t have to listen to the repulsive parts out loud. There’s a reason these acts are called unspeakable.

The Obessession Begins

2005-10-06T12:47:00.000-05:00

Since I was a young'un, I've been a big reader. But work and life and all that stuff got in the way, and I could never find enough time to read more than a couple of books a year.

Then, one year ago, I traded in my 8-minute commute for a much longer one. Since I work for a magazine that has an audiobook review section, I started listening to the review copies. Soon, I was addicted to this method of passing the time on the long drive and squeezing in some much-missed reading.

When I tried to search out audiobooks on Amazon, I noticed that most of the reviewers are referring to the print versions of the books. When I wrote reviews on the audiobook versions, the reception was cold.

Okay. So I'll write my own blog where people who are specifically interested in audiobooks can find me.

A bonus of this is that it will help me keep track of the books I've read and my thoughts on them.

Bring on the books ... audio that is.