The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern, read by Jim Dale

★★★★★ // ★★★★★

♫♫♫♫♫ // ♫♫♫♫♫ 

[13 hours 19 mins]

The circus arrives without warning. No announcements precede it. It is simply there, when yesterday it was not. Within the black-and-white striped canvas tents is an utterly unique experience full of breathtaking amazements. It is called Le Cirque des Rêves, and it is only open at night. 

The circus arrives without warning. No announcements precede it. It is simply there, when yesterday it was not. Within the black-and-white striped canvas tents is an utterly unique experience full of breathtaking amazements. It is called Le Cirque des Rêves, and it is only open at night. 

Don't read any more summary than that. Just jump in to the mysterious world of Le Cirque des Rêves.

Like many books I choose to read, I did not investigate the plot of this at all prior to reading it. I didn't even read the book jacket summary. I like to go into books with a clear, open mind. I added it to my library queue after it made Amazon's Best of 2011 list. 

I'm not going to go into plot summary because I believe books are best enjoyed unspoiled. But when I finished this book, I had goosebumps and an inexplicable sense of loss and longing and also amazement at how beautiful it all was. Morgenstern made The Night Circus alive, focusing at times on each of the senses. She created a magical world, in whose depth and mystery rivals the feeling Hogwarts gave me as a child, a desire to inhabit the book ever after I had finished it, just to get those magical feelings back.

I read some reviews on GoodReads where readers hated The Night Circus because it was "too descriptive." But personally, I love books (and especially audiobooks) that use descriptive language to access the senses, the way these books envelop the readers, bringing them in. It is the mark of a skilled and thoughtful writer to manipulate her language to fit the needs of the story. If that doesn't sound like your thing, I would suggest you stick to the realm of popular and genre fiction.

Morgenstern has definitely made my list as a writer to follow up on after this amazing debut novel, especially after I discovered that she drafted it as part of National Novel Writing Month.

In terms of listening to this novel, I suggest you pay some attention to the dates. Chapters are from the perspectives of multiple characters and they are given out of chronological order. Once you get the hang of this, it is not too hard to follow. Jim Dale, known to many as the voice of the US version Harry Potter audiobooks, was the perfect selection to read The Night Circus. As far as audiobook readers go, he is one of the greats, if not the great. I'll be surprised if he doesn't win some award for this performance. Here's an excerpt from his Wikipedia page:

He has recorded all seven books in the Harry Potter series, and as a narrator he has won two Grammy Awards, seven Grammy Nominations and a record ten Audie Awards including "Audio Book of the Year 2004," "Best Children's Narrator 2001/2005/2007/2008," "Best Children's Audio Book 2005," two Benjamin Franklin Awards from the Independent Book Publishers Association (one of these was in 2001 for Harry Potter & the Prisoner of Azkaban). and twenty three Audio File Earphone Awards. He is also the narrator for the Harry Potter video games, and for many of the interactive "extras" on the Harry Potter DVD releases. He also holds two Guinness World Records: one for having created and recorded 146 different character voices for one audiobook, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, and one for occupying the first six places in the Top Ten Audio Books of America and Canada 2005.

Recommended for: general readers not put off by magical realism, fans of Neil Gaiman, fans of Harry Potter

Freedom by Jonathan Franzen, read by David Ledoux

★★★★ // ★★★★★

♫♫♫ // ♫♫♫♫♫

[24 hours, 9 minutes]

I came away from Freedom not sure how to feel, but definitely a little more sullen that I was when I started it. I enjoyed Franzen's exploration of mankind's fallibility through his characters. However, even though these characters were compelling in their sadnesses and failings and the ways the went about dealing with conflict, I can only deal with a certain amount of hopelessness, especially in audiobook form for 24 hours and 9 minutes. I felt that there were not enough bright moments to give me the sense that the struggle of life is worth it.

This book received a lot of criticism after being called The Next Great American Novel because critics (and a lot of people writing GoodReads reviews) argued that it is only The Great American Novel for white, middle-class, green liberals. I think this is argument is a waste of breath, but here is my response to it: There are three levels to multicultural theory: 3) Universal - we are all human and share certain characteristics and sentiments as a result. 2) Group - We belong to cultural groups that tend to determine our culture, values, etc. 1) Individual - We are all individuals and thus different from everyone else. Freedom, though people criticizing it tend to focus on the book's emphasis on level 2, exists at all three of those levels. Novels should be judged for what they are, not what they aren't. Call it The Great American Novel if you want. But I think it presents a pretty bleak portrayal of America and suburban life in America. However, it is definitely worth reading or listening to. It asks a lot of worthwhile questions and captures the feelings of a particular culture during our time period. It's an important book to have read.

