Audiobook Riff 1 (a non-definitive list (mine) and a Maqroll anecdote (not mine))

I got a lovely email, with the subject line “Audiobooks,” a few weeks ago from a guy named Ben. Basically, he asked me to do a post on some of my favorite audiobooks, which I suppose I could’ve done fairly easy as a list (and which, yes, if you want to drop down, I will list below, oh-so-non-definitively)—but after thinking about his question, I thought I might break the post up into a couple of posts on audiobooks in general—the excellent ones, the average ones, the terrible ones afflicted by readers who misread the material; the audiobooks I’m auditing now/recently; childhood favorites (on vinyl!); hell, maybe even a totally pretentious post called “How to listen to audiobooks” or some such garbage.

Before I go on though, let me share Ben’s email (he gave me his permission), which is mostly a marvelous anecdote about Álvaro Mutis’s Maqroll novellas:

After reading your post on The Adventures and Misadventures of Maqroll, I immediately ordered the book and read it with my father as we travelled through Borneo, passing it back and forth every dozen pages. The reading became even more significant as we reached the passage in which Maqroll is laid up sick in Northridge, California, in an area surrounded by orange groves. This area is where my father spent his childhood. Reading Maqroll with my father on that trip stands as my most meaningful reading experience. I thank you for putting us onto that book.

Have you done a post yet on your favorite audiobooks? I’d like to get your recommendations. I recall you mentioning a few in previous posts, but could not track them down. Keep at it.

Ben’s Maqroll story surely deserves a response in full, fleshed out detail, and my next post will discuss in detail why I praise the following audio productions. But for now a list (sans, alas, Álvaro Mutis: our Gaviero Maqroll has not found his way into an audiobook yet, at least to my knowledge).

In no real order, and by no means definitive, a list of eight perfect or near-perfect audiobooks:

Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick, as read by William Hootkins

James Joyce’s Ulysses,  RTÉ’s 1982 full cast production (that second link links to a free download!).

Virginia Woolf’s Orlando, as read by Claire Higgins

J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit, as read by Nicol Williamson

William Gaddis’s J R, as read by Nick Sullivan

Cormac McCarthy’s Blood Meridian, as read by Richard Poe

Gordon Lish’s The Collected Fictions of Gordon Lish, as read by Gordon Lish 

Denis Johnson’s Train Dreams, as read by Will Patton