Art

Still listening to 3 Men in a Boat today.

Audiobooks certainly aren't an artform that can be commented on at high speed.

I am, by the by, quite serious on the artform point.
Audiobook readings are performances - interpretations of a book rather than the book itself. As such they can enhance the text or make it dreadful. I suppose less creative effort needs to go into converting book to unabridged audio than book to two hour movie or book to the medium of dance but screw it the stakes are so much bigger! Average audiobook is what 8? 10 hours? The audiobook audience may be relatively low but 8-10 hours of badly performed prose - that's the kind of evil that gets passed on.

The Abridgement Debate

SimplyAudiobooks.com have had a poll up regarding the "To Abridge or Not to Abridge?" question. When I last viewed it the figure was up at 95% for Unabridged.
Not hugely surprising - if forced to take sides I would go this way too.

I've been coming to the conclusion that the issue is not simply black and white. To begin with some books would really benefit from having a bunch of their pages ripped out bodily and to my mind this does not merely apply to plot driven pot-boilers.

All this has been prompted by my acquisition of an unabridged Three Men in a Boat. I grew up with an abridged version forever close by and it appears that the rule 'Daddy knows best' is never better applied than when to audio versions of late Victorian travel writing. Jerome pads the witty passages he is justly remembered for with what can only be described as vast tracts of overly-romantic word painting. Knights & squires, Magna Carta, Good Queen Bess and ye olde Englande in general all feature heavily. If I were reading then at least 50% would be skimmed. In audiobooks the only option is to mentally tune out and wait.

Anyone think of any other books that benefit from abridgement?

Audio Book Review - The Eyre Affair

I'm getting into a habit of being really harsh on people who have done pretty well nothing to deserve it. First Project Gutenberg, then AudioBooksForFree.com and now Gabrielle Kruger who reads



The Eyre Affair - Jasper Fforde
Read - Gabrielle Kruger
11 hrs 20 mins





The fact is I love this book and her narration didn't work for me at all. Actually that isn't entirely true... predominantly the book is a first person narration and her voice for the primary character was full of personality without being irritating. Secondary characters, however, pretty well sounded alike.

Book: 5
Primary voice: 4
Secondary voices: 1
Atmosphere: 3

Overall: 3/5

Its possible, I suppose, that this is a gender thing. As a guy am I more likely to pick up on bad male voices? Alternatively how are you supposed to do the male voices in a first person narration by a woman? I don't know but I do know that The Eyre Affair on audio didn't live up to the book.

Such is life.

More on the cost of free audiobooks

AudioBooksForFree.com has been around for a long time and since I got my first audiobook downloads here I have a degree of affection for this site. Like Project Gutenberg this site works outside the publishing system so (with some minor exceptions) restricts itself to works already in the public domain. Unlike Project Gutenberg it does not go specifically for classics instead opting for a wonderful mix of pre-Great War detectives, Victorian Adventure Fiction, Pirate Biographies, Card Games and other verbal bric-a-brac.

Either I have improved my standards or the place has gone somewhat to seed. In spite of its name this is a for-profit site. The eponymous free audio are low quality versions of the sites titles that can be downloaded in multiple segments. For easier downloads or higher quality files money must change hands. I'm guessing that insufficient people were biting and upgrading to the paid content so someone decided to downgrade the quality of the free stuff. The problem is that the audiobooks did not start off as particularly great and this reviewer's verdict is that the mental strain of listening to the free files outweighs their worth.

Project Gutenberg

Don’t get me wrong – I think Project Gutenberg is an admirable undertaking. Its goal of digitizing and freely distributing books in electronic form is, as far as I am concerned, one of the greatest demonstrations of the Internet working for humanity’s betterment. Along with the huge quantity of eBooks that primarily constitute their collection Gutenberg also offer a bunch of audiobook classics… gratis.

Are they any good? The answer you'll be pleased to here is that some are quite bearable. I listened to part of HG Wells' The Time Machine, as read by a volunteer, and both the reader and whoever produced the recording do an admirable job.

The Time Machine is part of Gutenberg's 'human-read' section but since they are a volunteer organisation this is small. As a quicker and cheaper alternative Gutenberg have been experimenting with computer-generated audio files. To be freely distributable a book must have expired from copyright restriction but with Dickens, Swift, Stoker, and Aesop to name but a few they really do offer something for everyone. The problem, however, is that audio generators are not even barely up to the task. It isn't Gutenberg's fault, it isn't the generator's fault, but if these aren't genuinely crimes against nature then they certainly come close. The mere fact of the matter is that English spelling and pronunciation is idiotic... beautiful and idiotic. Technology just isn't up to the job of placing stresses on correct syllables, determining appropriate rhythms for sentences or pronouncing Loughborough. When computers advance this place is going to be a wonderful resource. Until then it would, perhaps, be best to view this section of Project Gutenberg like sour milk. You've got to have it to get cheese but no-one but an idiot would drink it.

A Blog with a Purpose

At least I guess 'A Blog with a Purpose' since I only intend to talk about my thoughts regarding audio-books.

Thought number one is should the word be hyphenated.
Audiobook, audio-book, audio book,
audio-book, audio book, audio-book,
audio book, audiobook, audio-book,

MS Word seems to think so.
Blogger seems apathetic
I am not so sure
I think, since its in the title, I'm going to leave any potential hyphen alone

As I was saying 'A Blog with a Purpose'