Books on CD

My friend Sarah told me over a year ago to read Water for Elephants, a novel set during the Great Depression on a traveling circus. I just finished the book and greatly enjoyed it for both its plot and characters, some of which included the vilest and most annoying antagonists I have ever encountered in my reading.

Anyhow, I listened to most of this book on CD. Unfortunately, many of the ten discs had unpredictable skips and stutters because of poor handling and scratches. The stutters always seemed to come at the most inopportune times. I was left in suspense, my anger building, as I traveled down the road. Not a good combination. Most of the time, however, the discs hummed along nicely, and the narrator performed very well. He had all kinds of voices--including lots of Southern twang, which got very annoying after a while.

I finally got to the tenth and final CD today, and the disc began to skip again. I couldn't take it, so when I was at the library, I got a copy of the book. The librarian commented that I had two copies of the novel, and I assured her that I knew that. I read the final chapters from the actual book and discovered that black-and-white photographs from circuses of the 1930s were peppered throughout the book. Something I would have never known by simply listening to the audio CD. Still, I feel that listening to a book on CD is a good use of time in the car, but I would only recommend it if the CD are unscratched and if you have a long road before you. I always seemed to come to a good part of the book right when it was time to turn off my SUV.