Five More Great Audiobooks

A couple months back I posted five great audiobooks.  Here's five more.

 The Warden. By Anthony Trollope. Read by Timothy West.

This is an underread novel, one of the best by Trollope, perhaps the wisest novelist in the English language. The Warden begins Trollope's famous Barsetshire series, a set of related Victorian novels that all take place in the same rural English county.  These should be read by anyone who has even a tiny liking for Jane Austen novels, the Bronte sister novels, or anything that smacks of Masterpiece Theater or Downton Abbey. 

You should know that Timothy West is the reader of Trollope. He has read several weeks' worth of Trollope novels, I believe.  That is, you could listen to West read Trollope from January to March and not hear all of West's work.  He sounds like a nice English grandfather, a gentleman reading his favorite novels by the fireside.  He is always comforting.

Born Standing Up. By Steve Martin.  Read by Steve Martin.

I have never laughed at anything Steve Martin has done. I am no fan, but I admire his book on his standup comic career quite a bit.  He knows how to structure his paragraphs, his sections, and his book.  As a writer, he knows how to combine and juxtapose seriousness and levity. This book makes me consider attempting to read one of his novels.  The double bonus with this audiobook is that Martin reads his own book.  I am sure that the audiobook is better than the book itself.

Rendezvous with Rama.  By Arthur C. Clarke.  Read by Peter Ganim.

I can also barely tolerate Arthur C. Clarke, yet this reading of his best book (which doesn't say much) is quite good.  What works with this novel is its simple plot: mysterious alien vessel appears, humans investigate.  This novel has been called an exploration procedural, which is a real back-handed compliment for a novel.  In it, the humans simply keep exploring and discovering new aspects of the mysterious alien ship--the explorations and discoveries are the plot.  I was still riveted by the narration.

True Grit. By Charles Portis. Read by Donna Tartt.   

Portis' great novel, in a saner era, would be more widely read and more widely appreciated. It could and should be read in most high schools by everybody. The Coens tried to film it a couple years ago, with mixed success, but it is not a filmable novel really. That's because the first-person narrator, the teenage girl Mattie Ross, dominates the novel with her perspective and voice.  Donna Tartt gets her just right, I think.

All the King's Men. By Robert Penn Warren. Read by Michael Emerson.

Penn's great novel is worth listening to if you have an extra twenty hours to spare, plus great concentration.  This isn't something you'll want to casually listen to while gardening.  But Michael Emerson is perfect for this book. His Southern accent is not great, but he brings a creepy gravity to the narration.  If you know Emerson, from Lost (as Ben Linus) or from Person of Interest, you know how creepy yet sympathetic he can be.  That style works well for the first-person narrator in Warren's novel about the corruptness of early 20C American politics.