Audio Books

I've listened to audio books daily for the past five years. At night I drift off to sleep with an ear bud in and my iPod shut-off timer set for thirty minutes; a really good book, and I will reset the timer - more than once. All this listening requires a big supply of audio books.

Averaging thirty dollars a time this could be expensive but thankfully the local library has a large and ever burgeoning stock of books on CD. Ripping the discs is a bit time consuming but a little effort and some file manipulation provides a digital copy to keep.

Another free source is YouTube where rascals upload entire audio books and bask in a remunerative hit count until the Google Police pull their plug. Long in-print books slip through the holes in the net but recent publications don't stay online long. If you want to 'harvest' an audio file best conduct regular YouTube searches! I keep the Amazon books page open too for inspiration and to read reviews. Armed with a few bits of free software, a copy can be collected, trimmed into shape and on your iPod in under an hour.

Freemake Video Converter downloads the YouTube video, extracts only the audio element and saves it to your hard drive in any format you want; mp3 is for iPods.

Next, Audacity is a free audio editing suite with which you can split a fifteen hour file into bite-sized tracks.

With Mp3 Tag Editor you can apply titles, dates, authors, narrators and artwork.

Install a free audio book app to your iPod/iPhone and sync the audio files to your device.

With time and a little tenacity, your favourite book won't ever be due back at the library nor disappear from YouTube.

The Life We Bury - Allen Eskens

I lost the compulsion to write reviews of every book I read but this one I will make an exception for. 2014's The Life We Bury was the first offering from Eskens, a Defence Attorney turned writer, and it's a cracking good read.

 

College student Joe Talbert has an English assignment: to write a biography of a stranger. He finds a man in a nursing home with an interesting history, Carl, a Vietnam Veteran and a convicted murderer, paroled from jail now that he is dying from cancer. The two make a seemingly unlikely connection and Carl maintains that his conviction was wrong - he did not rape and murder, nor burn the body of a teenage girl.

 

While researching his assignment Joe turns amateur detective and follows a trail which leads to spectacular findings. On the way he learns a lot about Carl's past and is forced to confront buried issues of his own. We learn about his grandfather's mysterious death, his mother's sorry life, his brother's autism and follow the subtle growth of his relationship with a female neighbour. The tale gathers pace and becomes a real page turner.

 

Characters are quite well drawn, some likeable, some detestable, all with pasts which weigh with varying degrees of heaviness on their presents. The writing is smooth and flawless; plenty of showing rather than telling. My one criticism is that the people Joe meets seem happy to open up immediately as if he were a long lost friend rather than a stranger. Some realism is lost this way but the tale's excitement is irrepressible.

 

Like many debuts, Eskens has had this work in mind for some time, distilling it, letting it ferment and grow, adding sub plots and themes, and refining his characters, making for a most entertaining read. 8/10

The Goldfinch, Donna Tartt

This is an intoxicating story of loss, of love, of addiction and obsession. It follows the turbulent life of Theo Decker, picking up when he is caught in a terrorist bombing which takes the life of his mother. From there it's a rollercoaster ride of arrivals and departures, of greetings and farewells. Whenever Theo is beginning to settle, he is whisked away to another new start.

 

The Goldfinch of the title is a tiny but immensely valuable painting, oil on wood. Theo has it in his possession and its very presence shapes his life.

 

Donna Tartt's style is rich with description and observation; her language sharp and evocative. The novel is exciting and brim full with real people with real aspirations, faults and successes, doing real things. It's a long read and all the more satisfying for that.

The Exorcist, William Peter Blatty

I have just revisited this classic novel by listening to an audio recording made by the author in the late 1990s. I make no secret of the fact that I admire the 1973 movie and no book review would be complete without at least a passing reference to the film. I was one of the teenagers pretending to ignore the Samaritans as they stood on the cinema steps handing out leaflets. As a naive fifteen year old I was quite affected.

