5 Completed Audiobooks

I’ve fallen way behind listing the audiobooks I’ve completed.  Its amazing how many I can get through while walking the dog every day.

Title: Allan’s Wife
Author: H. Rider Haggard
Source: Librivox
URL: http://librivox.org/allans-wife-by-h-rider-haggard/

The story of Allan Quartermain’s wife, with some other adventures.  A perfectly good adventure story, although with a fairly predictable plot.  It may have been innovative when first published, but the plot elements have been repeated so often since that it is pretty clear the shape the story line will take early on.  The reader is good, although her voicing of native African characters sounds to my ear more like Indian than African.

Title: Anne of Green Gables
Author: L. M. Montgomery
Source: SimplyAudioBooks.com
URL: http://www.simplyaudiobooks.com/audio-books/Anne+of+Green+Gables/20306/

SimplyAudioBooks makes something in their catalog free each month.  I’m willing to try almost anything for free…. and I’m glad I did.  I never read this classic at the “Young Adult” age, even though I did ready the Bobbsey Twins, Hardy Boys, Nancy Drew, and such.  I don’t know why I skipped it, and I’m happy to have filled the gap.  This story is quite enjoyable, with interesting and realistic characters.  The reader does a great job of voicing the characters.   Highly recommended!

Title: The Stolen White Elephant
Author: Mark Twain
Source: SimplyAudioBooks.com
URL: http://www.simplyaudiobooks.com/audio-books/Stolen+White+Elephant/46374/

A Twain I haven’t run across before, this is a long short story, not a full novel.  It is full of absurdity as detectives struggle to find the stolen elephant.  I was not thrilled with the reader, who seemed to me to not understand where the deadpan humor is in Twain’s writing.  But if this comes up free again at SimplyAudioBooks, it’s well worth the price.

Title: Sketches Old And New
Author: Mark Twain
Source: Librivox
URL: http://librivox.org/sketches-new-and-old-by-mark-twain/

A collection of familiar and unfamiliar short stories and essays.   Some are better than others, of course, but its a nice collection.  The reader, John Greenman, has done a lot of Twain for Librivox, and he really understands how to deliver Twain’s humor.

Title: A Short History of England
Author: G.K. Chesterton
Source: Librivox
URL: http://librivox.org/a-short-history-of-england-by-g-k-chesterton/

Chesterton’s view of history is that of the continuing advance of Civilization (spelled Christianity) over pagan barbarism.  That view lends a certain predictable perspective to his narrative, which can get annoying.  It is, however, interesting to listen to the arguments, and a good bit of his discussion of the events of the late 18th century (e.g. 1776) is from quite a different perspective than standard American history provides.  The reader is adequate, but would benefit from checking a dictionary for pronunciation of some less common words.

http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CBIQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Flibrivox.org%2Fsketches-new-and-old-by-mark-twain%2F&rct=j&q=librivox%20sketches%20old%20and%20new%20twain&ei=Z1-yTIP5NMLYnAfbmZWpBg&usg=AFQjCNGGEf5kgs7WLMkzFp-C4HBrp_qcGQ&sig2=YHEdedOJlrKLycxXwnzuqA&cad=rja