Version 7.0ish. Digital Humanities. Running. Pedagogy. Linux.

Recently read: The Audacity Of Hope by Barack Obama.

Early this summer I picked up a cheap first edition and the audio book of Obama’s second book. He has such a nice speaking voice that I figured the audio version would be a pleasant experience.

The book itself is alright. Some parts are dull, inside baseball, stuff about life in Washington I could care less about. Parts where he discusses policy points were nice, even if I don’t agree with a lot of them.

Overall, I’m not impressed and did not vote for him (I voted for one of the real, not make believe, Socialists on my state’s ballot). So far, almost a month into his administration, I am even less impressed by it. There are plenty of other sites to do detailed analysis of that, however.

As an aside, I am growing tired of a lot of those. I’d rather talk about books. I don’t except much "change" or any of that hocus pocus stump speech crap anytime soon.

Nevertheless, it’s pretty cool to have a president who loves Miles Davis.

Jacket Copy recently had a good post about the promise and perils of audio books. As I have mentioned before, I listen to a lot of audio books these days. One issue which they have that I seem to have successfully avoided is crappy narrators:

Another disaster lies in hiring one reader to do all the book’s voices. DiMeo cites Jim Dale, who reads the Harry Potter series, as the rare talent who can successfully portray more than one character without sounding hammy. I recall David Sedaris doing this well too, but then, Sedaris is another rare talent.

My favourites so far have been the actual authors reading their work. Whether Barack Obama (Hmm, need to get a post up about that) or Richard Dawkins (currently listening to The God Delusion) I think I have had the most success when the author is also the reader.