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Shannon DeRespino lives in Sanford
with her husband and their two black
cats, Cam and Raven. She holds a B.A. in
English from Wake Forest University and
an M.A. in English & Creative Writing from
Southern New Hampshire University. She
has been contributing book reviews to the
Pinehurst Gazette, Inc. since 2012.
Book Reviews
by Shannon Derespino
This month I am choosing to review two
books I listened to on audiobook, which can
occasionally be a wholly different experience
than simply sitting down to read the book.
These reviews will touch on both the content
of the book and the quality of the narrative
performance.
Born to Run by Bruce
Springsteen
2016 / Autobiography
Audiobook narrated by Bruce Springsteen
I have read a lot of books about rock music.
This is a subject close to my heart, and my
interest in it has lead me to read books both
excellent and disappointing. I wasn’t planning
on running out to read Bruce Springsteen’s 2016
autobiography Born to Run right at release date,
but reviews for it were so stellar that I couldn’t
resist. I ended up listening to the audiobook,
narrated by Bruce himself, over the course of
several weeks in 2017.
I would describe myself as a casual Bruce
Springsteen fan.
I enjoy quite a
bit of his work
but have always
found him to be
a better lyricist
than composer.
However, I have
t re m e n d o u s
respect for him
as a writer, and
I think that he
has continually
composed song
lyrics that are
nothing less
than poetry—
vividly realized,
empathetically
r e n d e r e d
portraits of characters and places that feel as
real as my own life. His skills as a writer are
readily apparent in this book. Unlike many
autobiographies, which are clearly written by
a ghost writer, Born to Run is quite plainly the
work of Springsteen himself. The man is a writer,
and I think we’d all know his name even if he
didn’t choose to express himself through music.
He could have just as easily been a famous poet
or novelist.
Born to Run is a deeply human book full of
honest appraisals of Bruce’s life and the people
who have molded and shaped him. I found it
to be very genuine and lacking in any artifice
or attempts to come across as a hard-partying
“rock god.” That was never his style. Instead,
the book shows a kid who grew up in the poor
Italian slums of New Jersey, born into a family
of many strong women and one taciturn,
uncommunicative father. He was bit by the
music bug early, combing his hair into a Beatles
mop-top and working in a variety of local bands
that played high school dances and Jersey
boardwalks. He worked very hard for many years
and finally broke through in 1975 with an album
called Born to Run, a set of New Jersey poems
wrapped in huge Phil Spector-style production.
This autobiography covers the whole
of Bruce’s life and career, from his humble
beginnings through to worldwide superstardom.
He writes a great deal about the three families
of his life. The first is the family he was born
into, and he spends much of the book reflecting
upon and digging in to the very complicated
relationship he had with his difficult father.
The second is the family that he made with his
wife and three children. The third, of course,
is his musical family of the E Street Band. His
lifelong friendships with Steven Van Zandt,
Clarence Clemons and the other members of
his legendary backing band are portrayed with
warmth, humor and honesty. He doesn’t shy
away from the tough times, but he also knows
when to have some fun. I found myself laughing
uproariously at Bruce’s descriptions of the
bands’ mid-‘80s sartorial failures.
Bruce’s narration is outstanding, and he has
in fact been nominated for the Grammy for Best
Spoken Word Album for his 18-hour reading.
His husky voice is friendly, and he tells his story
with a twinkle in his eye or tears welling his
throat. There isn’t anything artificial about his
performance or his story.
I highly recommend Bruce Springsteen’s
Born to Run for anyone, even people who
(like me) are only casual fans of his work. The
prose is absolutely beautiful and novel-quality,
not like the workmanlike bland writing often
found in celebrity biographies. If you care
to go a step further and you have the time, I
would recommend listening to the audiobook.
It feels like Bruce is sitting down to tell you his
most intimate stories about life, love, travel
and music, and by the end of the reading, I can
almost guarantee that you’ll be a bigger fan of
his work than you were at the start.
Murder on the Orient
Express by Agatha Christie
1934 / Mystery
Audiobook narrated by Dan Stevens
I am often inspired to read books when new
film adaptations of them are released. Late
2017 saw the release of a new version of Agatha
Christie’s classic mystery Murder on the Orient
Express, directed by Kenneth Branagh. There
was also a classic version produced in the 1970s
which won Ingrid Bergman the Oscar for Best
Supporting Actress. This was only the second
Christie I have read (the first was And Then
There Were None), but I once again found myself
spellbound by her unique gift for the plotting
and execution of a mystery that will leave the
reader guessing until the very end.
Murder on the Orient Express is one of the
many Christie novels featuring her famed
detective Hercule Poirot, a soft-spoken
Belgian who expertly uses logic and clues to
solve his cases. The novel begins with Poirot
joining a train journey at the very last minute
in the dead of winter, finding that the train
is uncharacteristically packed for the time of
year and populated by people of all ages and
nationalities. During the night, one of the
passengers is murdered in his sleeping car and
only one of the thirteen passengers on board
could have committed the crime. While the train
is stranded in the snow, Poirot investigates the
crime by piecing together a number of clues, red
herrings, eyewitness testimonies and differing
claims made by the passengers.
In many ways, this is a simple and straightforward
novel. The audiobook reading lasts only
five hours and all of the action is contained in
one tight and claustrophobic setting with a
small cast of characters. Christie was the master
of the so-called “locked room” mystery, and I
was very impressed with her genius at doling
out all the details the reader (and the detective)
will need to solve the case, but hiding them with
expert sleight of hand. Important information is
hidden within seemingly innocuous dialogue.
Clues that seem essential to the case turn out to
be red herrings. The cast of characters is diverse
and intriguing with each one getting their
chance to describe the evening of the crime
as they experienced it. The final result of the
mystery is very clever, however I will contend
that even if one knows the answer to the riddle
the book is still worth reading, if only to see how
masterfully Christie constructed the mystery.
I listened
to the
audiobook
read by Dan
S t e v e n s
(well-known
for playing
Ma t t h e w
Crowley on
D o w n t o n
A b b e y ,
among other
roles) and
he did a
terrific job.
Murder on
the Orient
Express is
perhaps 80%
d i a l o g u e ,
as Poirot
interrogates
a n d
conve r s e s
with all of the passengers. There are at least
sixteen characters in the novel, each with
varying accents (Belgian, French, English,
American, Swedish, Hungarian, Russian), ages
and genders. Stevens did a remarkable job of
bringing all of these different voices to life. His
characterizations were exceptional- diverse,
believable and entirely masking of his own
voice. At times, I totally forgot that it was just
one person doing all the voices. One could be
forgiven for thinking it was an entire cast.
This is an excellent, tightly-written mystery
full of intrigue and suspense. It is the perfect
kind of book to listen to or read during the cold
months.
No. 130 The Pinehurst Gazette, Inc. p.31