A Pleasant Diversion in which I Inadvertently Review a Book from 2002

During all the years of driving to and from work where I worked previously for almost ten years, my commute was short; seven miles each way. It was never quite long enough for much heat to accumulate in the engine to share its warmth in winter and make my chilly drive more comfortable. These days it takes about 35 minutes each way and I've discovered a means of entertainment that's been around for a while--audio books.

My husband started listening to them first. His job takes him all over the county and into the next, resulting in lots of time behind the wheel. After listening to his collection of cassettes for the 25th time, he decided to check out a book on tape. Both of us wondered if listening to a book being read would be a distraction while driving. After the first couple of days trying it out, he announced that listening to a book while driving worked just fine. Since then, he's listened to quite a few. I thought I'd give it a try but I wasn't expecting to get too interested because, in general, I dislike being read to. It always lulls me to sleep and that would just never do while driving. It was a pleasant surprise to find that listening to a book and driving at the same time were very compatible. Also, I never realized that these books were miniature dramatizations enclosed in those small boxes of tapes or CDs.

Reading has always been one of life's greatest pleasures--I have been surrounded by books since birth. There hasn't been much time to read the past few months. These days I read one book the conventional way during my lunch break and at home, a minute here or there, and listen to another to and from work. It was in this way that I finally read the most recent Jean Auel novel in her Earth's Children series. Ah yes, "The Shelters of Stone".  How I'd looked forward to it when I heard it was due out. Her first book, "The Clan of the Cave Bear" was fantastic. The second book, "The Valley of Horses" was entertaining and a lovely rendition of cave porn. What was not to like? The third and fourth ones were tedious and disappointing. I remember thinking, surely it can only be uphill from here when I finished the fourth tome.

Meanwhile, my son had begin to read this series and I, as a parent ever vigilant to encourage any signs of reading, made damn sure a brand new copy of "The Shelters of Stone" was waiting for him under the Christmas tree that year. As is his usual method, my son devoured thebook in about four or five days. I never seemed to have time to get to it. Years passed and then one day I decided it was time to treat myself to Ms. Auel's newest installment of her soap opera about early man. A chapter or two into it was enough to let me know this was going to be a long haul, one of those kind of hauls that wasn't going to be necessarily pleasant. Before long, I abandoned Ayla, Jondalar and the gang for greener pastures. Life is too short to suffer through bad books. When I was younger, I was under some self-inflicted impression that once I started a book, I had to finish it come hell or high water. I'm older and much wiser to think such a foolish thought now but I digress.

I was perusing the county library's catalog of audio books available on CD. There, I noticed that "The Shelters of Stone" was available and thought why not give this another try? Several days later I hauled all 28 discs containing Ayla's latest adventures to my car, ready to be entertained and properly chastised, personally, for initially thinking this was a stinker. The narration was lively, the reader did well supplying different inflections for the various characters but...boring? Oh, unbelievably so. The story could've been condensed like so much soup into a maximum of 10 CDs. I never heard so much redundancy in my life. As I was driving along I kept finding myself thinking, "yeah, already heard that, let's get on with it". I guess I'm a tough audience. I didn't quite make it through the entire book and wasn't interested enough to even think of renewing. That lets you know just how bad this story was. Since I've come this far I'll dig the actual book from my son's bookshelves and finish the last few chapters the old fashioned way.

And the final point of this entry? I'm not sure. When I began this I had a point and was ready to run with it. Isn't it fun to be 52? Welcome to my world. Perhaps it was that almost any book is interesting to listen to when dramatized but there are still some out there that even this lively type of delivery can't save.  No matter. I've got another audio book waiting at the library to be picked up and life is good.