I finally got sick of listening to the same audio books over and over again, and I think everyone around me was getting sick of me quoting sorry old insults from the Elenium or some mundane Harry Potterism. Of course I am still a creature of habit so I loaded up a bunch of Stephen King audio books and have been listening to them over the last couple of weeks. A few of them I had read a long time ago, and a few of them I hadn’t read so long ago, but can attest to the fact that I was still married when I read my last one so it wasn’t all that short of a time. For the most part I had given up on Stephen King as I started finding his writing style to be a bit boring, but he did write 2 of my top 10 all time favorite books, and has the honor of being number 1 with The Stand.
The first of the audio books by the local author, I had loaded up was the other of the top ten that he had written and it had been so long since I read it I had forgotten quite a bit of it. This book would be Salam’s Lot which thanks to a bad movie adaptation and most people’s inability to sit and read a good book, has been relegated to the level of “crap” amongst most people, but seriously even with it being over 30 years old is literary genius. Being his second published work behind Carrie it was most likely Stephen King’s coming out party, and at the time technically sealed his right to be an author, but let me tell you, you haven’t even scratched the surface until you hear the audio book.
The person reading the audio book’s name escapes me but he is the guy that does all those movie preview voice over’s “in a time not so long ago, in a little town” that makes you desperately want to see the movie that he is plugging. With the book actually being read in that voice that usually makes you shell out 9 bucks for a movie that disappoints you in the end, you can see why his reading of Salem’s Lot makes it almost more fascinating then when I had read the book at eleven years old. The absolute “creepiness” of the book as he would read off the times “10:10 am” and then real into what was going on in the mundane lives of the town of Salem’s Lot had me enthralled, and it was harder than usual to work as I was simply wrapped in the story.
Stephen King read off the prologue of the book, and explained in his own words the thinking that went into the book. His childhood romanticism of Bram Stoker’s Dracula, his explaining of how he thought the Lord of the Rings was loosely based on Dracula {which I have often thought myself} and how he had gotten wrapped in the gruesome Vampire chronicles that one finds in the comic books. He explained how he wanted to take the old world European town that was frocked with Vampires and turn it into a mad cap American tale in a big city. Fortunately for all of us his infinitely more brilliant wife convinced his to make it in an American version of an Eastern European hamlet, and Jerusalem’s Lot was created. I think myself and he admitted it in the prologue that in the end it became more appealing as he went to stay closer to the Bram Stoker vision, and allow his characters to become heroes, than to go the Tales from the Crypt route he originally intended.
The second of these was a book that kinda bored me when I read it and was officially the last Stephen King book I had cracked, which is The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon. This book was wrapped in surreal controversy after it had been released, and in my mind had been a far more interesting story than the book itself. For those who had forgotten, immediately after the book was released Stephen King got hit by a Van, and almost died, but was physically fucked up to match his mentally fucked up. Tom Gordon then blew out his arm and really never pitched for the Red Sox again. More over when he made his comeback it was with the Yankees to be a real pain in the Red Sox ass. Stephen King has since recovered, and has watched the Red Sox win 2 World Series so I guess he can stop his self moderated taboo about writing about baseball characters, but then again there was this book to sort out again.
First and foremost let me tell you that the book was narrated by Ann Heche who was famous for her own weird antics involving Ellen Degeneres, which basically ended her career as a sexy starlet. Guys for some ungodly reason despite their wanted need to watch women kiss each other, couldn’t get into watching her in sexy roles anymore, and she went on with her life, got married and had children. Go figure, but that is a little off the point here. She was the perfect person to read this book though, because I was totally wrapped in her voice. More to the point, I have to admit that her voice got me totally HOT. I realize that it is shocking to a lot of people that I am so easily amused, but I think it is the only audio book that I heard every word of. This, in the end was a good thing, because I think I had missed what was actually an excellent book the first time around. It also had one of those endings that left you with just enough information to be satisfied, but not enough information to complete the tale. I had forgotten that or perhaps had missed that point, or perhaps I was pissed off that I couldn’t listen to Ann’s sexy voice anymore.
If anyone out there wants to find out more about these audio books or would like to listen to them for themselves please drop me a line and I can make sure that they somehow accidentally get on your hard drive as they had mine ;8o)
Other Crap This Weirdo Publishes... Mental Notes& Random Musings {Daily Blog} The Crow's Nest {The Homepage of J~ Crow}
Nothing that was printed here was intended to offend anyone, and if it did, screw ya, you begged for it. If you believe that there are some measures that can be taken to change me, then please feel free to pray for me, and while you are at it yourself, because you read this far, and if you hated every minute of it, then you are an idiot, not me, or the other people who like what I have to say! .. Jeremy
All writings Copyright © 2008 .. The Crow's Nest
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