Reading in my mid fifties I can listen to large tracts on my iPod in the dead of night without (undue) alarm. We have to remember that the movie was an adaptation, a distillation of the plot into two hours. Inevitably it concentrated on the shocking. The novel stands comfortably by itself as a clever supernatural detective story which manages to explore faith, medicine and the overlap of psychiatric disorders with physical symptoms.

 

Three individuals lose their lives, a fact some might overlook. A detective working on the first death is inexorably drawn to events and rumours surrounding the house the victim last visited. When the only logical suspect is a twelve year old girl he is mystified. In parallel with his gentle but persistent investigations, the lives of the girl's mother and her household staff begin to coincide with medical doctors and Jesuit priests.

 

The doctors remain insistent on a physical root cause even when presented with extraordinary symptoms to indicate otherwise. This stalemate threatens to slow progress but sub plots are explored to fill the void. As a last resort the help of an exorcist is recommended and events move rapidly to a memorable climax.

 

Pacing is masterful, and matter-of-fact descriptions lend paranormal events an eerie plausibility. It's interesting to hear the author's interpretation of his own work and therein lies the audiobook's only failing. Blatty's delivery is deep and gruff for all characters, male, female, young, old. It's often tricky to identify the speaker in dialogue. Nonetheless the book is tidily written, neatly plotted and hard to put down.

 

I understand Blatty has recently committed something of an authorial sin. In 2011, to celebrate the fortieth anniversary, he wrote a new scene, introduced a new character, and generally spruced up the prose throughout the novel. Well, I listened to the original version and there is little wrong with that.

The Long Walk, Richard Bachman

This was the second King novel under the Bachman pseudonym. Although published in 1979 King has since confided that he wrote it in 1966 when just twenty, and long before his more famous early works.

Both the premise and its execution are simple: an annual 'last man standing' walking race down the East coast of America during which King explores the physical and psychological effects of a gruelling challenge to the death. Walkers who slow below 4mph or infringe other rules will be 'ticketed', a euphemism for a more terminal penalty. TV cameras relay the entertainment, and the eventual winner will choose whatever prize he wants.

 

Although an undoubtedly good effort from a young author, it suffers from a limited storyline resulting in endless repetition. Whether intentionally or not, the novel's biggest success lies in its foretelling of the age of reality TV and the strange relationship between contestant and viewer. Spectators lining the route of The Long Walk would today be watching Big Brother.

 

The reader observes interaction between the walkers, their division into groups or loners, and their ability to endure suffering of both body and mind. It's interesting, but not fascinating. When I first read this, thirty years ago, I thought it an allegory for the walk of life but it's really less pretentious than that.

The Gods of Guilt, Michael Connelly

I do enjoy courtroom drama, particularly if it is as accurately observed as the Mickey Haller series by Michael Connelly. Of course to detect accuracy you first have to be familiar with the US judicial system. It is based on the British adversarial method but without the wigs, gowns and general pomp. Procedures are the same, examination, cross, redirect, re-examination, objections etc. Penalties can be a tad harsher though!

Connelly's ease at describing the subtle maneuvering within court scenes brings authenticity. He knows how many looks, facial expressions, nudges and even secret text messages don't catch the judge's attention. Despite what TV would have us believe, witnesses don't make uninterrupted speeches, lawyers can't bring unexpected witnesses or suddenly produced undisclosed evidence. It's his adherence to this realism yet ability to spring surprises which lifts Connelly's dramas well above the ordinary procedural.

The titular Gods of Guilt are the jury and here, while sitting on a murder case, they have to learn how it is connected to an earlier wrongful conviction. Defence Lawyer Haller expertly dismantles and connects both cases while simultaneously repairing his damaged home life, chasing a new girlfriend and trying to recover from a failed run for District Attorney. To be frank, the plot is somewhat weaker than previous outings and if not for the distractions, would have barely carried the book.

