You won't often find a plug for NPR here, but I have been deeply gratified to listen to the short stories read aloud. In my area, it comes on late Sunday afternoon. I heard "Liberty Hall" by Ring Lardner (I cannot find a link to the text) and The Namesake by Willa Cather yesterday.
Stories are not often read aloud to adults now, nor even to children as much as they should be. Done well, they are like reader's theater, bringing you fully into the work. I read aloud well, but not with a storyteller's skill. I am an expressive reader, and was good with voices and accents in my day, but this series is something far better.
Thanks for the link. We (my wife, family and I) will check this out. We are big fans of reading, although I don't read aloud to the kids as much as I ought. We are also big fans of the storyteller, Jim Weiss.
ReplyDeleteWe "read" audiobooks a lot. I'm especially fond of the Harry Potter series, which are performed by Jim Dale. He does all the character voices so well that you can recognize them instantly (and, mostly, manages to keep them the same across six books!)
ReplyDeleteNot all audiobooks are created equal, though. There are some that make you want to run your fingernails across a chalkboard, just to have something better to listen to. I had to turn one off because it was read by a lady who sounded like a lifelong chain smoker, with no expression in her voice whatsoever. I couldn't stand to listen to it.