Listening to a book
I have kept away from audio-books, feeling that the sight of words is an important part of the experience of reading. However, I have been travelling by bus these days and find the roads of Pune not very encouraging of the reading habit. I did remember Hirak writing about how he got used to audio books, and that emboldened me to give it a shot.The local British Library does have quite a few audio books and offers a choice of authors of my interest: ranging from Richmal Crompton to Agatha Christie to Ian Rankin to Ian McEwan. I decided not to pick up anything heavy or language-intensive. Alexander McCall Smith's "The Sunday Philosophy Club" seemed perfect, and given that the dead-tree edition always seems to be issued, I picked it up.
It has been three days and I find myself to be quite comfortable with the experience. The only irritant is that I cannot "see" the spellings. Isabel Dalhousie mentions many names, ranging from Scottish painters and poets to visitors and passers-by, and the Scottish names are hard to form in my head. Even simpler nicknames escape me - I found out from the link above that her niece was "Cat" and not "Kat" as I had imagined it. Did McCall Smith explain the name while introducing this character? You see, the other thing is that when a truck zips by with a vigorous honk, some words do get muffled. But I had chosen such a book where it would be possible to interpolate the story under such travel conditions.
The biggest plus is that, thanks to the excellent reading by Phyllis Logan, I get to hear a variety of Scottish accents. I am very interested and even fond of these accents, so it's a huge plus.
7 comments:
You do not lose as much as you would suppose, and there is indeed much to gain from audio versions. I've "heard" some Pratchett that way.
And talking of McCall Smith, I've finally found(and bought) the 3 book No.1 Ladies Detective Agency book set. Reading has unfortunately been slow, but rewarding.
And hope you know about this (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0874957/) while we are on the topic of McCall Smith.
You might also want to try out some old radio shows, which are available as MP3s on the net - my favourites are the comedy shows by folks like Abbott and Costello and the sci-fi shows like X Minus 1, which featured readings of short stories folks like Ray Bradbury - but there's all sorts of stuff available.
Being able to listen to stuff while sitting in the company bus would probably be a big plus about joining Infy or CTS :)
I didn't like The Sunday Philosophy Club much when I read it. I prefered the other books he wrote to it.
Try looking for Douglas Adams. I think the Hitchhiker's Guide started as a radio show, and that wuold be worth a listen.
http://afishcalledveda.blogspot.com/
Abhishek: with pratchett, I want to read the puns, so may not try it just yet. And yes, have already noted the film "coming soon".
sud: thanks for the tips, will check. As for listening while commuting, that's pretty much one of the few pluses of going to such places!
Veda: Haven't found it too bad yet - let's see when it finishes. I have already heard the radio versions of H2G2 - have the cassettes. (braggingly) have also seen the TV series :-)
You have cassettes of H2G2... *jealous sigh*
I've always wondered what that was like.
Veda: I think you should be able to find mp3s of the radio version quite easily if you hunt about on the web. Good luck!
Wow what a beautiful Topic to discuss. I am also a book lover. I read Indian english books and i like them. Just wanted to share with u guys that i finished reading a book call A Girl and a river by Usha K R and it is too good. This book is also nominated for the Goldenquill award. I found this book at http://www.indiaplaza.in/Goldenquillaward/. We all ahve to be a part of it as it is recognition of our Indian authors.
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