 

I love how Peter Giles reads the audiobook. His Mickey Haller is sincere, earnest, hardworking and utterly dependable. I might be in a minority but I disliked McConaughey in the title role of the Lincoln Lawyer. Too self opinionated, too brazen. I wanted to see the humility with which Connelly endows his character. So, I was delighted to hear 'my' Mickey Haller again even if this case wasn't his toughest.

Reading and Writing

Life After Life, Kate Atkinson 5/5

An astounding work of great intricacy; a non-linear exploration of what might have been; an authentic account of London in The Blitz, brutal yet poignant; an exquisite portrayal of a middle-class British family beginning in Georgian times.

Atkinson poses a theoretical question: what might happen if we had the chance to live our lives again? Could we alter the outcome of events both minor and monumental? But this is not time travel; nor is it reincarnation. Protagonist Ursula Todd begins life on a snowy night in 1910, an event she will revisit numerous times. Sometimes she reaches childhood, other times well into adulthood but whenever her life ends it recommences, right back at the beginning.

 

There are numerous episodes of deja vu. Some events repeat identically, others are altered by fate or by choice. This is however not merely about how a single little girl's life might unfold. The Butterfly Effect is in full force. In addition to assembling a complex and appealing puzzle, Atkinson has crafted a magnificent tribute to a bygone era. Her descriptions of London and Berlin, before, during and after both Wars are so authentic she might actually have lived through these periods herself.

 

With effortless style she recreates the culture, feel and ambiance of long forgotten times. Life After Life is the kind of novel that lingers in your mind long after you turn the final page, or in my case listen to the dulcet, and very English tones, of Fenella Woolgar on the audiobook. A hugely satisfying experience and one I won't spoil by revealing further details.

Shutter Island, Dennis Lehane  4/5

Nothing is ever quite what it seems in this nightmarish tale of murder, madness and trickery, set entirely on a fictional Island where the criminally insane are kept out of harm's way. Ostensibly, Teddy Daniels is a US Marshall, arriving to investigate the apparent disappearance of an inmate.

 

From that point the plot twists and thickens and both reader and Daniels have difficulty separating reality from fantasy. What seemed simple becomes complex. There are codes for the Marshall to decipher and anagrams for the reader to ponder. The facility is part hospital/part prison and Daniels is convinced the Management are covering up a program of unauthorised experiments on the patients. Lehane does a fantastic job of slowly lifting the lid on a tortured mind.

 

Even as the final crescendo is approached we can't entirely distinguish the good guys from the bad. Not until the closing chapter and in a chilling epilogue does the author reveal the full horrifying story.

 

Writing
 

Much of my reading now is in the form of audiobooks. Days are so full with shuttling the children around and running errands that I spend any spare daylight following my current favourite hobbies: genealogy and running. Reading/listening is strictly a night time affair.

 

Instead of creative writing, I have been writing about my family history, researching the subtle details where possible and putting them into my own words. Although you can never run out of ancestors to reasearch, I have reconstructed sufficient families now (about 800 marriages and 3,000 individuals) to know my inlaws from my outlaws! The names, dates, occupations and addresses are important but hanging flesh on those old bones is what brings the past to life.

 

Run, write, read, listen. Breathe... and repeat!

Jurassic Park, Michael Crichton

Another in my sequence of reading matter where the book pales in comparison with the film adaptation. Jurassic Park the book reads at times like a scientific manual, at times like an essay, but rarely like a full-throttle adventure story. It would take visionary Stephen Spielberg to achieve that. But I'm getting ahead...
 

The book's premise is marvellous, extracting dinosaur DNA from the stomach contents of flies preserved in prehistoric amber; the tropical island setting is mysterious; and the attempt to explore the moralities of cloning is admirable, but taken as a whole the novel is unconvincing and its execution, disappointing.
 

