Rec me audiobooks and/or geeky stuff!

[oyceter]

I have pretty bad insomnia at times, often because I feel like my brain wants to keep going. I used to try listening to music, especially musicals or ballads, as the narrative thread keeps my brain occupied, but lately I have discovered the joy of audiobooks.

So... rec me stuff!

I am looking for things that are appropriate to fall asleep to. In other words, the audiobook equivalent of a nice, fluffy blanket. Nothing too violent or too depressing, and for this at least, nothing too political. I mean, I am totally up for things that are critiquing the patriarchy or whatnot, but if it makes me want to sit up in bed and pump my fist going, "Yeah!" it will not be helpful for the insomnia! Ditto things with too much fail. I can deal with a little, especially if warned, but again, if I am getting up and trying to strangle my iPod, it is not helpful for the insomnia.

In this case, audiobooks of things I have actually read and enjoyed is a bonus, since I (hopefully) fall asleep in the middle of chapters. I tried listening to Emma, but I kept losing track of the narrative even though I know generally what happens thanks to Clueless.

Apparently the quality of the reading also matters, since I didn't like the narrator of Daughters of Darkness or Mr. Cavendish, I Presume to finish.

So far, I have been greatly enjoying Good Omens.

Also, now that I am most of the way through Mythbusters Collection 3, rec me random geeky stuff! I feel like I have exhausted all of the geeks-in-(awkward-and-adorkable)-love stories on bb_shousetsu, but am kind of up for anything that scratches the adorkable, cute excited geeks, science geekiness, kludging geekiness, or whatnot itch. (I already read Lifehacker and There, I Fixed It.) I think mostly I am looking for stuff with geek personalities being adorkable, as opposed to just plain funny or educational, ergo the question re: fic.

Comments

[oyceter]

Oooo... do you think there's enough in the Peabody books for someone to enjoy it even if they can't follow the plot at all? (I.e. I'm fine with five minute bursts of characters being charming and/or funny and then me falling asleep.) Also, how did you think the treatment of Egypt was? I've kind of been skirting around that series b/c of the setting, but I also know a lot of people enjoy them.

Haha, sadly, I think Parable of the Sower would be too serious =(. Maybe some time for a long car ride or something!

[heavenscalyx]

Firstly, her history is pretty accurate, her Victoriana doesn't make Akycha want to scream, and her Egyptology is also accurate (and her depiction of the various real people of the time is pretty amusing).

Peters really wants to be good at dealing with race. She has several pretty decent characters of color (Abdullah, the reis, and a number of his relatives). She tackles Victorian racism in various ways -- for instance, Amelia begins to refer to their "Egyptian family" fairly early on, and one of Abdullah's grandchildren marries one of Amelia's nieces eventually, so there's that little round of difficulty too. Amelia's son Ramses thinks about racism more openly and critically than his mother and gets involved in the cause of Egyptian independence. The Emersons, when finding a lost world kind of lace, try to get the dark-skinned slaves of the lighter-skinned nobles freed. But the solutions are too neat, the worshipful treatment the Emersons (along with their romantical nicknames) get from the Egyptians does get cloying, and Ramses frequently passes as an Egyptian without any real consequence (and there's no apparent questions about his parentage despite his ability to pass as Egyptian).

So, yeah, there are problems. I try to think of it (and can because of my white privilege, alas) as part and parcel of the body of literature she's reacting to (H. Rider Haggard, et al), as well as Peters' own problems with perceiving certain things as racist, but it does come down to racism being a problem in the books. There are a couple of the books, I think, that occur primarily in England that might be more tolerable (The Deeds of the Disturber looks like one of the ones I'm thinking of).

Peters also has problems with depictions of women (other than Amelia, who really, I think, took the bit in her teeth and ran away with Peters) and fatphobia. So, yeah, problematic. But I expect some of these things show up in her other works as Barbara Michaels.

[(Anonymous)]

Also, yes, there's enough to keep you going -- the characters are charming and funny pretty consistently.

Oh! I just remembered: Rosenblat also narrates at least the first two Tales of the City books! And she's wonderful at it.

[heavenscalyx]

Feh, that was me.

[oyceter]

Oooo, thanks so much for all the details! Stuff is usually less head-explodey for me when forewarned.

Eh, what's Tales of the City? Also Elizabeth Peters books?

[heavenscalyx]

Tales of the City is a series by Armistead Maupin. It was originally published serially in the SF Chronicle, and the series starts in the 1970s in the Bay Area and trundles on through today. Gay life, transfolk in the 70s, the start of AIDS -- all done in a remarkably light-hearted way with really compelling characters. I'd heard of one of the big characters -- Michael "Mouse" Tolliver -- for years before actually reading the books. I adored all the historical notes -- pop culture things I recognized from my childhood, news items I remembered from my junior high years (like Jamestown). I expect that someone living in the Bay Area might find it even more fun.

He makes some interesting comments on racism, though he doesn't have many COCs. (One note: there's a storyline that involves one of the white characters having a fling with a Chinese delivery boy and getting pregnant. I think that, for writing in the 1970s-1980s, Maupin handled it all right: we see the whole thing through the point of view of some privileged white folks, and he's showing their intolerance in a very nonsympathetic light.) The only thing he doesn't really handle particularly well are lesbians, alas. There's one book I haven't dared read because it involves a women's music festival and, eurgh, I'm a little worried about how a gay man who already has some issues with dykes will present such an animal.

[heavenscalyx]

And even better, the early Tales of the City books are written in short, episodic chunks. Might be very good to fall asleep to!

[oyceter]

Oooo gotcha, thanks! I will definitely look for this!