Barton Cottage

The Magic of Harry Potter Audiobooks

By JK Rowling and Read by Stephen Fry

Ok so about a month or two ago I bought the entire set of Harry Potter audio books.  After the success of Tina Fey’s, I could see the merit in investing in some more.  I could get loads read whilst exercising, walking to school, waking the dog, out at the shops… It’s perfect!  Throw in the fact that these spectacular seven books are read by the inimitable Stephen Fry, and it was a forgone conclusion that I’d just have to buy them.  It has been one of the best decisions I’ve ever made.

Stephen Fry is truly committed to those books.  He really gets into it.  Hermione screams, he screams.  Cho cries, he cries.  Peeves blows a raspberry, he blows a raspberry.  He does a great evil laugh for Pansy Parkinson too, and his Voldemort is truly chilling; just one of his great voices. He does a gruff Hagrid, a wise Dumbledore, and oddly West Country Tonks.  But I like it. 

The only drawbacks are that he sometimes over-acts a little, especially with Harry and Hermione, and his Professor McGonagall isn’t Scottish. But I’m just nitpicking, of course.  I know they can’t all sound like they do in the films or in my head.

I’ve found that listening to audio books is strangely soothing, especially with Stephen Fry’s Etonian voice.  It’s like being a kid again.  Remember how great it was when someone read you a story?  Multiply that by ten, because it’s Harry Potter, and then by ten again, because Stephen Fry is reading them.  I know right?  It’s a big number.

These were really expensive but they were definitely worth the money.  It’s hours and hours of entertainment and a whole new way to read your favourite books and be on the treadmill at the same time!  They’re available from pottermore, amazon, whsmith etc…

There’s very little I can say about these audio books that would truly express what a wonderful experience listening to these audio books is.  Go buy them, opr if you can’t afford it, concentrate really hard and try ‘accio!’

*****

Sense and Sensibility: The Screenplay Diaries

By Emma Thompson

Emma Thompson is one of my favourite ladies.  Her 1995 version of Sense and Sensibility is one of my favourite movies.  A book by her about that film is now my favourite thing in the world.  This was a gorgeous little book which included a full screenplay, unseen photos from behind the scenes on set, headshots and best of all, Emma Thompson’s diary, which she kept during the months of filming.

Firstly, the screenplay.  If you’re as big a nerd as me, then reading along with the film is a very enjoyable pastime.  It’s even kind of fun to read it like a book.  If you’re a big fan of the film, you find yourself reading it at a pace the characters speak it in, and hearing the voices of Emma Thompson, Kate Winslet, Hugh Grant and Alan Rickman in your head.  It’s also really interesting to read the stage directions.  My favourite ones were the directions given to Rickman as Colonel Brandon remains at Cleveland with Elinor at Cleveland during Marianne’s illness.

“INT. CLEVELAND.  DRAEING ROOM.  DAY

BRANDON sits head in his hands.  His ghosts have come to haunt him.”

And:

“COLONEL BRANDON: Give me an occupation Miss Dashwood, or I shall run mad.

He is dangerously quiet.”

Watch the film again with that in your head, and that scene is perfectly interpreted. 

The second part of the book is Emma Thompson’s own diary, kept religiously during the filming.  As I’m already a huge fan of Ms Thompson and think she his amazing and talented and beautiful and hilarious and oh how her hilarity shines in these diaries.  She doesn’t even try, but her dry little commentary on the day-to-day events on set are an absolute treat.  Not only do these diaries let the reader in on behind the scenes and secrets and trivia, but they include little anecdotes involving our favourite actors.  Again, Alan Rickman takes centre stage.  Some of the things Emma quotes from him…  Why am I not friends with these wonderful people?

Finally, there’s other little added extras, including the photos and headshots, an enlightening introduction form producer Lindsay Doran, Emma Thompson’s acceptance speech from the Golden Globes, and an absolutely amazing piece of work Imogen Stubbs (Lucy Steele) undertook to develop her character: a letter from Lucy to Elinor following their marriages.  That girl is not just a pretty face.  It actually made me stop automatically hating Imogen Stubbs for being such a brilliantly detestable Lucy Steele.

This book was like a tub of Ben and Jerry’s, cosy pyjamas and a hug on a bad day.  For Sense and Sensibility fans, Emma Thompson fans or film fans, it’s a real delight of a read.

*****

Bossypants

By Tina Fey

Happy International Women’s Day!  Here’s a review of the book of one of my favourite feminists…

It’s safe to say that I love Tina Fey.  I love her on SNL, I love 30 Rock, like most human females I can quote her magnificent Mean Girls and I even like her film Baby Mama.  So when her book came out I jumped at the chance to read it, but rather than buying the lovely papery copy, I used some free audible.com points that I got and bought her audio book instead, so I had the added bonus of being read to by Tina Fey.  This way, I heard the book read the way she wrote it to bed read, if that makes sense, and it was pretty awesome.

I cannot stress enough how much I loved this book.  I have listened to it over and over and it is truly magnificent.  Beginning with her childhood in Pennsylvania in the 1970s, Fey tells her story up until present day, covering her college years, Summer Showtime theatre programme, her crappy first job in a YMCA, her Chicago theatre days and her eventual ascension to the status of head writer at SNL. 

Tina Fey is outrageously funny and incredibly thought provoking simultaneously throughout her book.  She has the talent of being able to tell deeply personal stories about her experiences without it sounding like a tumblr ‘secrets’ post just crying out for attention.  You know the kind I mean…  Instead she admits exactly where she went wrong and is always self deprecating without false modesty or pretence.  She sides with the reader in deciding this story has cast her in a bad light, which somehow reverses your opinion and she is wonderful again.  And then she talks about photoshoots, which will have you laughing so much, you will love her anyway.

Something else she pulls off with great aplomb is managing to advise and moralise without being didactic.  She is well known for being a feminist and an outspoken liberal, and her values do shine through in her book, especially her feelings about women, the way they are perceived in the media, and the attitude towards them in the workplace.  In these two areas, her authority must be respected as she is constantly in the public eye and has risen through the ranks in a male dominated business. 

Her wisdom on the subject of feminism blew me away.  Have I mentioned that I love her?  Well I do, because she is so inspirational but in the most unassuming way; she gives advice in hindsight, sharing what she learnt on her way up the comedy and corporate ladder.  She is a true role model for modern young women and I love love loved her book with a passion. 

I think my favourite part was her chapters on her work at the YMCA.  They were full of so many funny characters, and then really poignant parts by turns.  But then she had this brilliant chapter when she hit back, with characteristic sharpness, to all those trolls out there who’ve said awful things about her on the internet.

“Now go back to bed you crazy night owl!  You need to go to work at NASA in the morning.  So they can look through the Hubble Telescope for your penis.”

She also did a lovely chapter on ‘The Mother’s Prayer for its Daughter’, which you can find here. 

READ THIS BOOK!  Because I just can’t review it well enough. 

*****