Audiobooking 5 April 1, 2020

In light of my practically apolitical audiobook streak since I impulsively quit the “Audiobooking” series, save for the right end of the spectrum, I chose to bring it back. Here’s what I’ve been listening to while exercising since September 2018:

• My Days: Happy and Otherwise by Marion Ross with David Laurell (read by Marion with David and guest voices; foreword written and read by Ron Howard)
• Killing the SS: The Hunt for the Worst War Criminals in History by Bill O’Reilly and Martin Dugard (read by Bill, with periodic mispronunciations)
• #DoNotDisturb: How I Ghosted My Cell Phone to Take Back My Life by Jedediah Bila – Since listening to this, I’ve put my phone in airplane mode when I don’t want to be disturbed, typically at bedtime
• The Geraldo Show: A Memoir by Geraldo Rivera – This book mostly chronicles Geraldo’s war reporting in Afghanistan and Iraq
• Stay Hungry by Sebastian Maniscalco
• Live Long and…: What I Learned Along the Way by William Shatner with David Fisher (read by Bill)
• The Light Within Me: An Inspirational Memoir by Ainsley Earhardt
• Always Look on the Bright Side of Life: A Sortabiography by Eric Idle – There was a brief political rant toward the end, using an airport employee as a strawman
• Grateful American: A Journey from Self to Service by Gary Sinise with Marcus Brotherton (read by Gary)
• A Polaroid Guy in a Snapchat World by David Spade (Audible original)
• The United States of Trump: How the President Really Sees America by Bill O’Reilly (read by Rick Adamson, with periodic mispronunciations [i.e. “mewler”]; beginning and end read by Bill)
• Never Play Dead: How the Truth Makes You Unstoppable by Tomi Lahren – A handful of “at the end of the day”
• The Way I Heard It by Mike Rowe
• Voice Lessons: How a Couple of Ninja Turtles, Pinky and an Animaniac Saved My Life by Rob Paulsen with Michael Fleeman (read by Rob; foreword written and read by his son Ash) – I read the paperback as I listened on Audible; I posted a review in November
• Vocal Recall: A Life in Radio and Voice Overs by Neil Ross
• 9 Rules of Engagement: A Military Brat’s Guide to Life and Success by Harris Faulkner – She said “at the end of the day” once
• Finding the Bright Side: The Art of Chasing What Matters by Shannon Bream
• Break Shot: My First 21 Years by James Taylor (Audible original) – Periodic song excerpts
• Goldie: A Lotus Grows in the Mud (abridged) by Goldie Hawn
• Full Circle: From Hollywood to Real Life and Back Again by Andrea Barber

2018 humbled me with the unexpected political turns in the memoirs I listened to, not to mention Kevin Hart’s endless tangents. It taught me to choose the audiobooks I buy carefully. If the author is politically active from the left on social media, chances are it will come up in their book. Eric Idle was the last mistake in that respect, which is why I haven’t bought John Cleese’s memoir. Thankfully, Neil Ross only had one political sentence in his book: deriding right-to-work states. I wonder what Goldie Hawn’s memoir, released in 2005, would have been like if it came out today. Never Play Dead and The United States of Trump weren’t exactly choir music, either. The books reminded me of the political stories I missed while avoiding current events. Nevertheless, they were worth listening to, as were the rest of the audiobooks listed above.

Whenever Andrea Barber mentioned her son Tate in Full Circle, I thought of a running gag on the Game Sack YouTube channel involving TATE Mode, the vertical screen orientation for arcade games. It’s generally pronounced “tah-tay,” but host Joe Redifer pronounces it phonetically, an acceptable alternate pronunciation. Whenever a game is featured with TATE Mode, he’ll get facetiously hyperbolic.

I have three more audiobooks to listen to in my Audible app after I finish Full Circle, and you’ll see what those were in the next “Audiobooking” post. Until then, happy listening.