Been blogging (plus another review!)

[charlie_cochrane]

It's review and blog city chez Cochrane at present. Been pontificating over at the Samhain site about Gay Historicals, picking the considerable brains of Elin Gregory, Jenre and Tracey Pennington en route.


And Promises Made Under Fire got another stonking review, this time over at Speak Its Name, so I'm dancing with joy. "Her writing gets stronger as she finds her style (although she’s just as capable of contemporary, fantasy and historical) and gains strength and confidence in her writing. This is–to my mind–one of the most mature pieces she’s produced, and is romantic enough for those who seek it but thought provoking enough for those who want a more gritty read."

That's me grinning in the corner...

Comments

[rikibeth.livejournal.com]

I don't always do well with audio versions. My auditory processing isn't good -- it's not about hearing frequencies, it's about understanding; think of it as dyslexia of the ears. Oftentimes I can only appreciate an audiobook if I already know the source material nearly by heart. But the narrator read it at just the right pace and with just enough expression that I could follow what was happening, and your excellent words SHONE. It's a brilliant story and I'm glad I chose it for my nasty slushy drive!

[charliecochrane.livejournal.com]

I'm so pleased. And I get the auditory processing thing. I sometimes get that with reading, seeing whole words that aren't there and totally missing the meaning. Not dyslexia but some sort of word melding.

Ain't we odd?

[rikibeth.livejournal.com]

Brains are funny things, and I already know I was issued a nonstandard one.

It's especially strange with me & audiobooks: I seem to be most successful with them if I'm washing dishes, knitting (knitting improves my auditory processing a lot, there's a note in my student file to allow me to do it in lecture classes because it helps), walking on a treadmill (maybe, but I knew the Georgette Heyer book by heart and envisioning Richard Armitage as Lord Rule was highly entertaining), or driving on the highway. I was completely unable to follow The Castle of Otranto while I was walking outdoors through an ordinary residential neighborhood. This may have been the fault of the book (good lord, people wanted different things out of their novels in the 18th century), the narrator (it was a volunteer-read free Librivox production), or the distraction (way too many visuals to focus on, no attention left for my ears).

But Promises Made Under Fire worked a treat. The only other audiobook I've followed properly without knowing the source well was Sharpe's Fury, and that had the extra advantage of being read by Paul McGann. Who, well, I'd listen to him read the phone book, because of his voice.

Actually, not sure how to categorize the edition of Grimm's Fairy Tales read by Samuel West. Which I also bought just to listen to his voice (we will delete several paragraphs of impure thoughts here), and then had the pleasure of hearing him give the voice of the titular Boy Who Wanted The Shivers something of Monty Python's Gumby! eternaleponine must have been wondering why I was snickering into the dishwater. I hadn't known the story before, but the Grimms' tales are not novel-length and don't require the same focus.

But anyway THANK YOU FOR A WONDERFUL BOOK.