Books: Spoken Word

Christina Hardyment
Saturday 12 December 1998 01:02 GMT
Comments

Your support helps us to tell the story

From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.

At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.

The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.

Your support makes all the difference.

Finnegans Wake

by James Joyce

Naxos, 5hrs, pounds 15.99

JAMES JOYCE'S famously inaccessible final work recently came 11th in a poll of novels of the century. If your reaction to its dreamlike patchwork of European languages is "drop this jiggerypokery and talk straight turkey meet to mate" (to quote the book itself), help is at hand. In what must be the most innovative and ambitious audiobook ever, the full text of the extracts is provided, so you can see, hear and appreciate - impossible in any other way to appreciate fooly the dyblong tendresses (sorry, it's infectious). Hearing the words in rhythmic Irish accents is also essential.

A Song of Stone

by Iain Banks

Cult Listening, 3hrs, pounds 8.99

NOT ONE for Aunt Mabel or the faint-hearted, Iain Banks's chilling gothic tale is so powerfully and fluently phrased that it makes mesmerising listening. Abel and Morgan, a mysteriously allied couple, are in flight from their ancestral castle in a postwar panic in unlabelled terrain. A charismatic woman lieutenant takes them back there and, slowly, mutual understanding grows - and then falters. All credit to reader Peter Capaldi, whose husky, lightly Glaswegian voice puts over the urgency, passion and resigned despair of the story superbly.

Join our commenting forum

Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies

Comments

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged inPlease refresh your browser to be logged in