I think I was posting as you were -- sorry.

It sounds possibly infuriating. I'll see if the library has it.

I want those bindings. If I were rich I'd be such a binding whore.

I want those bindings. If I were rich I'd be such a binding whore.

Did I mention that those books are available at Amazon for $13.50? They were created for Waterstone's in the UK and not all are available here yet, but I already pre-ordered Oliver Twist because that is my favorite cover.

I loved Bad Monkeys

So Emmett and I have been listening to all the Harry Potter audio books on our commute back and forth across the Bay. This has been a fun and cost-effective entertainment because our old car has a cassette player and I get the audiocassettes (instead of CDs) for cheap off Amazon.

But now we've finished them all and I've been looking for something new to listen to in the car, and figured he'd go for either Douglas Adams or Terry Pratchett. And - ta da! - what did I find at Half Price Books but the audio cassette version of The Wee Free Men for a mere $4.98. And we just started it this morning and it's great.

Though it opened with a very American voice announcing it was a HarperCollins book and Emmett snorted, "You suck! You're no Jim Dale!" He was mollified to hear Stephen Briggs' British accent come up, though.

"You suck! You're no Jim Dale!"

This just made me laugh and laugh. Quite the budding aesthete isn't he?

This just made me laugh and laugh. Quite the budding aesthete isn't he?

He has opinions. He's also a Pushing Daisies fan so we're well acquainted with Jim Dale's voice. Plus, the audiobook for Goblet of Fire alone is like twenty hours long. We've spent a lot of time with Jim's voice.

I will also note that while I don't really like Dale's voice for Luna, his Prof. Sprout is something we imitate with great satisfaction. You haven't lived until you've heard him declaim on "Bubo Tubers pusssss."

I found a website that had Stephen Fry's readings of the HP books, and I'm curious to compare them.

I have listened to both. I tend to prefer Dale, but they are both excellent. Dale does more "voices," which as you pointed out is great when the voice is good, but distracting with the ones he doesn't rock. Fry reads it more like a dude with an awesome voice reading you a book. Which can be nice because it just gets out of the way of the story and lets you soak it up a bit more.

Thanks, Gris, that's an excellent and useful comparison.

I do love Dale's take on Dumbledore, McGonnigal and Hagrid. His posh drawl for Malfoy is a perfectly apt choice since Rowling mentions it all the time, but it's mildly distracting for me since (a) I'm used to Movie Malfoy; and (b) my ear's not really attuned to British accents so that I automatically give that drawl its set of snobby associations.

The audio version of Skulduggery Pleasant is lousy. The reader does most of the voices completely wrong to the way they sound in my head. Not tonally as much as the attitude; like, a sentence that I always read as sarcastic was read as tentative and meek. I cannot abide audiobooks not agreeing with me.