The Appeal by John Grisham

John Grisham, after stints in non-fiction in The Innocent Man and popular non-legal fiction in Playing for Pizza, returns to the courtroom drama with The Appeal.

A Mississippi a jury returns a shocking verdict against a chemical company accused of dumping toxic waste and causing the worst “cancer cluster” in history. The company appeals to the Mississippi Supreme Court, whose nine justices will one day either approve the verdict or reverse it. Evil Owner Carl Trudeau decides to try to purchase himself a seat on the Court. He recruits a young, unsuspecting candidate to finance, market him, and mold into a potential Supreme Court justice.

The unabridged recording is narrated by Micheal Beck, a regular Grisham reader (and the unabridged version of Bill Clinton's My Life). A sample of the first chapter can be found free on Audible and here.

The Secret by Rhonda Byrne

Yesterday, I wrote about USA Today's Number One book for 2007. Today I will write about Number Two: The Secret by Rhonda Byrne.

Just for a moment, let's get past the fact that The Secret's supposed "new idea," the Law of Attraction - the belief that if one simply believes something, then the universe will make it happen - has been around for centuries. Let's get past the fact that the content of The Secret is totally self-serving (i.e. if you only believe, it will come true - so dream of riches).

It's funny that one of the criticisms of the The Secret is its slick marketing. There is nothing slick about the audio "book" version. It sounds like a simple audio-only version of the movie. Talking head after talking head pass through with little if any introduction or context. The sound quality is bad; the music and special effects are distracting. If only I could wish The Secret away for another millennium or two, but I'm afraid it won't be long before Byrne will be back on Oprah shilling another inferior product.

Retro Review: Jim Dale and the Harry Potter Series

Now that the dust has settled on 2007, I'd like to look back on the Harry Potter series. This is one series I read in its entirity via audio book, and I must say, it was a most satisfactory experience from beginning to end. I give much credit to Jim Dale, MBE, for making the J.K. Rowling's books come alive.

I was familiar with Jim Dale from his stint at Disney in the seventies (Pete's Dragon, Hot Lead and Cold Feet, The Unidentified Flying Oddball). With the Harry Potter series he was able to keep track of scores of characters. Publisher's Weekly awarded Deathly Hallows "Audio Book of the Year 2007" and it has been nominated for a Grammy in the category "Best Spoken Audiobook for Children." For an estimate of how beloved his audiobook performances are, consider that he read to an estimated 6,000 fans at a New York Barnes & Noble the night Deathly Hallows was released. Also, check out his recordings of Peter Pan, Around the World in 80 Days, and A Christmas Carol.

The Harry Potter books aren't found on Audible yet, but 1 - 6 may be purchased on iTunes. (There is no word about when Book 7: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows will show up there.) The best buy for now is probably Ebay where I just found 36 hits from less than $20 to $105 (!). Meanwhile, there's always the public library; I had to wait several months for book 5, but it was worth it (by book 7, I couldn't wait - I bought it at the Harry Potter release party).

Recorded Books

Recorded Books has been around for more than 25 years. They were pioneers in the field of unabridged audio books. In the early part of this decade 2001, I rented several unabridged recordings from them (Anne Rice's Vampire Chronicles and The Lord of the Rings), and I've had nothing but good experiences with them.

At Recorded Books, a direct consumer can rent or buy audio books, or join a service such as Recorded Books Unlimited which ships as many audiobook rentals as you can listen to each month for one low monthly fee. I'm a little concerned about their business model. Right now, they don't seem to be interested in putting books up for download. They also seem to be more interested in libraries than the direct consumer, as you can see from their splash page.

However, Recorded Books does have a fantastic selection going for them. Since they record many of their own titles, they have many books that Audible (and iTunes) don't have. For example, I recently rented Gone with the Wind (on cassette!). It came by mail in less than a week, and now I'm cassette 3 of 36. I hope to finish it this year.

Speaking of pioneers, Books on Tape is still around, although it's a shadow of its former self. They still have a few exclusive titles of of their formerly vast library on (For example, Tom Wolfe's The Right Stuff and The Bonfire of the Vanities are available on cassette, but The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test is no longer available).

Thursday Ideas: Shelby Steele

I saw Shelby Steele on Bill Moyers Journal last night (a transcript can be found here), and was intrigued by the argument he posits in his new book A Bound Man: Why We Are Excited About Obama and Why He Can't Win.

Basically, Steel says Obama is trapped between the two ways that African American react to white America; they are either bargainer or challengers. Bargainers strike a "bargain" with white America saying, "I will not rub your ugly history of racism in your face if you will not hold my race against me." Challengers say to white America, "You are racist until you prove otherwise. Steele argues that Senator Obama is too constrained by these labels to find his own true political voice.

I was pleased to find the book unabridged on Audible and iTunes (narrated by Richard Allen). It's a little more than 3 hours long, and it's well worth the time.

Literal Systems

I'm really getting into this movement to put free public domain audio books on the Internet. Since a lot of the audio books I checked out yesterday on Project Gutenberg came from Literal Systems, I thought I'd check them out. I found a very professional site with several great, free audio books.

Their list of many recordings by authors such as Mark Twain, the Brothers Grimm, O Henry, Rudyard Kipling, Joseph Conrad, and Charles Dickens can be found here. I particularly enjoyed 2B R 02B by Kurt Vonnegut.

Continue to support sites like these. When the printed word disappears, you'll be glad you did.

Project Gutenberg

I've long been a fan of Project Gutenberg which has a selection of more than 100,000 free ebooks, and I was aware they had a small collection of downloadable audiobooks. A couple of years ago I began to a computer-generated version of Edgar Rice Burroughs's A Princess of Mars. It worked to a point, but I finally purchased a human-read version to finish it.

Recently, Project Gutenberg has stopped adding computer-generated eBooks, donated by various sources. AudioBooksForFree.com has donated a Arthur Conan Doyle while LiteralSystems.org and Librivox continue many new titles.

Access Project Gutenberg's human-read audio-book collection here.