February 2010
AUDIO BOOK REVIEWS
by Jonathan Lowe
Death. We all face it. What can you do
about it? Well, you can get up off the
couch, put down that soda and chips, and
go jogging after a meal of veggies and
vitamins. (Hopefully with an imaginative
audiobook). Still, though, you will face
death eventually. (Incidentally, the argument
"why bother, then?" is the same as saying
"death—the sooner the better." Plus
my mother also informs me, at age 93,
that the reason she's still around is
"pickled beets," although changing her
bed pans is no longer as much fun.) What
to do about death, then, instead of obsessing
over it, or fearing it? Try laughing at
it. That's just what Thomas Cathcart and
Daniel Klein do in their new audiobook
HEIDEGGAR AND A HIPPO WALK THROUGH THE
PEARLY GATES. Heideggar, as you may or
may not know, is an existentialist philosopher.
The authors of this new audiobook (which
they also read) are former Harvard philosophy
majors who, respectively, either dropped
out of divinity school or wrote jokes
for standup comedians. Their last book
was
Plato and a Platypus Walk Into a Bar.
What better way can there be to face your
fears than to laugh at them? You can also
talk about your death and philosophy in
general, which the authors also do here,
with examples taken from history, science,
and religion. (Random House Audio) |
It's a mystery why Michael Crichton's
last novel (he died in 2008) is not a
science fiction epic, but perhaps he was
just having fun. We'll give him that.
PIRATE LATITUDES is a swashbuckling tale
set in Port Royal, Jamaica in 1665, and
follows Capt. Charles Hunter, a "profiteer,
not a pirate," as he and his hired cutthroats
attempt to commandeer the booty aboard
a Spanish galleon moored in the bay of
a small, protected island while it awaits
an escort back to Spain. John Bedford
Lloyd narrates the action, giving the
barbarous characters all the melodramatic
touches they need to work within their
range of stereotype. (Harper Audio) |
Elizabeth Gilbert, author of
Eat, Pray, Love, has a new
audiobook out titled COMMITTED: A SKEPTIC
MAKES PEACE WITH MARRIAGE. If you'll remember,
at the end of EPL Gilbert had fallen for
a Brazilian Aussie living in Indonesia
(there's a combination) who was later
detained at the U.S. border, where Gilbert
was told that she either had to marry
him or he could never enter the U.S. again.
So the couple embark on a tour of Southeast
Asia for ten months while they contemplate
the prospect of an institution which has
claimed many lives in the past (ie. marriage),
including their own (both are victims
of divorce, having sworn never to remarry.)
What she does here, with unique effect,
is tally all the pros and cons of the
institution by examining historical data
and personal experiences in an effort
to come to terms with her forced legal
union. Gilbert was a journalist about
masculinity for GQ, and also author
of the National Book Award nominee
The Last American Man, plus
Stern Men, a novel about a
woman who joins a feud among lobstermen
in Maine. She narrates Committed
herself as a first person memoir and travel
journal with a candid masculine demeanor
and equally feminine sensibilities. (Penguin
Audio) |
Next, actor Stacy Keach reads Mike Hammer's
THE LITTLE DEATH, a full cast audiobook
which is difficult to produce but a joy
to listen to. The series, as you know,
is by Mickey Spillane, one of the most
prolific of mystery writers, while Keach,
a veteran film and stage actor, once played
the character on television. Spillane
died in 2006, so this story was completed
from a draft by the author of
Road to Perdition, Max Allan
Collins. The plot involves a damsel in
distress, a gumshoe targeted by two-bit
hit men, and an underworld kingpin who's
missing a wad of cash. At two hours, it's
the length of a movie, so you can exercise
your imagination here while considering
it an "audio movie" that you don't have
to sit still for while you watch with
your mind's eye. (Blackstone Audio) |
Finally, Dominick Dunne's Gus Bailey returns
from
People Like Us with his new
and last novel TOO MUCH MONEY, in which
Gus, like Dunne, is dying of cancer, and
also—like Dunne—is a society
columnist whose examination of the rich
and famous once again gets him into trouble.
The plot revolves around a lawsuit from
a slandered politician, and the suspicious
death of a billionaire. A longtime Vanity
Fair writer, Dunne was familiar with
the snootiest of the jet set, and here,
as usual, he creates fiction using brush
strokes taught him during his time writing
exposés on the New York elite. Actress
Ann Marie Lee gives a careful yet buoyant
performance to float these eccentric characters
like Titanic survivors over a sea of red
ink, oblivious to the cries of those not
lucky enough to merit a lifeboat. (Random
House Audio.) |
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