Book 'em, Dan-O

Friend Andy Kirkaldy induced me to participate in one of the more benign Facebook activities last week. It had nothing to do with undermining a national election. All you had to do was post the covers of seven books you loved…no explanation necessary. Again, in the reflective stage of my life I ended up putting more thought into it than was required. It started when I acknowledged the worn and weathered look of the books I had chosen. These were not rescue books from some yard sale…these were original purchases. I’d owned all of them for nearly 40 years or more. And they didn’t get worn out just sitting on a dusty bookshelf; they were worn out because of my constant re-reading and referencing of them. I loved the books to begin with--otherwise why would I have chosen them—but this trivial little process made me love them even more.The process also made me realize that I will never have such books in my possession again. I have become an inveterate consumer of audio books. Listening to books while walking, driving, riding my bike has become such an attractive convenience I can’t imagine going back to a day where I have to sit stationary to enjoy a book. I’ve had friends tell me that they could never go audio because they love the feel of holding a book in their hands and turning pages of paper. I get that. It’s kind of what held me back from going from writing with a quill in my hand to using a typewriter (D’oh!).My embrace of audio books has not come without a price however. For most of my sentient life, I’d been a willfully slow reader…of fiction at least. Without ever being instructed to do so by any reading or writing teacher, I intuitively wanted to tune into the writer’s voice…to hear the sentences unfold in my head just as they did in the author’s head. Speed-reading doesn’t allow for that, so I was always content to read at whatever pace the author set.  The problem with audio books is that you have to listen at the pace the reader reads at. Not only that, but the reader can seriously impose tone, characterization, and nuance on a book that the author may not have intended and that you may have not inferred on your own. Some recent works of audio fiction I listened to provide perfect illustration of what I’m talking about. The first was a rather nicely done mystery, Before the Fall by Noah Hawley. The book reader, Robert Petkoff, may have been too good for my own good. One of the characters was clearly based on rightwing blowhard Bill O’Reilly, and Petkoff, a master at creating voices, nailed O’Reilly perfectly. The problem is, I despise that nabob of narcissism. For years I’ve turned O'Reilly off whenever he appears on TV, so having him streaming directly into my brain via earbud was painful, and I would’ve much preferred to filter that character through my own imagining.Speaking of “newsmen” intruding on the world of fiction, Jake Tapper’s voice narrating his book Hellfire Club was nowhere near as excuciating as that O’Reilly voice. But there’s a real problem when you apply a voice so closely associated with delivering the news to telling a made-up story. It was only a mildly interesting story to begin with, but the intonation of a CNN anchor seriously undercut whatever pulpy charm it may have had.  Then there was The Tuscan Child by Rhys Bowen, easily the most disappointing audio experience I’ve had. The format of the book is a daughter’s story alternating by chapters with her father’s story. They assigned two readers for the task…a female and a male, which may have seemed logical but there were male characters and female characters in each chapter, so the readers had to change genders anyway. No gain there…in fact a big loss. She was awful with male voices and he was almost as bad with female voices…and they were both dreadful with Italian accents. It became unlistenable and I just stopped. My fear is that this may be a trend in audio books and publishers will feel they have to mount these things like a mini stage production. It has served to make me more discriminating in choosing audio books now…not just judging by the cover or the story, but by the audio presentation as well.At the far opposite extreme, I’m currently listening to Something in the Water by Catherine Steadman, who’s actually an actress (Downton Abbey) turned novelist.  That being so, I’m hearing this book exactly the way she intended…and it’s exquisite. The story itself is somewhat derivative of that potboiler from 20 years back, A Simple Plan, which was made into a terrific Bill Paxton movie. But her take on the dynamics of a marriage is razor-sharp and her application of those dynamics for churning an international thriller is outstanding. Something in the Water is so good that I’m experiencing that most glorious sense of angst that comes when you're seeing a loved book coming to an end. Also, sad to note, no matter how much I love this one…or Gentleman from Moscow or Moral Tribes or other audio favorites of mine, their covers will never be able to show my love and affection for them the way these books have…