As I hope you’ve noticed, I haven’t been doing a lot at the site lately. I haven’t read any books recently so I have none to tell you about, and I’m behind on checking the latest Stark/Westlake/crime-fiction news which means I have no updates on that stuff at the moment either.
I have a number of excuses for this, but the latest one is that I’ve been on the road–I spent the past several days going to Tulsa and back for a job interview.
Because of the long drive, I decided to do something I’d never done before and listen to an audio book. My selection was the third novel in the Harry Potter series, The Prisoner of Azkaban, mostly because it was what I had handy. (Maybe I’m not too far off-topic here…it is a crime novel!)
This was my first audio book, barring some books-on-tape I barely remember that my Dad would pop in the tape deck of the van while on family vacations.
It’s also the first time I’ve listened to material I was previously familiar with–I have not read The Prisoner of Azkaban, but I have read the first two books in the series. And this is what made the experience a little strange to me. I had my own ideas about how the characters’ voices sounded, what the cadences of their speech were like, and how certain names and fantasy words were pronounced (apparently, I had “Hermione” entirely wrong).
Partly because of this and other factors I’m sure, while I heard every word of the book, it doesn’t really feel like I’ve actually read it. This may just be a first-timer’s thing, or it may just mean I’m weird.
Another issue, which can’t be helped, is that I couldn’t flip back if I needed to check on some detail to jog my memory. This was frustrating with a long book like Harry Potter and I imagine could be very frustrating with crime novels, where I often want to go back and hunt for a missed clue.
Also, what am I supposed to do when there are 45 minutes left but I’ve arrived home? Sit in my living room with headphones on? Switch over to my hard copy? Listen to the thrilling conclusion in ten minute segments while running errands? None seems satisfactory.
Despite all that, there’s no question that it was a great way to while away the hours on a long drive. I’ll do it again. Maybe now that I’ve done it once, it won’t seem so weird to me.
More on topic, there have been some Richard Stark books released on some audio format or other. Books on Tape released some Parkers and Grofields many years ago. These are long out of print, but a few titles can be purchased used at Amazon and other places. They have never been digitized to my knowledge. There are some other titles available on CD or for digital download, but just how many is hard to tell without a lot of research I haven’t done yet. It seems like a rather fractured market, but I found some titles at BBC Audiobooks America and audible.com. There are several non-Stark Westlakes out there as well.
So here are my questions. Do you listen to audio books? If not, why not? If so, do you think of them as a different experience than reading the book or a different means to the same experience? Have you listened to any Stark/Westlake audio books? If so, what did you think?
(Fellow Parker fan and friend of the site Jesse Willis has a site devoted to audio books, SFFaudio. I hope he chimes in.)
Update: This would be a good place to mention again that you can download an audio version of the Westlake science fiction short story “The Risk Profession” for free.
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Trent, my advice, give it a bit more. Pick a good book or two more.
If your a big reader, as in you read a lot, I think you are making a big mistake in not adding audiobooks to your daily or weekly routine. I manage to read about an extra book a week just in the time when I’m brushing my teeth and combing my hair.
All the complaints Trent makes are ones I’ve heard before. I imagine that audiobooks won’t work for everybody. But they work for a lot of people who like books, more and more these days. Personally, I can be listening to three or four different audiobooks in one day without having to rewind any of them. You get so that listening becomes second nature and the text becomes more transparent spoken than written. It is probably something to do with the brain training itself. I’ve listened to all the Stark audiobooks (and maybe 90% of the Westlake ones). I only pick up the paperbook if the audiobook isn’t otherwise available. That leaves more time for reading comics, writing and such.
Jesse:
I will certainly try some others.
I definitely see the advantages. As I mentioned in the post, I’ve got a lot going on right now, so I would never have found time to read the Harry Potter book under current circumstances–I’m having trouble finding time to re-read The Mourner, which is considerably shorter. So this was a good way for me to knock it out before I started forgetting crucial details of the first two novels (which I read sometime around the holiday season last year).
I don’t know when I’ll do it again–I rarely drive long distances, and, being unemployed, don’t have a commute. But when those circumstances change, I’ll pop in another one.
Love ’em, love ’em, love ’em! It isn’t the same experience as reading, but it’s awfully nice all the same. Also, podcasting seems to be keeping audio short fiction alive. Unfortunately, there isn’t much available in the crime world. Transmissions From Beyond sometimes features pieces from the British magazine Crimewave.
Loren:
Thanks for the tip. Short stories and novels probably make more sense for my purposes. It was eight hours to and from Tulsa and I still didn’t quite finish the Harry Potter book. Longer books might work for a truck driver, but they will rarely work for me. I will check out Transmissions From Beyond just as soon as I get my desktop computer back from the shop.
If you haven’t seen it already, note the update to this piece.
I recently obtained most of the Westlake Dortmunder books on audio (mp3) and started listening to The Hot Rock, and honestly I found it to be really hard to concentrate on it and to do other things at the same time. I figured if that were the case I might as well start reading the series again from the beginning, as I just finished all of the Starks a few weeks ago. So I did and I have the mp3s to thank for getting me reading the books again, but I probably won’t be returning to the audio versions anytime soon…..