storytelling

I have a lot of things to write about here, but just now I'm coping with a domestic problem, namely this: early this morning Bunny was attacked by a neighbor's dog. Bunny is a little guy and the neighbor's dog (Buster) is a very big dog: the bite marks stretch from Bunny's spine to his lower abdomen. He's got broken ribs and generally he's in a lot of pain. I've been bursting into tears on and off all day and I'm not much good for anything. The other animals are upset too, especially Tuck, who was right there next to me when Bunny was attacked.

We brought him home from the vet just an hour ago and he's sitting at my feet, wimpering. He goes back to the vet tomorrow for another xray and to see if they do have to operate after all.

It may take a few days for things to return to normal around here (assuming he is really on the mend), but I will be back.

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Jill (my agent) has just finished up the deal with Books on Tape for the unabridged edition of Fire Along the Sky, hopefully with the same reader (Kate Reading).

A well read audiobook is a thing of great beauty. Some sentences I have heard on audiotape were so perfect in tone and cadence that they have stayed with me for years. I especially like to have a really good audiobook waiting for a long drive. Some of the best I've listened to, books that lend themselves to this format and had excellent readers: Ordinary People (Guest), Possession (Byatt), Niccolo Rising (Dunnett), Wyoming Stories (Proulx), and in a collection of short stories by Stephen King, "Dolan's Cadillac" read by Rob Lowe.

The wrong reader can turn a good book into a disaster. I tried to listen to one of Dennis Lehane's mysteries on tape and found that the reader had no grasp of Angie's personality at all; he read her like a simpering adolescent. I gave up after about fifteen minutes. There are other books I would like to listen to on tape, but they have never been recorded (Magician's Assistant is one such example) or are impossible to find (Hearts and Bones, by Lawrence).

Right now I'm looking for the right audiobooks for two trips: when I go to teach at a conference in Gig Harbor at the end of this month, and then at the end of May, I'll be driving down to the Bay area for a workshop. That's a two day trip, and I can get through a big book.

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