Ended up downloading Treasure Island from Librivox and dozed in bed listening to Jim Hawkins get up to all sorts of bother.
The thing is with the "classics" - you 'know' the story, have seen the tv programme/mini-series/movie(s) and may have even flipped through the Classic Comic version or (horror of horror!) read the Readers Digest Condensed Book while staying at your aunties. (What is it about those condensed books - you only ever find them at your auntie's house?) And then you read (OK, listen) to them for the first time and realise you had it all wrong ...
And then you start adding to the list of others you must get around to ... so here's my "classics I really should have read when I was supposed to have read them at school but couldn't be buggered so I'm just going to have to read them now" list (needs a bit of work that title, a tad on the longish side).
Kidnapped
David Copperfield (although my bro says that it "does go on a bit")
Oliver Twist
The Wizard of Oz
Gulliver's Travels
Robinson Crusoe
Peter Pan (aka Peter & Wendy)
Wuthering Heights
The Three Musketeers
Now don't get me wrong, I am a serious bibliophile. I love the touch, the look, the smell, the sheer beauty of a physical book ... but audio books rock in the fact that you can do something else at the same time ... for instance
- drive to work (or anywhere else for that matter)
- knit
- iron (OK - so I don't do that ... not that you couldn't, it's just that I don't iron)
- garden
- wash dishes (and dry them too)
- supermarket shopping (hint: comedies not recommended unless you want funny looks when you start giggling by the brussel sprouts. Nobody should giggle next to brussel sprouts)
So I'll let you know how ole Jimbo gets on ... at the moment Squie Trelawny is really excited because he's got this really cool one-legged guy called John Silver to come on their expedition as ship's cook ... uh oh.
