World War Z

By Max Brooks

WWZ was a good short little listen. It kind of starts towards the beginning of the epidemic and kind of ends towards the end of it. The book is a series of people’s stories as they are interviewed by a reporter (of sorts). There’s some interesting originality in some of the very basic plot line. The plot being that there is an out break of, well the dead becoming reanimated. The stories are of survival for the most part. The book is fairly fast paced and easy to listen to, even if you are at work and keep getting interrupted by client emails. There's not a lot more to say about this audiobook. If you like zombie stories, this one is pretty entertaining for about the day and a half that it lasts. I enjoyed it, my two work days went a little fast with World War Z.

Length: 14 hours 3 minutes.

★★★★☆ 4/5 Stars

Audience: 17 and up

Genre: Action, Horror, Drama, Thriller, Science Fiction, Adventure

Book to Movie Rating: A

The Count of Monte Cristo

By Alexandre Dumas

Ok so after three weeks of trying my hardest to listen to this adventure, I am only on chapter 66 of 117. This is a brutal listen. I just can’t do it anymore, sorry to disappoint you. There were some parts that were really good and interesting, but a lot of blah bla. This book came highly recommended from several avid book readers and listeners. Two important things, I learned about audiobook listening; First the reader is most important, and a bad reader can really ruin a book for a listener. I started out with a Librivox collaborative reading. It was mainly read by Ana Simao, who Librivox tells me is no longer a reader and for very good reason. The switching back and forth was very hard to get used to as well. Simao barely spoke English, and I found myself spacing out and thinking about sandwiches quite often. I then switched to a much better single reader named David Clark. Clark did good accent imitations, but they got annoying really fast. I would like to readd this book to my “To Listen” list, but I want to get an abridged version from a company like Audible. Alexandre Dumas is way too wordy, I hate listening to scenes where its tons of sitting in a room catching characters up on back stories. There is tons of that. The other major downfall is that the main character Dontes, goes by a lot of aliases. It gets really confusing and I often felt like I was listening to a different story. I had to do online research to translate what I was listening to. I will chalk this one up to: “Not good for the work place listen” because you really have to focus. Big thanks to Cliff at http://www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/c/the-count-of-monte-cristo/book-summary The Count of Monte Cristo is an amazing movie, I was sorry that the audiobook didn’t connect with me more, as I said I heard it’s a great adventure book, maybe just a little, way too wordy. Let me know what you think. 

Rating: Unrated.

Length: Abridged Aprx 17.5 hours / Unabridged Aprx 50 hours

Genre: Adventure, Historical, Fiction

Book to Movie Rating: A+

Holy Sh*t

A Brief History on Swearing

By: Melissa Mohr

A perfect audiobook for someone who wanted to be well informed on their immaturity! I choose to believe that this book was well researched and that most of the information is close to true. The author takes you from the beginning of swearing in cursing in Biblical times, through to the 1550’s, then up to 2015. I really enjoyed this audiobook with all it’s little tidbits on where words and phrases come from, or are thought to have come from. It took me a little bit to get used to the reader on this one, but after an hour or so I began to like him. This audiobook is a a fun listen, it’s history with enough funny and interesting historical fact to keep your attention. When listening at work, if you miss a fact or two while a co-worker is asking you for an update on your PTS Reports, it won’t take too much away from the rest of the story.

I would recommend this book, especially when you are ready for a break from a great Fantasy Adventure book, or you just want to make yourself feel like you are doing your part to be a well rounded and informed audio booking human. Put it on your list.

Aprx Time: 10 Hours 45 minutes

Genre: Non-fiction, History, Humanities, Language, Humor, Culture, Sociology, Religion

★★★★☆ 4/5 Stars 

The Once and Future King

By: T.H. White

In a time when everyone is obsessed with Game of Thrones and the like, The Once and Future King should be in development for a television series. It is however in development for a “live-action” movie. Never heard of TOAFK? Yes you have. Remember Disney’s finest: The Sword in the Stone? TSITS Is only the first of 5 books. You can continue the adventure of “Wart” aka King Arthur as he learns more about the natural world from Merlin, till he becomes and wizened old king on his death bed. You can experience of all the adventures and misadventures throughout his life time. You can learn how the Knights of the Round Table was formed, and the story of Guinevere, and her two loves. It’s a really great story. T.H. White is a very under appreciated author. This series kind of fades out at the last, and I would advise skipping The Book of Merlin. It’s a lot of reminiscing, and exploring human nature. It’s a lot of animals sitting in a den contemplating. T.H. thought it was genius but I say; not so much, especially for the year 2015. Everyone in his time thought they had to include the Russians and Communism. I suppose in the year 2070 we will wonder why everyone of the early 2000s wrote about Isis and Zombies.

I totally recommend this book. I love the old Disney cartoon, and didn’t realize how much of the Lore was invented by White. This series was started in the 30’s and finished late 40’s into the early 50’s, with very little lost in translation. It’s amazing how he writes with comparisons to the time he was living in and the time Arthur was living in, and yet it is still current today for the most part.

Book Listing:

• The Sword in the Stone (1938)
• The Queen of Air and Darkness (1939)
• The Ill-Made Knight (1940) 
• The Candle in the Wind (1958)
• The Book of Merlin (1977)

★★★★☆ 4/5 Stars 

Audiobooks Length: Aprx 25 hours.

Genre: Fantasy, Literature, Heroic, Epic, Satire

Book to Movie Grade: A+