What I’ve Been Listening To: November (II), 2025
I already did a What I’ve Been Listening To column first week of the month. But more and more, audiobooks are an ongoing part of my day. Having traded in a lifetime of on-and-off running, for daily walks, I’m getting some quality listening time in that way as well.
The TBL (To Be Listened to) list is growing beyond manageable proportions. But I continue to mix in some ‘new things’ with my re-listens. I am quite happy listening to some things over and over again: like the Dirk Gently BBC radio plays, John Maddox Roberts’ SPQR books, and Lee Goldberg’s Eve Ronin.
I mentioned last month that I’m revisiting Robert B. Parker’s Cole & Hitch, read wonderfully by Titus Welliver (Bosch). The next one up just became available through my library app, so I’ll be back to those soon.
DICTATOR (Robert Harris)
In my Listening column earlier this month, I talked about Imperium, the first book in Robert Harris’ trilogy about the Roman statesman, Cicero. I went on and listened to Conspirator, and then Dictator (all available on audio from my library app).
The books are told in the first person by Cicero’s secretary, Tiro, and narrated quite well by Bill Wallis.
Unlike John Maddox Roberts’ SPQR books (which I LOVE and are mysteries), these Cicero books involve his legal and political careers. The political shenanigans, and depiction of Roman society and culture, make these fascinating books. Caesar, Pompey, Crassus, Claudius – you wanna talk about power-hungry and ruthless!
This third and final book is twice as long as each of the first two, and takes us through Cicero’s death (which befitted his life and times). Cicero left behind a great many writings, and has been portrayed more and less favorably by different writers. These are on the more positive side.
The trilogy was adapted into six plays of an hour each, and performed by the Royal Shakespeare Company. Man, I’d love to see them!
Steven Saylor’s Roma Sub Rosa mysteries feature Cicero, and those are on my list to work through. I enjoyed the first book.
If you like Ancient Rome historical fiction, you really should read – or listen to – this trilogy. Harris (author of Fatherland) is a very good writer.
DON’T PANIC (Neil Gaiman)
The only other Gaiman I’ve ever read is Good Omens, which he co-wrote with the amazing Terry Pratchett. So whatever he may or may not be as a human being, I’m still re-reading those two books. He and Douglas Adams were friends, and he wrote a must-read for any fan of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy series.
I read this book and learned a lot. I listened to read it, and it was again a treasure trove of information. It also spurred me to start re-reading the first Hitchhiker’s book again. And I bought two more biographies (I had the official one already), as well as the terrific collection of Adams miscellanea, 42. I love Adams, and any fan of his should read/listen to Gaiman’s book. I prefer the more focused approach, than with his ‘full-life’ biographies (I have three, which are still worth reading).
MISTLETOE MURDERS – SEASON 4 (Prime)
So, before this was a popular Hallmark+ streaming series, it was an Audible streaming series. I prefer the Audible, which I’ve talked about before here at Black Gate. Season 4 just dropped, so I re-listened to the first three (I’m also watching the TV series for the first time; I like it). Then, I listened to season four.
Emily Lane runs a year-round Christmas store in a Canadian tourist town. But she’s got a murky past, having been some kind of government operative. And while she solves a murder every episode in classic Hallmark fashion, there’s a Hydra-like evil organization that hasn’t been completely left in the past.
Cobie Smulders (Marvel’s Agent Maria Hill, and the female lead on How I met Your Mother), is superb as Emily. I’d listen to this show just for her. But every episode is a tense thriller. Highly recommended. There’s a spin-off, Middlebridge Mysteries, featuring the daughter of Mistletoe’s co-lead, police officer Sam.
THE ANNOTATED SWORD OF SHANNARA (TERRY BROOKS)
My buddy Fletcher Vredenburgh just did (another) deep dive into this book. His post was also on the Annotated version.
I’m working on a couple upcoming posts on Sword, which is my favorite fantasy novel of all time. It has been for over forty years. And frankly, those of the Lin Carter mindset who disparage it, can go to Hell.
