If so, then perhaps this recording of Flannery O’Connor reading “A Good Man Is Hard To Find” at Vanderbilt, some fifty-two years ago, should be queued up for your next trip. Or maybe just a chilly evening around the fireplace with your loved ones. (Via — which also links to recordings of Yeats, Larkin, and others.)
J.L. Wall
J.L. Wall is a native Kentuckian in self-imposed exile to the Midwest, where he teaches writing to college students and over-analyzes Leonard Cohen lyrics.
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on Youngsters Make Merry at Evanston Country Club Christmas PartyHester Walrath (1898-1971) went on to attend Northwestern University, marry a businessman, and have…
on Open Mic for the week of 12/16/2024So the "CR" of 1500 pages, given to members 24 hours before the vote, and which did all kinds of thi…
on Open Mic for the week of 12/16/2024Do you not understand the irony of speaking positively about banning political parties in the same b…
on Open Mic for the week of 12/16/2024I suppose we could blame the townspeople for not showing up the umpteenth time the shepherd boy crie… on Open Mic for the week of 12/16/2024A small backlash? If the election were held today they would be the 2nd biggest party in the Bundest…
on Open Mic for the week of 12/16/2024I have no idea why pointing out that Na.zis were elected legitimately is relevant to this discussion… on Open Mic for the week of 12/16/2024No, I'm pointing out that you find 'Trump is Hitler' more absurd than 'These people are Na.zis', so…
on Open Mic for the week of 12/16/2024The local paper referenced this work, partially paid for by the feds, this morning. Some of the phas… on Open Mic for the week of 12/16/2024And I will, again, point you that you are the first to mention Hitler, You sure about that? Maybe re… on A Note from EmHe's one of the AIs. https://claude.ai/new I make him read my essays and then I argue with him about…
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If by “tape” you mean “CD,” then yes, two of the partners here at my firm do. I listen to the Great Courses lectures a lot.Report
I have a whole bunch of TTC lectures lined up, but I can’t quite bring myself to to eggheading in the car. The closest I have come to that was when I was listening to Obama’s books and an anti-Obama book in the run-up to the 2008 election. I just started Dance with Dragons.Report
Will and I were just talking about this. I love to listen to them, but only while driving – and then only over long distances. Some of my favorites are the Terry Pratchetts read by Nigel Planer (the guy from The Young Ones) that does different voices for dozens of characters so effortlessly that you forget it’s a guy reading.Report
Every Christmas Eve, we listen to Patrick Stewart read A Christmas Carol. Killer.
http://www.amazon.com/Christmas-Carol-Reissue-Charles-Dickens/dp/0671793829
I’d love to hear Neil the Hippie give it a whack, tho.Report
I had a friend (female) that told me once if she ever had to be fired, she’d want to be fired by Patrick Stewart just because it would sound so great coming from him.Report
Nigel Planer is awesome. Discworld in general translates particularly well to audiobook.Report
I haven’t listened to them in years, but I used to listen to them late night in the lab when I was in grad school. At one point, I listened to Miles Davis’ autobiography, read by LeVar Burton. Anyone who grew up when I did will know Burton as the host of “Reading Rainbow,” and therefore as a beloved childhood icon. As a result, it was very disturbing to hear him use some of the words that Davis liked to use in pretty much every sentence. I think I was a little bit traumatized by the experience. Good autobiography, though.Report
I had to read Wise Blood for school when I was fourteen years old. I was definitely too young to appreciate Flannery O’Connor.Report
I listened to books on tape, back when I had a significant car commute (it’s down to 8 minutes each way now.) Agreed about he wonderfulness of Nigel Planer’s Discworld narrations. Graham Greene is also first rate: Our Man in Havana and The Quiet American in particular, and LeCarr’s classic works (up through the Karla trilogy) are also favorites.
Warning: anything that’s already talky in print (Lord Jim, Absalom, Absalom, etc.) will make you want to pull your ears off.Report
I am addicted to books on….uh “recorded books.” I usually get them from the library and listen in the car. Mostly The Teaching Company and Modern Scholar.
The challenge they will have is moving to Audible (or another audio download format.) CDs are OK but not portable like an mp3.Report
Converting a CD to mp3 is pretty trivial, and has the advantage that, with a compression rate appropriate for speech, you can easily fit an entire book on one CD or many into one mp3 player.Report