Crichton approached the work from a scientific standpoint but rather than allow a flow of knowledge from author to reader through character dialogue and through demonstration, Crichton inserts heavy chunks of exposition which would sound at home in a crusty textbook. When he does use dialogue, it's quite unnatural; nobody spouts numerous paragraphs of science without a single response from his listener.
 

I wanted to feel the shock, excitement and terror of the outsiders invited to the island, then trapped when the dinosaurs ran amok, but they scratched their chins and stood around observing the animals as if they were exhibits in an average zoo. The visitors' reactions were calm and studious. Perhaps that's how an aloof scientist might respond but not a paleontologist or a botanist or even a mathematician, surely? Incidentally, nobody mentioned that the dinosaurs featured date mostly from the Cretaceous period. I suppose 'Cretaceous Park' doesn't quite have the same ring!
 

A further blow to credibility came when the Park's owner brought his young grand children to stay. I doubt Crichton had spent a lot of time with children to judge by their antics; the eight year-old girl has the voice and vocabulary of a four year-old, really; the eleven year-old boy sounds like a university student. What do they say, "never work with children and animals?"
 

At very unlikely moments, sometimes under threat of imminent peril, instead of running for their lives, characters ponder the ethics of cloning, and lengthy, thinly disguised essays trip from their lips. Stephen Spielberg cut through the mire and brought a concise and exciting story to the big screen using only a fraction of the novel. Spielberg wisely kept scientific details to a jokey, theme-park-exhibit minimum, and relegated ethical issues to a minor role. After all, people want to experience Tyrannosaurus Rex, not debate him.
 

Crichton's follow-up, The Lost World, together with material excised from the original novel, would provide the basis for two less successful sequels. I hear a fourth film, Jurassic World, is in the works for 2015. Crichton is no longer with us but his original idea lives on.

Jaws, Peter Benchley 1974

I first read Benchley's book immediately after watching the Spielberg blockbuster at a cinema in 1974 (twice in the same week). Forty years later I have just listened to the 2009 BBC America audio book narrated by Erik Steele, and it still feels strong. I understand that the author had a good deal of advice on changing the mood of the novel so it is unlikely there was a eureka moment as he penned the words 'the end'. However when film producers read the final draft they bought the movie rights before the book had even been published.

 

In Amity Benchley nicely creates the small town feel of a beach resort which relies on summer visitors for its existence. Police Chief Martin Brody is soon in disagreement with Mayor Larry Vaughan over the appropriate action to take after a series of fatal shark attacks on bathers. Brody wants to close the beaches on safety grounds but knows Amity will suffer if summer tourist dollars don't arrive. This dilemma becomes as important an issue as the shark attacks themselves and is the subject of much debate. Benchley goes into detail over the Mayor's financial reasons for keeping the beaches open, hinting at blackmail by powerful property investors.

 

Oceanographic scientist Matt Hooper arrives on scene to advise and identifies the predator as a Great White. Over dinner with the Brodys he falls for the charms of Ellen Brody and a romantic sub plot plays out. They have a liaison at a motel and this sets up suspicion and friction between Brody and Hooper. At last the town decides to hire game fisherman Quint to hunt the shark.

 

The final quarter of the novel is set aboard The Orca with Brody and Hooper acting as unlikely deckhands for the colourful and testy Quint. The shark is a formidable adversary, taking on human attributes of persistence and revenge and appearing to outwit its hunters. After a series of titanic struggles the shark is killed, though not without loss of human life.

 

The film is significantly more successful because it strips out sub plots and shadowy financial motives and reduces the cast to bare essentials. The characters are more likeable, and relationships are realistically portrayed. Casting was of course sublime with Scheider, Shaw and Dreyfuss outstanding in their roles. Putting the lame animatronics aside, it is hard to imagine any twenty-first century re-make coming even close. Jaws the movie is a perfect example of how a more complex story can be distilled into ninety minutes of potent drama.

