Neil Gaiman on audiobooks
Nov. 30th, 2009 06:32 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kestrellfrom this morning's NPR morning show
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=120769925&ps=cprs
At a little over seven minutes, there is only so much discussion that can happen in a segment, but Gaiman makes some nice points, such as reading on audio is not a new thing and that some critics's definitions of reading composed explicitly to rule out audiobooks as a legitimate form of reading are not always very robust.
I myself would often prefer the text version of a book because I find listening to someone else's voice reading to me changes the experience, but I will listen to books read by particular readers--Neil Gaiman for one, Doug Bradley for another--and I also love audiobooks that play with the form, either intentionally or accidnetally. The first audiobook I fell in love with was, okay, Tim Curry reading Anne Rice's _Cry to Heaven_, a magnificent audio recording with bits of Italian opera included. But there was also Neal Stephenson's _The Diamond Age_, because I thought having my computer read me a book about a book which read itself aloud to a little girl was the stuff of pure fantasy. Another great audiobook: _Soon I Will Be Invincible_, which alternates chapters between a comics-style supervillain and a new female superhero, and the voice actors were so incredible that I can't even imagine the print book being better.
Do other people have audiobooks with which they have fallen in love?
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=120769925&ps=cprs
At a little over seven minutes, there is only so much discussion that can happen in a segment, but Gaiman makes some nice points, such as reading on audio is not a new thing and that some critics's definitions of reading composed explicitly to rule out audiobooks as a legitimate form of reading are not always very robust.
I myself would often prefer the text version of a book because I find listening to someone else's voice reading to me changes the experience, but I will listen to books read by particular readers--Neil Gaiman for one, Doug Bradley for another--and I also love audiobooks that play with the form, either intentionally or accidnetally. The first audiobook I fell in love with was, okay, Tim Curry reading Anne Rice's _Cry to Heaven_, a magnificent audio recording with bits of Italian opera included. But there was also Neal Stephenson's _The Diamond Age_, because I thought having my computer read me a book about a book which read itself aloud to a little girl was the stuff of pure fantasy. Another great audiobook: _Soon I Will Be Invincible_, which alternates chapters between a comics-style supervillain and a new female superhero, and the voice actors were so incredible that I can't even imagine the print book being better.
Do other people have audiobooks with which they have fallen in love?
