Recent books on tape
Richard Cooper
Just when we thought the cassette was on the way out, the audio book revolution has given our plastic friend a new lease of life. Walk into any bookshop and you'll be greeted by shelves of talking books; it is now the norm for publishers to issue popular titles on book and tape simultane- ously.
Our Game by John le Cane, (Hodder Headline, £9.99, Abr.) Useful tips for the novice spy: corner properties make the best safe houses, and always leave dust on furni- ture if you're away. Le Cane has taught us nearly all we know about Cold Warfare, but with the Wall now rubble and 'dead letterboxes' sealed, where to now for the king of the genre? Our Game is the story of retired spy Tim Cranmer's search for his ex-double-agent-cum-best-school-buddy, who has mysteriously hightailed it with Cranmer's girlfriend and £35 million. This six-hour tape is highly recommended; time restriction has tightened up a plot prone to straggle. Probably not his best, but Le Care's reading is unsurpassable; this man could breath life into The Highway Code.
There's just a whiff of Le Carre in Stephen Fry's first novel The Liar (Random House, £19.99. Unabr.) Word pictures of cryptic characters as 'the mous- tache', 'the tweed', or 'the Hermes scarf' are favoured by both and here help add a shadowy aspect to the far-fetched plot. Most of The Liar is a bawdy, post- pubescent romp which follows the exploits of the outrageous Adrian Healey. The humour, at its mildest, is lavatorial and with Fry's fruity voice and impeccable tim- ing for the incalculable jokes, this tape is constantly entertaining, but at £20 the laughs don't come cheap.
Despite cover notes to the contrary, . there is nothing amusing about The Ferma- ta by Nicholson Baker (Random House, £8.99, Abr.) An erotic phone call was the theme of Baker's earlier novel Vox. In The Fermata the bottom line has barely moved. By applying his forefinger to his spectacles Arno Strine, a seriously disturbed tempo- rary typist, can stop time. Unlike the 1960s cartoon character Billy Binns, who used these heaven-sent moments to score the winning goal in the Cup Final, Strine undresses women, gawps at them, reclothes them and returns to his typewriter. The three hours of this irksome tale is made even less tolerable by the sinister, nasal delivery of the reader, Will Patton. Here is a gilt-edged candidate for the 'fast forward of the month award'. A hideous experi- ence.
The Stone Diaries by Carol Shields (Reed, £7.99, Abr.) is a breath of fresh air. There's always the worry with abridgement that a treasured moment will end in the bin. Anyone who enjoyed this 1993 short- listed Booker Prize novel, can heave a sigh of relief. Not an ounce of atmosphere has been lost and Connie Booth's mesmeric reading makes this three-hour tape well worth snapping up. Most of the action takes place in Canada, as we follow Daisy Flett from the cradle (or kitchen floor) to her grave. Daisy's honeymoon 'sneeze' is sure to have listeners hitting the rewind button.
Daphne du Maurier by Margaret Forster (Hodder, £7.99, Abr.) The author leaves us in no doubt about the complex, shadowy side of Du Maurier's character. As a child she yearned to be, and actually convinced herself she was, a boy. The 'boy in a box' pops up throughout her life. She was par- ticularly besotted by Gertrude Lawrence, whose death left du Maurier devastated. The three hours of this riveting tape pass in a flash. Tones don't come more clipped than Anna Massey's, enabling the listener to hear every syllable on even the noisiest road.
High Fidelity by Nick Hornby (Random House, £8.99, Abr.) Nigel Planer is an inspired choice of reader for Nick Hornby's best-selling first novel. With his downbeat style of narration, Planer sounds just like a chap who might run a back-street second- hand record store — aptly, since this is precisely how Hornby's down-on-his-luck hero scratches a living. An obsessive cataloguer of taste, he judges people entirely on what they listen to rather than what -they think or say. Hornby's sharp- witted observations and a compulsive story- line make this four-hour abridgement a sure-fire chart-topper. A must for the baby boomer still ,stuck in the Sixties and Seven- ties groove.
Being Digital by Nicholas Negroponte (Hodder, £7.99, Abr.) The Information Superhighway isn't necessarily the road to hell if we allow Nicholas Negroponte to be our guide. The author is director of the Media Lab at the MIT; he's a dab hand at predicting how digital technology will change our lives. In little more than an hour the conciliatory voice of reader Penn Jillette helps stem the tide of anxiety for tomorrow's Internet Surfers. We had better get used to talking to our toasters, or respecting the fridge when it tells us the milk has gone off. Where the book may intimidate the techno-agnostic, this tape is extremely user friendly.
Original Sin by P. D. James (Chivers, £17.95, Unabr.) This tape, which runs for more than 17 hours, allows ample time for the erudite sleuth Adam Dalgleish to sift through the clues before pouncing inexorably on the killer(s). The setting is the palatial Thames-side headquarters of the Peverell Press. All the ingredients for a classic whodunnit are here: stacks of atmo- sphere and plenty of corpses. The climax is so thrilling there should really be a warning on the tape for anyone driving a car. Keep your wits about you and you'll find the reader, Michael Jayston, a peerless com- panion.
The latest gem from the Golden Days of Radio collection is The Best of Sherlock Holmes 4 (Hodder, £5). These four half- hour stories were originally broadcast in the 1950s and, so the cover notes inform us, were 9nly recently rediscovered. With Sir John Gielgud as Holmes, and Sir Ralph Richardson as Watson you could hardly ask for more. But you get it. Orson Welles makes a guest appearance as the evil Professor Moriarty. You can almost see the glow of the wireless valves through the Victorian pea-soupers.
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