 

I can't disguise my love of the film, and if pressed will recite large passages of dialogue verbatim. Nonetheless Jaws the novel is an exciting read with enough subtext and motives to stand tall.

Salem's Lot, Stephen King

Coming from a self-confessed King fan this might be a shock... I re-read Salem's Lot after a break of almost forty years and found a 'Lot' I didn't like any more. To be fair, this was only King's second novel and there are indeed strong hints of the world-conquering style to come. But... there are many faults.

Plot is forsaken in favour of a simple linear narrative; not disastrous but a more tangential approach could have been engaging. The characters are dull as ditch water, with the exception of young Mark Petrie, a trailblazer for many of King's future teenage heroes. Protagonist Ben Mears, author and Van Helsing wannabe, probably has too much of the author in him, and I couldn't believe in his stake-through-the-heart abilities.

King does a great job of creating his trademark small town feel but he would go on to do even better. Really, there are just too many small town people to keep track of. Dialogue is rudimentary and there were times when I said aloud, "Ridiculous. No one talks like that!"

I'm being very critical here but don't forget King himself would later write a whole book on the craft of writing, in the form of an autobiographical account. I grimaced at the many repetitions of a word within the same sentence. One example: you just cannot get away with saying a road is deserted and that a parked car is deserted in the same sentence. I know this sort of nonsense will be eradicated in later works but it sure spoils this ride. Most of the novel is straight exposition but these days we have been taught to prefer being shown rather than told, hence the experience is jarring.

I wonder how good King's editors were. I read several episodes that just didn't make sense. Here's one: makeshift spikes were constructed by plunging kitchen knives through squares of plywood then breaking off the handles. Try breaking off a knife handle! Here's another: a front door of an inhabited house was secured by fastening a padlock to the OUTSIDE. Maybe on a shed, but a house? Lastly (and this will appear throughout his entire career) King stubbornly calls stair treads 'risers.' Steve, you can't walk on the risers as they stand vertically. I just needed to say that.

The novel is very much of its time and only the relentlessly growing pace leaves it readable by today's standards. My own experience was enhanced significantly by the utterly marvelous performance of Ron McLarty who narrates the audio book. Now, don't get me started on the 1979 TV mini-series. The book's reputation is already in tatters! For balance, I did re-watch my DVDs of the adaptation. The strident 'scary music' is reminiscent of fifties Hammer horror films and the whole cliche-ridden thing is drawn out like a length of floppy elastic.

Different Seasons (Four Novellas), Stephen King

Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption   ****

Everyone has seen the film but some will still be surprised to discover whose mind this uncompromising and ultimately uplifting story came from. This is probably the single instance where a film adaptation threatens to overshadow King's original novella' a powerful exploration of indomitable human optimism.

Settling comfortably into a first person conversational narrative, Andy Dufresne's co-inmate and soon-to-be good friend Ellis (Red) Redding relates all he knows of Andy's crime, his time in Shawshank Penitentiary and his incredible and daring plans.

The account is so rich and so credible that it's easy to believe 'Red' was a genuine inmate. King's original story appeared in the beautiful storytelling-themed collection 'Different Seasons', and although deemed a novella is long and detailed enough to stand easily as a short novel.

 

Apt Pupil ****

It's hard to pick a favourite from the collection 'Different Seasons', it's so strong. However, for me Apt Pupil is the most dramatic, the most literary and the most gripping. And it's up against pretty stiff opposition from Shawshank and The Body.

His name-making novels were behind him now but I believe the collection 'Different Seasons' was where King started to show his true class. Apt Pupil is the only one of the three written in the third person so King can't slip so easily into his favoured fireside storytelling mode.

A young boy obsessed with all things Nazi is amazed to identify a German war criminal living in his small American town. He befriends the man but then blackmails him into spilling firsthand accounts of Nazi atrocities. Subsequent events see a turning of the tables and a grim stalemate develops.

