Simply Audiobooks Inc.

Scott Colbourne had an insightful little piece on podcasting and Ricky Gervais in yesterday’s Globe (audiobooks are mentioned at the bottom of the piece).

The lead’s particularly good, a quote from Gervais himself, “We have got something that’s a bit weird and we’re using it.”

So true… but then, that’s the root of most good comedy, isn’t it? It’s definitely a unifying theme, from Ricky Gervais to Seinfeld (and probably many more). Funny is usually something that’s close enough to a common experience that it touches you, is real in some way (like Seinfeld’ observational humour, or Gervais’ largely nonsensical exchanges with Karl Pilkington)… but a thread of the bizarre is what elevates it to great comedy, like the Soup Nazi bit, or, actually, anything to do with Kramer.

Which is the problem with the Gervais podcast. All the comedy springs from question and answers with Karl. Imagine if all the jokes and bits on Seinfeld had revolved around Kramer… argh.

1. Getting to Yes: Negotiating Agreement Without Giving In by Roger Fisher, William Ury and Bruce Patton.
2. The Art of War by Sun Tzu.
3. The One Minute Manager by Kenneth Blanchard and Spencer Johnson.
4. Filling the Glass: The Skeptic’s Guide to Positive Thinking in Business by Barry Maher
5. The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing by Jack Trout and Al Ries.
6. Guerrilla Marketing by Jay Conrad Levinson
7. What Color is Your Parachute? by Richard Nelson Bolles.

This is according to Today’s Librarian magazine. Librarians are a group whom I don’t necessarily think of as needing advice from Sun Tzu…but I suppose that’s my own prejudice.

It’s interesting how this list contrasts with the thread over in our audio books discussion forum. There’s not one title in common.   

Somehow my fancy new luxury car with the GPS navigation system, bluetooth cellphone connection, and aux jack for my mp3 player (ha haaa, yes!) … doesn’t have a fast forward/reverse button for the CD player. I mean, it has a forward and reverse, it’s just not FAST. Which is a roundabout way of complaining that these one track audiobooks are driving me nuts.

The book about the Linux founder, the Spanish lessons I took for my trip to Cuba last month, and all those Chautauqua lectures. Are all. on. one. track. Once you start, you can’t stop. Which sounds like kind of a good thing, except it’s a bad thing.

Another bad thing happened to me on the way to work a couple of weeks ago – I finished listening to the first half (5 CDs) of Dan Brown’s Digital Fortress. So far so good. Except I didn’t have part II with me. So I popped in one of those lectures. Then I got the 2nd part of Digital Fortress, but now I’m 30 minutes into this 70 minute lecture, and darned if I’m going to pop it out, listen to Dan Brown for a week or so, and then put the lecture back in. I’d have to hold down the ‘fast’ forward button for a good minute to get the 30 minute mark back, and who’s got that kind of time?

So today I listened to the lecture on the way in to work, angry the whole time because as good as it was, I’d rather be finishing my Dan Brown book. Why the heck don’t they break these things up into tracks? I’m guessing they’re just lazy. Kind of like the engineers at Lexus who wrote the software for my ‘fast’ forward button. Next time I’m in for a service, I think I’ll leave them a really GREAT audiobook and make sure it’s on a single track. That’ll show ‘em.

In order to combat the concerns associated with heavily circulated and damaged compact discs, Simply Audiobooks has recently purchased a ‘DiscChek Eco-Master’. This giant and impressive-looking droid is the machine used by such companies as Netflix and Blockbuster Video to maintain the quality of their inventory.

Apparently it will actually grind away at the disc’s surface in three scrape-tastic waves, using a series of rough to fine abrasions. This will remove any and all imperfections from the business side of the compact disc. This process is known as ‘wet repair & maintenance.’ Cool!

Industry standard in its field, we expect this machine to successfully improve the condition of our inventory in a matter of weeks. I’ll see about posting a thrilling video of the colossus in action!

After narrowly missing out in 2001, screenwriters adapting a book by Annie Proulx managed to win an Oscar. Every detail about this movie has been so blown up, but I’ve heard very little about the source material, a short story that ran in the New Yorker 7 years ago. “Annie Proulx has written some of the most original and brilliant short stories in contemporary literature, and for many, Brokeback Mountain is her masterpiece,” according to the blurb we’ve got on the Brokeback Mountain audiobook.
I still think Shipping News should have won back then… but maybe that’s just because I can’t stand Russell Crowe.

