What I'm Listening To

I love audiobooks. I like listening to them in the car while I'm driving, and I love listening to them when I'm doing housework or running errands. But they can be expensive, so I have been lately exploring the world of free podcasts, and thought I'd post a few I'm enjoying:

• This American Life: This is a weekly radio program on NPR which runs about an hour long. Each week's program focuses on a theme, and they'll usually have 3-4 stories about that them. I've been listening to it on the radio for years, and the podcast used to cost money. I'm thrilled now that they're making it available for free.
• The Moth: The Moth is a story-telling project in which people tell true stories live and in front of an audience. Some of them are funny, some are stunning, and all of them are really well done. I came across it because there are some of the Moth's stories which are included in some This American Life episodes.
• Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me: NPR's news quiz. Funny, and I always seem to catch a bit of news that eluded me throughout the week, and then I'll go find out what the heck they were talking about.
• Jim Kelly's Free Reads: a NH writer who is reading his work in a serial format and posting semi-regularly. I'm still listening to archives, so I haven't been paying attention to how often he posts, but he keeps commenting on how he's missed posting dates, so I'm guessing it's irregular. And on August 5 he posted a friend of his reading a story based on a mix of Pride and Prejudice and Frankenstein, and the second half of the story is yet to be posted! It's a good story so far, so I really want to know how it ends. Right now I'm listening to Jim Kelly's novella, Look Into the Sun. I've really enjoyed his short stories, and I'm loving the novella. A lot of his stories reference NH things, especially Portsmouth. He's a better writer than reader, but whenever I can hear the actual writer reading his work, I'm not complaining.

I also bought The Shack on audio a few weeks ago. I liked a lot of it, tossed away the portions which kind of dig at organized religion. Basically the story is about a man who's daughter is killed, and he has a crisis of faith. In that crisis, he actually meets with God as three persons in a shack in the woods, and talks about what they want from him, who they are as God, and what it means to have a relationship with God. My favorite parts are how God the Father says about everyone "I am especially fond of that person," and the time he spends with Jesus talking about being human and living in God.

So that's about all. A whole post, and I don't talk about house hunting at all! Yay for me.