I’ve never been a big fan of audio books. The few times that I’ve tried to listen to one, I’ve always been annoyed by the performer, the abridgement, the half-performance-half-reading aspect of them.
However, I love listening to authors read their own work, particularly poets.
I have recordings of Neil Gaiman reading his stories and poems, as well as a couple of his pieces that have been dramatized for radio (and they’re terrific).
There’s nothing funnier than David Sedaris reading his essays.
And there’s a recording of T.S. Elliot reading ‘The Wasteland’ that got me through a two-hour commute every morning and afternoon the year before I got married.
I love listening to authors that I love read their work. I’d give anything for a complete recording of Dorothy Parker reading her poems. I wish John Gardner had read ‘Grendel‘ or ‘Mickelson’s Ghosts‘ into a tape recorder before he died.
A few months back (wait for it) I bought a USB microphone and hooked it up. Every so often I switch it on and then, feeling self-conscious, switch it off again.
Tonight I decided that, with a redesign of the site nearly complete, that I should give it a shot. I spent an hour or so recording some of the shorter poems . . . and I was somewhat pleased with how they turned out.
There’s a new site coming, sometime in the next week or so. better organized, a cheerful new layout and design, easier to navigate, a search feature (thanks Jack), more plays, scans of production posters, casts lists, some short video clips of scenes, more photos I’ve taken . . . and now a handful of recordings the stories and poems (as read by the author).
In the meantime . . . beyond this journal and the Haunted Year project, I’m not going to be adding any new content to the current site. Everything is being saved for the redesign — which should, I think, be up and running sometime mid-April.
So. That being said, it’s time to get back to work. Odysseus needs to go to bed, soon.
