Audio Listens, Connecticut 1995

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Tell me what you've read!

In this period of my life, I commuted by car to West Hartford then East Hartford and then by bus for three months to Hartford. The glorious life of a temp. But that bus ride was super, for a commute. Sixty-one dollars a month bought an hour every day to sleep, listen to books, or write illegibly (exchanged for an hour of stressful driving and automotive depreciation).

Ursula LeGuin, The Left Hand of Darkness

I think this is the last book I had from Hartford Public before we moved, and when I knew I wouldn't finish it before we left, I shed no tear. I love LeGuin often; possibly this doesn't translate well to audio. Also I like more her ecological stories, less the sf.
July 1995

Samuel Clemens, The Prince and the Pauper

Does anyone else remember an ABC After School Special bastardizing this? Something about the President's Kid, so all the coronation tension was futile. Anyway. Amusing, light, as unlikely as a Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's court.

J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit

A treat for the ear. Of course I had read this before, but some things are written for the ear (A River Runs through It, Their Eyes Were Watching God), and this is the best of them. And all the poems and songs were recited well, and it's impossible to cheat by skimming over. A delight.
June 1995

Norman Maclean, A River Runs through It

RDC recommended this as wonderful whether or not you like fly-fishing, and it is. Lyrical. Haunting. I have since read all the stories he published. Perhaps he wouldn't've written as well if he started before he was--what?--80, but in that case he should have lived much longer. I am haunted by waters.
May 1995

George Eliot, The Mill on the Floss

It's a nineteenth-century British novel! In this one, every body dies.
May 1995

Joseph Heller, Catch-22

I had tried to read this on paper a few times with no luck. Now I've reread in on paper. Plus I've seen the film, which seems like a showcase for every male actor who was or would be big in the '70s ("The Outsiders" of 1967). Magnificently anti-war. Hilarious. Backs and forths in narrative--the only way I could keep track of what happened when is by figuring out how many missions they had to fly. The sequel is on my to-read list.
April 1995

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