I woke up this morning dying to know what people thought of Jon Stewart’s performance as Academy Awards host last night. If his audio book, or the Daily Show were any indication, he was going to be great. And indeed, I thought he WAS great. But I guess complaining is more fun than praising, as the reviews I’ve read this morning tend towards the negative. Mind you, people complained about the show itself even more than they complained about Jon, as I like to call him. So he was a relative success.

I can’t figure out why, if people complain about the show so much, why they keep watching it? Anyway, for the record, I loved the show, loved Jon as host. The only problem was the constant yammering of my dozen viewing companions about the dresses. The apparent winner was Salma Hayek in blue. And what’s up with the men’s brooches? .

When one thinks of Brad Pitt, they don’t exactly think of a budding literary mind. They think of a perfect surfer-tan draping over an Achillian-esque physique, they think of a man who has married/dated both Jennifer Aniston and Angelina Jolie: they think of Tristan, Mickey (the pikey from “Snatch�), Tyler Durdan and Mr. Smith. Nobody pictures Brad Pitt sitting in a comfy chair on a quiet Sunday afternoon with a book in hand. I mean really, if you look like Brad Pitt, you don’t exactly have to impress people with your vocabulary.

But…Brad Pitt not only reads, when he’s not too busy being the “World’s Sexiest Man,â€? he narrates. Brad Pitt has recently diversified his primarily Hollywood blockbuster portfolio and has ventured into the audiobook world.

He narrates his favorite book of all time, All The Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy. So, if you’re waiting for the super hunks next movie to release, while you wait, let Brad Pitt read to you! You’ll just have to go out and grab the Cormac McCarthy audiobook. Who knew that the “Pittler� (nickname from high school) could read?

All the Pretty Horses

The first volume of the Borders Trilogy tells of young John Grady Cole, the last of a long line of Texas ranchers. Across the border Mexico beckons – beautiful and desolate, rugged and cruelly civilized. With two companions, he sets off on an idyllic, sometimes comic adventure, to a place where dreams are paid for in blood.

Seth Godin writes in his blog that perhaps the reason people aren’t up in arms about global warming is that the words ‘global’ and ‘warming’ are both kind of ‘good’, so it doesn’t sound so threatening. I’ve always been kind of skeptical about the global warming thing, and then I read Michael Crichton’s audiobook State of Fear. He presents much of the arguments both for and against global warming, but definitely tilts towards the skeptical side. I kept waiting for a reversal/surprise, as I find most people these days just kind of go along for the ride. But Crichton sticks to his guns and basically slams global warming fear-mongers.

Here’s the thing – change happens. There has always been rotten weather. Earth’s climate is constantly changing, in ways that are far more dramatic than a little human-produced carbon dioxide could produce. A wobble in orbit, an asteroid strike, solar flares… a butterfly flapping it’s wings in China? Read Bill Bryson’s audio book A Short History of Nearly Everything. If you’re going to worry, go worry about something you have some control over.

This is a perennial source of angst in the audiobook community. Here I work for an audiobook company, and still I flinch a bit when I tell someone at a cocktail party that I just read ‘Seven Habits’. I worry that because they know my background, they’ll respond with, “Did you actually READ it? Or listen to it?” I should be more worried that they ask, “Then why are you such an inefficient schmuck?”

I honestly believe that the manner in which one consumes a book is irrelevant. One of my first audiobooks, “First Among Equals” by Geoffrey Archer, I read while driving around New England with my wife. We later divorced, but I’m almost certain it had nothing to do with my listening to the book instead of reading it.

Anyway, several years later, I couldn’t immediately remember if I’d read the paperback or listened to the audiobook. That, I think, is the real test. As long as you remember the content, then it doesn’t make any difference. So to all you out there that believe you can only use the verb “read” to mean holding an actual tome in one’s lap, hands, or clenched trembling fingers… try to defend yourself without using the word ‘purity’.

By the way, if you still flinch at cocktail parties, you might want to take a look at the Chautauqua series of famous lecturers. They’re lectures, so it’s only natural to say you listened to them. Then all you have to worry about is people asking if you actually went to Chautauqua. If you can’t remember if you went to Chautauqua – well, read this book.

AudioFile (which we know and love as the only audio book mag in the world) has launched a great brand extension… podcasted versions of their audiobook reviews.

This is a great development for the folks over at the magazine, and it’s also great for us, since we’ll be offering the reviews on our site soon. We have a couple of book review podcasts, but this is going to be a huge step up.