Water for Elephants
This January, I left my iPod at a ski resort like a dumb person and, naturally, didn't get it back. I put off getting a new one for a while, and when I did, I decided to go ahead and spend an extra $50 for a discounted one-year subscription at Audible.com, including 12 credits for audiobooks and cheaper rates to purchase them.
This was the first book I decided on. I hadn't heard all that much about except through Amazon, which is in fact my anti-drug, but it seemed like a pretty good selection.
It was a fun read, or listen, or whatever. The story is cute and touching, predictable and pleasantly surprising at the same time. The two narrators did a good job in their own characters (young and old Jacob) as well as those around them; it definitely set a different tone to the story than if I had been reading it myself.
An argument against audiobooks I've heard is that it takes away your control as a reader, your imagination's ability to shape and create characters the way it would if you were reading it on paper. The stance puts books on tape (the term seems so appropriate now, years after the tape itself is nearly defunct) under the same umbrella as movies based on books. While the inital remonstrance holds true, I disagree with the latter categorization, because I think audiobooks are really a lot closer to reading the books themselves. Sure, you eventually get used to the voices and accents of each character and shape your ideas around them, but still--at least for me--it's easy to visualize their words in your head and imagine the different ways it could have been done. Maybe it worked so well for this because a) it's my first audiobook, so I'm still not very used to it, and b) its storyline isn't so complicated that I have to focus on every detail with no room for contemplation. I don't know.
The grade: A-. A good light summer read, recommended.
It was a fun read, or listen, or whatever. The story is cute and touching, predictable and pleasantly surprising at the same time. The two narrators did a good job in their own characters (young and old Jacob) as well as those around them; it definitely set a different tone to the story than if I had been reading it myself.
An argument against audiobooks I've heard is that it takes away your control as a reader, your imagination's ability to shape and create characters the way it would if you were reading it on paper. The stance puts books on tape (the term seems so appropriate now, years after the tape itself is nearly defunct) under the same umbrella as movies based on books. While the inital remonstrance holds true, I disagree with the latter categorization, because I think audiobooks are really a lot closer to reading the books themselves. Sure, you eventually get used to the voices and accents of each character and shape your ideas around them, but still--at least for me--it's easy to visualize their words in your head and imagine the different ways it could have been done. Maybe it worked so well for this because a) it's my first audiobook, so I'm still not very used to it, and b) its storyline isn't so complicated that I have to focus on every detail with no room for contemplation. I don't know.
The grade: A-. A good light summer read, recommended.
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