The characters are rich and colourful, and the tale reads like melodrama. In a trademark reference to characters in other books, we are told Andy Dufresne (star of Shawshank) is the banker who gave the Nazi investment advice. King's one small failing is his endowment of the boy with the conversational style of an adult. Not quite authentic. Nonetheless Apt Pupil is a first rate story masterfully told.

 

The Body ****

Better known as the film Stand By Me, this is one of King's early ventures into the realm of formative childhood experience. Gordon, now a successful novelist, is writing an account of an event from his youth. The account is a flashback of his thoughts and tells the story of a summer in the 1960s. Gordon and three friends set out to recover a boy missing from their small town.

Under the ruse of a couple of nights' camping, the friends walk the railway tracks until they find his body. Throughout the long walk, the lads exchange banter and reveal the grim realities of growing up in a small town with few prospects. The adventure changes each of them forever.

King's mastery of popular culture and credible dialogue lift this novella from the 'Different Seasons' collection to a dramatic and literary level.

 

The Breathing Method ***

A tale with a supernatural twist in which a young pregnant woman befriends a doctor and persuades him to help her deliver her baby whatever the eventual circumstances. This was published as one of a collection of four novellas in 1982 under the collective title Different Seasons. Each of the four has some literary pretensions in that they veer from the horror genre, in some cases entirely. Publication was delayed so as not to interfere with SK's astounding initial period of horror success and because there was no perceived market for short mainstream novels.

The Breathing Method culminates in a horrific moment but its strength is a slowly mounting tension and dark atmosphere. Both in tempo and linguistically it reads like one of Poe's dark tales, revealing one of King's early inspirations. This is definitely short story territory using the tried and tested 'tale within a tale' delivery. Spooky and with some unexplained sideshoots, it is the last member of the 'Different Seasons' collection and the only one with a genuinely horrific moment.

my Stephen King library

Title	Published	Audio Book	Book	Film (IMDB Rating)
Carrie	Apr-74
Salem's Lot	Oct-75			6.6
The Shining	Jan-77			8.5
Rage	Sep-77
Night Shift (20 short stories)	Feb-78
The Stand	Sep-78			7.1
The Long Walk	Jul-79
The Dead Zone	Aug-79
Firestarter	Sep-80
Roadwork	Mar-81
Danse Macabre	Apr-81
Cujo	Sep-81			5.9
The Running Man	May-82
Different Seasons: Apt Pupil	Aug-82
Different Seasons: Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redeption	Aug-82			9.3
Different Seasons: The Body (aka Stand By Me)	Aug-82			8.1
Different Seasons: The Breathing Method	Aug-82
Christine	Apr-83			6.5
Cycle of the Werewolf	Nov-83
Pet Sematary	Nov-83
Thinner	Nov-84
Skeleton Crew (22 short stories)	Jun-85
IT	Sep-86			6.8
Misery	Jun-87			7.8
The Tommyknockers	Nov-87
The Dark Half	Oct-89
Four Past Midnight: 1 The Langoliers	Sep-90			5.9
Four Past Midnight: 2 Secret Window Secret Garden	Sep-90			6.5
Four Past Midnight: 3 The Library Policeman	Sep-90
Four Past Midnight: 4 The Sun Dog	Sep-90
Needful Things	Oct-91
Geralds Game	May-92
Dolores Claiborne	Nov-92			7.2
Nightmares & Dreamscapes (24 short stories)	Sep-93
Insomnia	Sep-94
Rose Madder	Jun-95
Desperation	Sep-96			5.2
The Regulators	Sep-96
Green Mile, The	Aug-98			8.5
Bag of Bones	Sep-98			5.7
Storm of the Century [SCREENPLAY]	Feb-99			7.2
The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon	Apr-99
Hearts in Atlantis: 1 Low Men in Yellow Coats	Sep-99
Hearts in Atlantis: 2 Hearts in Atlantis	Sep-99			6.8
Hearts in Atlantis: 3 Bind Willie	Sep-99
Hearts in Atlantis: 4 Why We're in Vietnam	Sep-99
Hearts in Atlantis: 5 Heavenly Shades of Night Are Falling	Sep-99
On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft	Oct-00
Dreamcatcher	Mar-01			5.4
Everything's Eventual (14 short stories)	Mar-02
From a Buick 8	Sep-02
The Gunslinger	Jul-03
The Colorado Kid	Oct-05
Cell	Jan-06
Lisey's Story	Jan-06
Blaze	Jun-07
Duma Key	Jan-08
Just After Sunset (13 short stories)	Nov-08
The Gingerbread Girl	Nov-08
UR	Feb-09
Under the Dome	Nov-09
Blockade Billy	Apr-10
Full Dark No Stars: 1922	Nov-10
Full Dark No Stars: A Good Marriage	Nov-10
Full Dark No Stars: Big Driver	Nov-10
Full Dark No Stars: Fair Extension	Nov-10
Mile 81	Sep-11
11/22/63	Nov-11
The Wind Through the Keyhole	Feb-12
Joyland	Apr-13
Doctor Sleep	Sep-13
Mr. Mercedes	Jun-14

