Books. I think...

This is the first post in an awful long time, but since I've heard more than one person say they've actually checked it, I thought I'd give it another go.

I've been going a bit batty with the books on CD lately. In the last month or so, I've finished Zadie Smith's "White Teeth" (a not unimpressive 21 hours worth of listening...), Kurt Vonnegut's "Slaughterhouse Five" (narrated be Ethan Hawke, whose German in breathtaking), and, most recently, Frederick Douglass' Slave Narratives.
For those who haven't listened to books on CD, it's really interesting. It's somewhere between watching a film version of a book and actually reading it. I always just assumed that narrators simply read the books as straighforwardly as possible. Actually, it's quite a bit more like a single person production, with each reader interpreting to different degrees (some more effectively than others).
Currently I'm listening to "Black Like Me" by John Howard Griffin. A curious one, for sure. The narrator's implementation of something I imagine to be his best impersonation of Uncle Tom is used every time he speaks with the voice of a black southerner, sensational in that the whole book takes place, get this...in the south! White southerners don't--and never did--speak without southern drawls, all the while their darker complected counterparts speaking in the deep drawl of the Bayou. It's pretty ridiculous and, given what the book is often saying, a bit off-putting. Still an interesting read, no less. And Griffin is obviously a rather talented writer, something of a pleasant surprise since he was, loosely, a journalist.
Journalists often suck at writing. I can say that because what I do for a living is textual prostitution, not journalism...but I can't write either, so not quite sure what my point is anymore. Anyway, if you get a chance, listen to an old favorite or something new. It's definitely worth a chance.