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On mysteries as bedtime listening.
Aug. 20th, 2020 04:08 pmBecause our house gets oddly quiet at night, despite being in a well-populated suburb located between two major roads, A and I have taken to listening to things before sleep.
A few months ago we tried out Phoebe Reads a Mystery, a daily podcast in which Phoebe Judge (of multiple other podcasts I haven't listened to) reads a classic mystery book chapter by chapter. It worked well! Did one or both of us usually fall asleep mid-chapter? Yes. We just catch each other up the next day.
So we made it through the first five seasons:
The Mysterious Affair at Styles - Agatha Christie
The Hound of the Baskervilles - Arthur Conan Doyle
The Moonstone - Wilkie Collins (New to me)
The Murder on the Links - Agatha Christie
The Leavenworth Case - Anna Katharine Green (New to me)
Moonstone and Leavenworth were particularly interesting listens, because being 19th century works of detective fiction that pre-date Sherlock Holmes, their tropes and conventions were unfamiliar to me. ( Cut for vague spoilers. )
Also I was reminded of how much the dynamic of Hastings and Poirot's relationship in those two books makes me cringe. Anyway.
Phoebe is doing Dracula now, which I do not consider relaxing bedtime listening, so I suggested we listen to some Dorothy L. Sayers next, since I have long enjoyed them and A has never read them.
We started with the recording of Whose Body? on Librivox, which is read by two people in alternating chapters. Aside from some early teething issues (one of them pauses just slightly too long between paragraphs for the first few chapters) once they found their stride it was good! A enjoyed his first Sayers experience* and I suddenly realised how much of it I still remembered despite it being several years since I last read it.
That was the only Sayers novel on LibriVox, so I sourced the Ian Carmichael audiobook for Clouds of Witness. We listened to chapter one last night and I have to say, Carmichael gets extremely into the characters and narration in a way that is entertaining but not great bedtime listening. Still, I think we'll persist for now.
Incidentally, do I list these as books or as narrative audio in my annual review?
* Of course, it goes without saying that some of the content is quite problematic, there were several points where we said "...wow" at each other in dismay.
A few months ago we tried out Phoebe Reads a Mystery, a daily podcast in which Phoebe Judge (of multiple other podcasts I haven't listened to) reads a classic mystery book chapter by chapter. It worked well! Did one or both of us usually fall asleep mid-chapter? Yes. We just catch each other up the next day.
So we made it through the first five seasons:
The Mysterious Affair at Styles - Agatha Christie
The Hound of the Baskervilles - Arthur Conan Doyle
The Moonstone - Wilkie Collins (New to me)
The Murder on the Links - Agatha Christie
The Leavenworth Case - Anna Katharine Green (New to me)
Moonstone and Leavenworth were particularly interesting listens, because being 19th century works of detective fiction that pre-date Sherlock Holmes, their tropes and conventions were unfamiliar to me. ( Cut for vague spoilers. )
Also I was reminded of how much the dynamic of Hastings and Poirot's relationship in those two books makes me cringe. Anyway.
Phoebe is doing Dracula now, which I do not consider relaxing bedtime listening, so I suggested we listen to some Dorothy L. Sayers next, since I have long enjoyed them and A has never read them.
We started with the recording of Whose Body? on Librivox, which is read by two people in alternating chapters. Aside from some early teething issues (one of them pauses just slightly too long between paragraphs for the first few chapters) once they found their stride it was good! A enjoyed his first Sayers experience* and I suddenly realised how much of it I still remembered despite it being several years since I last read it.
That was the only Sayers novel on LibriVox, so I sourced the Ian Carmichael audiobook for Clouds of Witness. We listened to chapter one last night and I have to say, Carmichael gets extremely into the characters and narration in a way that is entertaining but not great bedtime listening. Still, I think we'll persist for now.
Incidentally, do I list these as books or as narrative audio in my annual review?
* Of course, it goes without saying that some of the content is quite problematic, there were several points where we said "...wow" at each other in dismay.
