Wednesday, November 26, 2014

Favorite Audiobook

This week, we're reading Ready Player One and I, like probably Alex also did, listened to the audiobook.  Mostly because Will Wheaton read it and who WOULDN'T listen to that, but also because a friend of ours recommended the book, based off the audio.

So this week, we're giving you favorite audio.


I just ended up really liking Lean In way more than I thought I was going to (business books not really the books I tend to pick up.)  I really love Sandberg's approach to the idea of leaning into your career, not being afraid of it, and not forestalling it because of something that might, one day, happen in the future.

She is basically telling to you plan your career based on the here and now, not on the 'what if I have a family etc.' of the future.  But she doesn't do it in a condescending way.  I don't feel like I CAN'T go have a family as opposed to a career.  She makes that part of my life as a woman, that choice as a woman, just as valid.  If I want to choose to be a stay at home mom, to give up my career because that what I want in life, then do it.

But she is very clear it should be MY choice, and not the choice of my male peers or society's choice because I'm a woman.  I shouldn't ever stay home or forestall my career because I think that I'm expected to.  It's really a wonderfully feminist book, in the right kind of way (totally supportive and there's no male bashing.)

But I also love the audio book because this woman reads it.


Who is that, you may ask?  Why, that's Elisa Donvan.  Here, let me put her in more familiar surroundings.


That's right: she was Amber from Clueless.  And while there were not "whatever"s going on in Lean In, she still did a wonderful job reading the book.


Have you ever heard Neil Gaiman read his own work? Have you heard him say the word "Cinnamon"? Even if you aren't an anglophile, you can appreciate that he has an amazing story reading voice. I love his audiobooks. "Cinnamon" is a short story that, at some point, I found on iTunes for free or really cheap, I can't remember which. I think it's the only audiobook in my iTunes, ever. I remember listening to it on a plane once (actually, a couple times... pretty sure I was flying to Oregon, so that's a five-hour flight and then a two-hour flight).

"Cinnamon" is very much a fairy tale... It's about a princess and her parents and a tiger and you learn a lesson from it, but it's an odd lesson.

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