The SoapBoxers

The book begins with our hero being attacked. He fights back and kills his attacker in self defense. While looking through the attacker’s possessions, he stumbles upon what he eventually comes to realize is an invitation to a serial killers club. Yes, it’s exactly what it sounds like – serial killers gathering to break bread and share stories. Doug joins the club and eventually goes over to the dark side and becomes a killer himself..

If you’re looking for the next great mystery novel – with strong characters and a dynamic plot – this isn’t it. Nor does Povey attempt to go down that route. This is entertainment, not art. Povey crafts a book that takes an amusing look at serial killers. The plot weaves off onto tangents – a byproduct of the main character’s lack of orientation. The characters are strangely weak – reminiscent of a whiny high school clique. This is a side of serial killers that you don’t often see on TV. Some Amazon reviewers have suggested that the flimsy characters are a flaw with the book. I don’t think this is true – I think they were written this way for effect.

Doug’s decision making process is one of the more interesting aspects to this book. To say that it is flawed in a huge understatement. He has a tendency to make life changing decision with very little thought or preparation. He also has a very broad definition of “normal behavior”, as he glosses over some pretty weird stuff during the narration of the book. In the prologue, he talks about his success in finding the job he was born to do – cleaning up the muck of zoo animals.

This book probably plays a bit more to those of you who are a bit “odd” (or, if you prefer, “eccentric”). If you have a more rigid sense of humor, you might find the humor very sophomoric. If you’re the sort of person who cracks up uncontrollably at Monty Python, you’ll probably enjoy this. All in all, this book was $6 well spent (bargain bin at Barnes & Noble).

Update: I’ve shared this book with several friends since I wrote the initial review. Half of them love it, half of them think it’s pretty dumb – which basically mirrors the split reviews of the book you see on Amazon. Why roll roll the dice and give it a chance?

{burp}

Last update June 9, 2009

Editor’s note:  This was originally just a review of Librivox.  However, I noticed that people seem to be stumbling aross this article in an effort to answer two questions

• Who are the best readers on Librivox?
• What are the best books on Librivox?

I’m going to a make an effort to answer those question in the first part of this article.  If you simply want to read the original review of librivox, please scroll down!

Question 1:  Who are the best readers on Librivox?

This is really subjective, but I’ll make an effort to answer the question in the coming weeks.  This will be a substantial undertaking, as it will be necessary to sample the readings of the more prolific readers on Librivox.

For starters, I’ll recommend the readers from “Journey to the Interior of the Earth”

• Vinny Bove
• Mark Bradford
• Hugh McGuire
• Kristin Luoma
• Mur Lafferty
• Paul S. Jenkins
• Alex Foster
• Kristen McQuillen
• Michael Crowl
• Brad Bush
• Lana Taylor
• Kara Shallenberg

Certainly some of those readers are better than others, this this is a good starting point.  I will attempt to work my way through all of the more prolific readers at Librivox and select the best of the best.  I will update this article as I move forward on this task – I will update the date at the top and make a note as to my progress.

Note – you can used the advanced search to search by reader.

Question 2: What are the best books on Librivox?

Librivox contains a great selection of books in the public domain.  At one point, I had a list of books I intended to listen to, but it seems that I have misplaced this list.  I’ll compile a more complete list, but here are a couple to get you started:

• Journey to the Interior of the Earth (Verne)
• The Count of Monte Cristo (Dumas)
• A Tale of Two Cities (Dickens)

I will update both of these sections regularly over the next few weeks.

Original review of Librivox

This is supposed to be a book review post, but I’m going off on a slight tangent. I would like to point out a wonderful site – www.librivox.org

If the name looks a bit strange, dust off your Latin.

Librivox has organized volunteers to record their readings of classic literature. Since these works are in the public domain, there are no copyright issues. Librivox contains a library of 2000 books, and this is growing daily. There is absolutely, positively, NO CHARGE to download the audio books! In fact, there isn’t even a place to down, nor are there the invasive ads you see on many free sites. Compare this to the price you pay for audio books of popular contemporary books. I’m in my car for 90-120 minutes every day, so I have become a frequent audio book listener.

The books can be downloaded in MP3 or ogg vorbis format and you can get them via podcast. Personally, I download the MP3s and have iTunes burn them to CD.

When I first became aware of Librivox, my first concern was the quality of the reading. Would the readers have a horrible, monotone reading style? I have listened to one complete book (Journey to the Center of the Earth, one of my all time favorites) and sampled a few others. Really, considering that these are unpaid volunteers, the quality of the reading is quite good. Librivox does have a decent amount of structure in how they organize their projects, utilizing “book coordinators” to make sure things flow smoothly.

Overall, I really had to nitpick to find anything I didn’t like. At the start of every MP3 file (which could be a single chapter or several chapters) there is a notice telling the reader that the file is from librivox, identifying the reader, and releasing copyright (Librivox does not acquire a copyright to the actual recording). At first, this was a minor distraction the continuity, but it quickly became a non-issue.

The other minor issue was the fact that a book often has several different readers. Once again, these folks are volunteers, so it’s not surprising that a single person can’t undertake the recording of a 500 page book. You might actually like the variety of having the different voices.

If you want to catch up on the classics, this is a great way to do it. Not only do these folks have a great idea, but they have also done a good job of executing it. Kudos to Librivox.

A literary icon of our generation has passed away. The great writer Michael Crichton ended his battle with cancer at the age of 66 on November 4.

Crichton is best known for his masterpiece, Jurassic Park. As a bit of a dinophile, this became one of my favorite books. Over the years, I read many other Crichton books – Congo, Sphere, Airframe, Timeline, Prey, and Next among them. Crichton also wrote Twister and created the television show ER. I await the final Crichton novel, now scheduled for release on May 4, 2009.

Thank you for everything, Michael, and enjoy your eternal reward. You deserve it.