What's Your Game Plan for Listening to This?

The narrator on Ch3 was just excellent. I’d listen to him do the whole book!

Yes, wasn’t the Chapter three narrator great? I downloaded four chapters for the long car journey we had to make this last couple of days. I hadn’t remembered how it rambles about so much in Chapter 1. Tilda Swinton cetainly gave it her best shot.

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hello - um, i have finally joined the podcast party…i have been a strict real book reader all my life, and even put up quite the fuss when my library bought a bunch of e-readers for the populace. and i tried to listen to an audio book in years past - i think twice - but it just wasn’t for me. but i was intrigued with Ann’s MD post - i first read MD in high school (ha! that’s a lie…i read the Cliff Notes!), and hated it - i think being forced to read a book was part of that. more recently, i inherited a copy of MD when my father died, and so i took it up once again, in his honor. and for some unknown reason, put it back down. but the book has always intrigued me, and i feel like i’m missing out by not really absorbing what it has to teach. meanwhile, i’ve started the most lovely scarf (https://www.churchmouseyarns.com/collections/churchmouse-patterns-scarves-wraps/products/two-tone-twill-scarf-pattern) using Actual Rowan yarn, which i have never splurged on before - and because it’s cobweb grade lace weight,i find i have to take contacts and glasses off in order to knit. which means i cannot watch netflix or acorn tv!#($*!, being very blind without ocular help. what to do, what to do? then i stumbled across this post, and it’s a match made in heaven - i’ve just binged on the first three chapters and got a whale of a lot of fine knitting in on my scarf - which btw, is knit in linen stitch, so the gestalt of the finished product comes off as if it has been woven - what a lovely pattern, and an epic read to go along with it! i’m hooked! i’m tearing myself away now to go clean the kitchen, but know i will be back later today for more binge hearing and knitting! glorious! thanks so much for the recommend!!!

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So glad! Cobweb laceweight is just the thing to get you through 135
chapters.

Some of the chapters are quite short, I’ll say. I’m totally hooked!

Whaaaat I did not know she had narrated Anna Karenina! That is definitely going on this list. Amazon says I can have it for two bucks since I have the Kindle edition of the book, which honestly seems too good to be true.

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So funny. I was hoping our next book would be Anna Karenina. I’ve never been able to get through it in print but I love the story.

I think they forced us to read books in High School that we really weren’t ready for. About 10 years ago, I went back and reread a bunch of my freshman year reading list. At 13, I had no idea that Pride and Prejudice was that funny. And my point of view had totally changed on Ethan Frome. At 30 or 40 something, I my sympathies were with the wife–not the niece. That little harlot should have just left the pickle dish alone!!! I’ve never made it past the first few pages of MD but I am loving this!

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That’s a steal! It’s like 35 or 40 hours of top-notch narration! Enjoy!

This is so true!!! Even The Ambassadors in college was impossible for me
to deal with–I might be ready when I’m 70. Maybe.

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I read The Great Gatsby . . . sometime. High school? College? Grad school? You can see how profoundly it affected me. But when my daughter was a sophomore in high school, her English teacher assigned the kids reading partnerships. They were to read one on a list of books she had chosen with a partner the student chose. My daughter chose me, and we chose TGG. This time around the book was juicy and deep, because I was exploring it with a very smart person I love dearly. We had a wonderful time with it. (Bonus: she was the one who had to write up our observations.)

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Oh wow, now that sounds good! Was this an audiobook? Please share, I would love to listen to her read to me!

It’s an Audible audiobook, very recently released. Now that I’ve finished, I am in Maggie withdrawal, so I’ve begun watching her movies to cope!

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Have you seen The Honorable Woman (it is on Netflix)??

No! I need to correct that! Also, the second Nanny McPhee was delightful, and for something completely different, Secretary!

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Oh wow - those are new to me! Adding to my list - Thank you!!

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Even though I love me some English accents, when I started listening to this work, I thought, hmmm…this is an American book – shouldn’t it be read with an American accent? I admit to being just a wee bit tweaked. But then, I got to ch. 4, where the reader is American, and all of a sudden, it just sounded wrong to me – wow! Thinking on this – the accent of the time in America when Melville wrote this book was probably more English-sounding, than American, which was still evolving. Also, I think many of the more archaic words Melville uses simply sound better with an English accent. Such a curious thing! I did a bit of internet research, and found this interesting article…https://outofthiscentury.wordpress.com/2010/01/21/early-american-accents/
I’ve also started to look up each reader and see what they are about. A lot of names I don’t recognize, but when I google them, they are familiar. Wait o wait until you listen to chapter 9! – Simon Callow is magnificent!
And my knitting is coming along fabulously!

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OK, this is so interesting to me. I’ve been watching this fairly cheesy TV
series, Turn, about American (and British) spies during the Revolutionary
War, and the accents are all over the place. What DID these people sound
like? That article is so helpful.

And yes, my first thought was exactly the same: this ain’t Dickens, y’all.
But now I’m at Chapter 11. And yes, Chapter 9 is a barn burner.

I second this recommendation of The Honourable Woman!

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“Turn” is filmed here in Richmond and nearby Petersburg ~ but I have yet to watch any of it. (We do not have cable so I’m not sure I can access it, but perhaps via Hulu …)

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Yes, the American accent sounds weeeeird! I snuck ahead to hear John Waters’ voice and it was disorienting.

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