AUDIOBOOK REVIEWS

Wednesday, June 19, 2013

Audiobook Week Mid-Week Meme



Jenn K. a.k.a. devourerofbooks, is hosting Audiobook Week 2013, which consists of prompts for daily postings relating to audiobook love :-)

Today's Prompts:


Current/most recent audiobook:



The Man in the Empty Suit
by Sean Ferrell
narrated by Mauro Hantman
Ⓟ 2013, AudioGO

Impressions:
+ The story is fascinatingly complex and demands the listeners attention
- The narrator has a clear voice but had difficulty shaping the text, delineating characters and maintaining the feminine tenor of a key figure
- There was distracting booth noise late in the audio production 


Current/most recent favorite audiobook:



The Ghosts of Belfast
by Stuart Neville
narrated by Gerard Doyle
Ⓟ 2009, Audible, Inc.

This is the latest entry to my Personal Pantheon of All-Time Great Audiobooks, coincidentally displacing another Gerard Doyle-narrated audio, The Dead Trilogy (Dead I Well May Be, The Dead Yard and The Bloomsbury Dead; by Adrian McKinty.) Even though the audio was published in 2009 and I listened to it in 2012; and I've listened to a lot of good and sometimes very good audio in the past year, nothing since as come my way that I absolutely made me drop whatever it was that I was doing and just listen.


Favorite narrator you’ve discovered recently:



Davina Porter

I read Diana Gabaldon's Outlander series in print, so the audio that Davina Porter is most noted for is something that I haven't experienced! But this year, I listened to Splendors and Glooms (by Laura Amy Schlitz) and loved her performance! From the Armchair Audies review I wrote and posted:
Her cultured voice, distinct characterizations, her ability to disappear into the text, mark her as a master narrator. In Splendors and Glooms, Davina Porter voices the POVs of an aged crone, an old, sleazy man, a pre-adolescent girl with theatrical training, an illiterate street urchin (boy) and a little rich girl, all with seeming ease. Splendors and Glooms is a relatively long book for children's fare, but the narrator's pace never flagged and was as strong at the end as it was in the beginning.

One title from your TBL (to be listened) stack, or your audio wishlist:



The Dead Beat
by Jim Butcher
narrated by James Marsters
Ⓟ 2010, Penguin Audio

If past experience is any indicator, the writing wil be terrible; but the narration will be great! I'm starting this one today though I've had it in hand for a couple of years!



3 comments:

  1. I agree - Davina Porter is an excellent narrator!

    ReplyDelete
  2. I loathed the first Dresden Files book (I may get tomatoes thrown at me for this). And I've since decided that James Marsters is not the narrator for me. Which makes me sad because I love Spike so much.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I've heard great things about the Dresden Files books and James Marsters narration. Hope you enjoy!

    ReplyDelete