My name is Paul and I am a Stephen King fan. (There. It's out!) And this is my story...

 

I started reading Stephen King the year I left school (1976) and he immediately became my new author of choice. I went on to hungrily devour each new book, my enthusiasm only waning as the end of the century loomed. Odd really, because at the time I missed out on his acclaimed book on the craft of writing, only receiving it years later as a gift.

 

Stephen King is often dismissed as a "horror" writer, catering to the market for cheap thrills. How woefully wrong. Yes he made his name writing scary fiction, lending new slants on the supernatural, the paranormal and the gory, but his body of work contains so much more. Starting with 'Hearts in Atlantis' and before that to a degree, notably in 'The Green Mile', SK's stories, and he is at core a storyteller, shifted subtlely toward the mainstream. Examine his novels with a critical eye on subsequent readings and many themes, metaphors and motifs emerge. Consider his seemingly effortlessly chosen names, then consider their symbolism.

 

He has always had a knack for bringing his characters to life, and making you root for them. Now that his premises are closer to reality I find myself caring even more. Lisey's Story is entirely character driven, Duma Key is too, although the latter suffers from a recurring difficulty, that slightly unsatisfying ending.

 

This isn't meant to be a critique of his work or even a reminder of his real literary status (I'm sure to address both those issues in due course) but an acknowledgement by me that King remains the single biggest influence on my own writing. His masterly turn of phrase, his vivid creation of scenes, his realistic dialogue and his unswerving accuracy concerning human nature are the reasons why he occupies substantial shelf space with me, figuratively and literally.

 

My chart above lists the novels, novellas and collected short stories and indicates whether I have the book, the audio book, the film, or indeed all three. I have excluded his fantasy work, a genre which just doesn't float my boat. The blue annotations in the book column indicate that I recently gave my copies to my eldest son. If I have the film I've shown the IMDB rating, which confirms that Stephen King seldom translates well to the big screen. Outstanding exceptions are of course Shawshank (No. 1 on IMDB), The Green Mile and The Shining.

 

In later years I have been absorbing most literature on audio book and have been steadily re-collecting Stephen King in that format. I now have most of his novels on audio book and am working on plugging the few remaining gaps in my list. The results easily rip to mp3 and are available for my iPod for going-to-sleep listening. Tonight on the pillow I will be returning to the very beginning.

 

Some  early recordings are out of production, but serviceable copies can be found on YouTube. I downloaded them, converted them to mp3, chopped the whopping files into convenient hour long chunks (hundreds of them), cleaned them up significantly using Audacity (to remove tape hiss, echo, clicks, pops and occasional sweet reminders of analogue days - "this ends side fifteen. Insert cassette eight to continue")!