Listing audio books feels a bit like cheating, but what the hell. Harlan and I listened to a bunch of them while driving to Atlanta and back for a trade show. Only a couple were worth listening to, however.

The Good
The Judge / Steve Martini
LT's Theory of Pets / Stephen King / Stephen King

The Awful
The Smoke Jumper / Nicholas Evans
Just painfully arch and boring. We only got about 15 minutes into this.

Violets Are Blue / James Patterson
We actually got a couple of CDs into this one. But listening to it pointed out one bad thing about audio books: authors that are borderline readable in book form (because you can skim the boring bits) jump over the line into intolerable when read aloud, because you suffer through every annoying chapter, clause, phrase and sentence.

In this case, the "Alex Cross Investigates" chapters were fine. The "Alec Cross Deals with His Damn Family" chapters were annoying and repetitive. The "Murder and Murderers" chapters ranged from passable to hideously painful.

It was a line in one of the "Murderers" chapters which caused us to scream and punch the eject buton like a speed bag at Gallagher's Gym.

That was when we looked at each other, eyes already rolling, and decided this one was done.

Isle of Dogs / Patricia Cornwell

We got about half a chapter in, before cringing and putting the CD away.