The Pleasures of Reading, Viewing, and Listening in 2014
by Jennifer Marie Brissett
This has been a kind of fractured year for me. So much going on including having to move … twice! All while trying to put out my first novel. It’s left my mind unable to concentrate on the kind of reading I usually like to do. Instead I’ve been doing something that I never thought I’d get into in such a big way and that is audiobooks. So what have I been listening to? Well let’s see—
*All five of the Fire and Ice books written by G. R. R. Martin, read by Roy Dotrice
*The Golem and the Jinni by Helene Wecker – I simply adored this book. So lovely!
*The Dispossessed by Ursula K. Le Guin – I never could get through the written version of this book so I thought I’d give the audio version a try. I did finish it, but I didn’t groove to it. I adore Le Guin’s writing though. I simply can’t put my finger on what it is about this particular title that I don’t like.
*Sarek by A. Crispin – I expected candy, and I got a nice meal instead. What a lovely surprise to slip into the Star Trek world with this lovingly composed depiction of a man who is about to lose the love of his life and yet has to maintain the discipline of non-emotion.
*Under the Dome by Stephen King – I’m often adverse to really long titles in print, but it seems to suit me just fine in audio. I’m not quite sure that this title needed to be quite as long as it was. It also seemed to reach for depths it never quite gets to hold. Yet, the scenes inside the dome when it is filled with smoke are haunting.
*Alif the Unseen by G. Willow Wilson – quite an adventure once they met the Jinn.
*Jonathon Strange & Mr. Norrel by Susanna Clarke– lots of fun in a Dickensian kinda way.
*The Warrior who Carried Life by Geoff Ryman
*All The Tales of the Otori books: Across the Nightingale Floor, Grass for His Pillow, and Brilliance of the Moon by Lian Hearn
*The Man in My Basement by Walter Mosley – I read this book years ago as an ARC before it came out and absolutely love it. I listen to it because Ernie Hudson was the reader and it was such a pleasure to hear Mosley’s words with his voice. I think it’s one of Mosley’s finest works.
*I am currently listening to Don Quixote of LaMancha and mixing in sessions of the Hearn’s prequel to Tales of the Otori: Heavens Net is Wide and have just begun The Three-Body Problem by Cixin Liu
Jenn, we should have a conversation about The Dispossessed sometime. It's probably my favorite Le Guin (though I really like her more recent book The Telling, too). For me it evoked my experiences in the co-op movement -- which felt very similar to the anarchists in the book -- so it might be a very personal reaction.
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