Lost in Austen

This month's first audiobook is Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility, as read by Rosamund Pike. 

I'm loving it.

This year has been the year of the audiobook. I took them up last Christmas, knowing that I had a couple of long drives ahead, and I find audiobooks and podcasts keep me more engaged than music on the long drives. But instead of stopping my subscription, I kept it up - and it's been wonderful. 

I've listened to a full cast read George Saunders' Lincoln in the Bardo - which came out with a similar air to Dylan Thomas's Under Milkwood - which I know I want to listen to again soon, and preferably with Welsh voices. I read Lincoln in the Bardo, but the audiobook brought a whole new edge to it. 

The other fully casted book I listened to was Taylor Jenkins Reid's Daisy Jones and The Six. Listening to the various voices tell the story of the rise and fall of a mythical and iconic rock band was just too good (and is there ever a time when Judy Greer doesn't play the best friend? She was awesome as Karen Karen). 

There has been the odd duff book. There was a Bill Bryson one which had a really hokey, American Mid-West narrator who did my head in for the first hour or so. There's also been the odd book which I haven't taken to, but on the whole, I'm finding audiobooks a great way to keep up my reading. They're great for the tram or in the car, or just walking to the supermarket and back. 

Another good thing about having an Audible subscription is there are all these free books you can download. I obtained Clementine Ford's How We Love that way (and that is a MARVELLOUS book). Another find was Larissa Behrendt's After Story - another gem, a sort of First Nation's fish out of water story about a mother and daughter travelling around England on a literary tour. All of these books are available to you - and you can do other things while you listen to them.

 But back to Austen. Of course I know about Sense and Sensibility. I was sixteen when I first read it. I was bemused I can still name Austen's six novels without blinking (Emma, Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, Northanger Abbey, Persuasion, Mansfield Park, and the unfinished Sanditon.) but I havem't read these in ages. Audiobook is the way to go. 

And I do love Sense and Sensibility. I love what Emma Thompson did with it in the nineties.

And I'm loving listening to Rosamund Pike read this novel. As a narrator, she's awesome. She's got the voice of the main characters just right. 

And I forgot just how funny Austen can be. She's got a biting, astringent wit which courses through the novel. which is keeping me very entertained as I walk, drive, sit on the tram or just relax. 

What more could you want? 

Today's song: