Audio books

I've decided I should use my commuting time wisely, so I've taken up listening to audio books. I'm a visual person and much prefer reading to listening, but I'm getting used to the audio.

The Notorious Jumping Frog of Calaveras County and Other Short Stories. This was a collection of pretty typical Mark Twain stories. Some better than others, but on the whole, enjoyable.

The Uncommon Reader. This is a novella by Alan Bennett, and he was also the reader. This is a story about the Queen of England, late in life, discovering a love of reading and writing. One morning, she sees the mobile library parked outside the palace kitchens and borrows a book. It's a wonderful story of the transformative power of reading. I wasn't expecting the ending. It was an excellent book.

The Neverending Story. I can't count this toward my 50 books, because I've read it at least seven times. It was written by Michael Ende and translated by Ralph Manheim, and it's my favorite book. Since it recently came out on Audible, I decided I should listen to it. The reader was Gerard Doyle. He did a pretty good job, but there were a few names I would have pronounced differently. This is the story of fat, unpopular Bastian who steals a book and becomes entangled in a story in which he must save the world of Fantastica and the human world. Along the way he must learn how to love. If you ever decide to read or listen to it, you'll probably enjoy the story. If you decide to read it again, you find a whole symbolic layer. I love it.

A magic library card

Newbery Medal winner Jerry Spinelli wrote The Library Card as a challenge. He was to write several stories that had nothing in common but an enchanted library card. The result is a magic blue library card that travels through and changes the lives of Mongoose, Brenda, Sonseray, and April Mendez. These are stories that show the positive power and influence books, libraries and the people who love them can have on lives. The stories don't show us how these four kids' lives turned out, only the road down which the library card led them. A couple of the stories are sad, but all beautiful portraits of kids and their problems. Spinelli has a lot of love and empathy for his subjects. The novel has an After Words section at the end which included an interview with the author. There is also "The Book That Changed My Life" in which other authors write about books they love that influenced them. That was my favorite part of the book.