Traveling "Music"

I like to listen to books when I'm in the car. I suppose that's why long trips, or driving into work, never phases me. As long as I can find an outlet from time to time to recharge my Ipod, I'm good to go.

A major consideration when driving north for the wedding was what to listen to. Adrian and I have different tastes. That's a given. But he is more unforgiving in his preferences than I am. My brother, Eric, had recommended a series by Bernard Cornwell. This is the man that wrote the Sharpe's Rifle series. Adrian likes those, so I thought he might like the Saxon Chronicle series.

We listened to The Last Kingdom on the way up, The Pale Horseman on the way down, and I've listened to the last two this week - Lords of the North and Swords Song. I know that seems like a lot in just one week, but all but Lords of the North were abridged. Adrian pointed out that the first one must have been abridged because it was almost done by the time we got to San Francisco. Unabridged books are usually a minimum of 12 hours. That's even longer than our trip up and back.

I've always said that i would never read an unabridged book because, well, they cut stuff out of it. That doesn't sound like a good thing to me. We noticed the exclusions in The Last Kingdom. But it's kind of pulp fiction, so does that really matter? Sometimes we lost the motivation for the character's actions. We'd look at each other and say, "Hunh?" I was excited to read Lords of the North to see if it was better unabridged. The answer is that unabridged is better. Duh. In this case, I abridged the book myself because it is very violent. I'm not sure how many times you can read about hand dripping with blood. Verdict is, abridged is okay in a pinch, but never preferred.

About the books: it was fun to read about the Danes invading England. We know that a dear friend at The Times is Danish, so I kept picturing him slashing through people's chain mail. Not that Per ever would. Adrian and I both missed the maps that surely exist in these books. I think I'll ask Eric to bring a book to Cathie's wedding in May so Adrian and I can look at all those place names. Other than London and Mersey (which I wouldn't have known without that old song about the Ferry 'Cross the Mersey) I was pretty lost. It wasn't fatal, but it would have been more fun to have a map.

I've just ordered a bunch of real paper type books which are finalist for The Times Book Prizes. Karen and I will share those on our trip across the US. We're starting our own private book club to discuss them. Or as I like to call it, Our Private Idaho Bookclub. We looked up that movie on IMDB and decided to just take the name, not the subtext of the movie. Too wierd.