Though David Ledoux's reading is seamless and nearly transparent, Freedom may not be the right book for you if you are unable to devote nearly all of your attention to it. I found myself pausing or losing track of what I was doing pretty often to concentrate better on the story. Also, at 24 hours long, this audiobook may be too demanding for casual listeners.

Caleb's Crossing by Geraldine Brooks, read by Jennifer Ehle

★★★★ // ★★★★★

♫♪ // ♫♫♫♫♫
[12 hours, 10 mins)

Based on the story of the first Native American to go to Harvard through the eyes of a secret childhood friend - a puritan woman and the daughter of a minister. Wonderfully constructed. A story of one woman's quest for knowledge in a society that forbid it to her. Touches on a number of powerful themes: religion, the nature of sin, ethnocentrism, feminism, colonization. This book would have been a wonderful choice for someone to analyze with post-colonial theory for a literary theory class. It would also have fit well in a history class focusing on the settlement of the Americas. This novel tells the story of colonization from a contemporary perspective, one that brings up all the right misgivings, hypocracies, and ethical dilemmas surrounding this period of American history, and does so with heart, by telling a story that matters. 


recommended for: fans of historical fiction & early american history, general readers


While the story seemed to lend itself well to an oral interpretation, Jennifer Ehle over-enunciates her words. It comes off as unnatural and disjointed. She also uses D instead of T in certain places. I am unfamiliar with her other work and do not know if this is typical of her reading.  However, I pushed through and it became less noticeable over time. I would definitely sample this book before buying it outright. Determine your level of comfort with the language - though this book is contemporary, it takes place in the 1600s and Brooks' research into the language reflects that. Also, decide if Ehle's pronunciation, which I'm assuming is also a reference to that time period, is too off-putting to listen to for 12 hours and 10 minutes.

The Art of Fielding by Chad Harbach, read by Holter Graham

★★★★ // ★★★★★

♫♫♫♫♪ // ♫♫♫♫♫ 

[16 hours]

Chad Harbach's debut novel "The Art of Fielding" came out as a 2011 favorite among readers and critics alike.

Full of beautiful musings on life, literature, family, college and baseball, "The Art of Fielding" follows five characters whose lives intersect at the fictional Westish College: Henry Skrimshander, a shortstop with awe-inspiring talent and a intrinsic love for the game; Mike Schwartz, his best friend and the Westish Harpooners' team captain; Owen Dunne, Henry's "gay mulatto roommate"; Guert Affenlight, the college president; and his recently divorced daughter, Pella.

Though "The Art of Fielding" is essentially a book about baseball (and some people on the fringes of it), it is regardless a work of literary fiction - bringing beauty and a sense of meaning into what goes on on the field, and in addition, bringing on that resonance and discourse with other works of literature (most prominently with Moby Dick, as the fictional school boasts an obsure tie to Herman Melville.)

As first novels tend to do, "The Art of Fielding" has a few weaknesses, though they do not interfere too much with what I took away from the novel as a whole. I thought the development of the "dangerous affair" should have been better developed from Owen's side, and had it been, I would have felt less uneasy and disturbed by the whole affair, though only slightly.

The bottom line: The chatter surrounding this book elevated my expectations too high. Regardless, I thought it was a worthwhile read. Strong, well-defined characters (for the most part). And the baseball talk brought on a sense of nostalgia for me, having grown up following my brother's traveling baseball team around the midwest.

Holter Graham, the audiobook reader, really made the novel come alive for me. As far as audiobook readers go, I group them into four categories: one, the ones I absolutely cannot stand; two, those whose voices interfere with the story in a minor sort of way - unclear, distracting, annoying; three, those who disappear into the story; and four, those who add a little something extra to the experience of the work. I would place Holter Graham's reading just between the third and forth categories.

--

“Maybe it wasn’t even baseball that he loved but only this idea of perfection, a perfectly simple life in which every move had meaning, and baseball was just the medium through which he could make that happen.”

Some helpful audiobook resources

Ambling BookPlayer - free (or paid upgrade) app available for Android, iPhone, iTouch, and iPad. The online library can be organized by free and paid. The audiobook downloads straight to your device. However, these are big files and unless you have an unlimited data plan, you should download via a wifi connection.
Librivox - free, volunteer-recorded audiobooks. Downsides - the catalog is difficult to navigate, some of the readers are less skilled than others. On the plus side - free public domain audiobooks, multiple recorded versions, multiple languages.
Audible - Amazon-owned premium audiobooks. Downsides - these get pretty expensive. Upsides - they offer an extensive library and quality recordings.
OverDrive/Media on Demand - this free  service lets you borrow audiobooks electronically straight to your mp3 player, smart phone, e-reader, computer, or alternatively, you can burn them to cds. Though, if you're going to go through the effort of burning all those CDs, you might as well just go to the library. While the wait is impossibly long to borrow e-books, significantly less people listen to audiobooks. The search feature isn't very accurate (and the selection includes a lot more popular and genre fiction than literature), but I'm sure these pitfalls will be improved in time. To see if your library is participating in this service (or something similar), visit your library's homepage.
Your neighborhood library - many libraries have a moderate selection of audiobooks on CD and cassette, in addition to offering mp3 downloads online. Also, a lot of libraries will borrow an item you requested from another library to lend it to you. In my experience, not many people check out audiobooks on CD regularly. At least, at the library I frequent, the selection the audiobook section is always full of CDs and empty of people.

Know any other resources that might be helpful to audiobook readers? Let me know!

audio|bookworm manifesto

Interested in listening to audiobooks but don't know where to start?

You've probably had someone define you as a visual, aural, or kinesthetic learner sometime during your childhood. Maybe you even began to identify with that definition of yourself. I, for one, always maintained that I was a visual learner. I never thought I could listen to an entire novel and be able to pick up subtleties, follow characters, or even maintain my understanding of the plot without being able to see anything. But my younger sister used to marathon the Harry Potter audiobook series on her iPod over and over, so I figured I would give it a try.

The first audiobook I ever listened to was Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows during a car ride from Chicago to upstate New York and back a few years ago. As a passenger, listening to a book on my iPod helped pass the time. I was able to devote nearly all of my attention to it. I came away from my first audiobook experience impressed, but I wasn't sold. Not yet. I liked the feel of a book in my hands, the action of physically turning a page--and I still do. But there is also something powerful in hearing a book read to you. In his book The Art of Fielding, Chad Harbach described reading aloud as an intimate act. Many cultures were born out of oral storytelling. Many of us grew up as our parents read storybooks to us. We are told "stories" every day: crazy blind dates our coworkers were subjected to, the retellings of movies we probably wouldn't see anyway, the what-happened-last-night's our friends whisper to us in excruciating detail over the phone. So it really isn't that far removed. It really isn't that much of a stretch to listen to a book rather than reading it.

Nearly a year after I graduated college, I found myself in a temporary office job. Boring, as most temporary office jobs are. Filling, data entry, sending mass spam emails, staring at the electric glow of an out-of-date computer monitor. The kind of job you could do without thinking, or nearly so. Then one (glorious) day after I had long exhausted my iPod music library, while procrastinating and skimming the offerings on the Android Market, I downloaded the Ambling Book Reader, followed by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's A Study in Scarlet recorded by volunteers with the Librivox Project.

Cue life changing moment...

Since that day in March 2011, I have listened to at least 399.7 hours of spoken word (or so boasts my iTunes library).

Okay, so, maybe not all of you have day jobs where you can "tune out" and still accomplish your daily tasks with regular accuracy. When I'm not working as an office temp, I still manage to get my audiobook fix in by listening in the car or on the train, listening while knitting, cooking, or painting my nails. I've seen my sister listen to Harry Potter on headphones while she applies her makeup, brushes her teeth, and ignores the rest of the family at dinner time.

And I've found that listening to audiobooks has given me a chance to experience a lot of literature I never would have had the time for otherwise while still working days, attending graduate school classes, and writing short stories. My discovery of audiobooks has certainly made my job and commute more enjoyable, and my life more fulfilling. I have a list of 56 books read/listened to in 2011 that I can be proud of - and all the knowledge of life and humanity and literature that comes with it.

---

If you haven't already guessed, I will be using this blog to review audiobooks, but also to promote literacy through their use. We live in a fast-paced world. Not everyone has time to sit down and crack open a 300+ page novel. But who doesn't have time in their commute to get through a couple chapters a day of that book they've been meaning to read forever?