I’m not a total Brooks fanboy. I haven’t read all of the Shannara books, which total almost three-dozen, in one massively epic cycle. And I wasn’t that impressed with his memoir on writing, Sometimes the Magic Works. But I like a lot of the Shannara cycle. And Sword remains atop my fantasy book list. I even played the PC game three decades ago.
The Annotated Sword is 27 hours long! Now, that’s still way shorter than the 44 hours it took me to listen to Steven Erikson’s Toll of the Hounds. I’m a Malazan fan, but that audiobook was like going to work every day for months. I did not enjoy it (terrible narrator, and my least favorite story line so far).
I am 14 hours into this book, so I’ve got a ways to go. Brooks’ insights are adding to my knowledge of the book. He’s a bit disingenuous about the Tolkien influence, but he is probably wary of giving fuel to his critics’ fires. Sword is reinforcing that while I like sword and sorcery, I like epic/high fantasy, more. Brooks, Tolkien, Eddings, Jordan, Feist, McKiernan – I dig this stuff.
Sword remains my favorite fantasy, and the Annotated version is worth the listen so far. I will probably read the three short stories next, but I’m not going to do a Shannara deep dive. But I will write about Sword some more. Including a third installment of looking at popular fantasy with an Arthurian perspective.
MISC
I mentioned that I regularly fall asleep at night to the two Dirk Gently (more Douglas Adams) BBC radio plays, as well as Norbert Davis’ Max Latin (I mentioned that I wrote the intro to the Steeger books reissue, right?).
I reinstalled another one I drift off to: Flywheel, Shyster, and Flywheel. This BBC series was a somewhat revised version of an old Marx Brothers radio show. The actors playing Groucho and Chico, are PERFECT. I can’t imagine any Marx Brothers fan not laughing along with these.
Maybe I’ll do a post on the audiobooks on my wish list. I put things in it and leave them there for over a year. Others come and go. I get ‘in a mood’ for a type or author, and that may last or pass. I am using my library app more to expand my listening. But right now I have 22 books on my wish list; slightly less than half of which I have in print form and have read.
Prior Audio Posts:
What I’ve Been Listening To: November, 2025 (Conspirata, Stacy Keach, Gideon Lowry)
What I’ve Been Listening To: August, 2025 (Middlebridge Mysteries, Unlicensed, The Big Lie, 64th Man)
What I’ve Been Listening To: June, 2025 (Eve Ronin, Thieves World, SPQR, Egil & Nix, the annual sale)
What I’ve Been Listening To: February, 2025 (Isaac Steele, Sharpe & Walker, SPQR, Steven Saylor, The Trojan War)
What I’ve Been Listening To: November, 2024 (Mistletoe Murders, The Caine Mutiny, Mr. Rickey Calls a Meeting)
What I’ve Been Listening To: September, 2025 Desert of Souls)
What I’ve Been Listening To: August, 2024 (Part II) (Leaphorn and Chee, Tony Hillerman, Eve Ronin)
What I’ve Been Listening To: August, 2024 (Egil & Nix, Caleb York Westerns, Malazan)
What I’ve Been Listening To: July, 2024 (The Black Company, SPQR, Charles Willeford, Thieves World)
What I’ve Been Listening To: September 2022 (Robert R. McCammon, Ian C. Esslemont, Dirk Gently)
May I Read You This Book? – (My favorite audiobook narrators)
Bob Byrne’s ‘A (Black) Gat in the Hand’ made its Black Gate debut in 2018 and has returned every summer since.
His ‘The Public Life of Sherlock Holmes’ column ran every Monday morning at Black Gate from March, 2014 through March, 2017. And he irregularly posts on Rex Stout’s gargantuan detective in ‘Nero Wolfe’s Brownstone.’ He is a member of the Praed Street Irregulars, and founded www.SolarPons.com (the only website dedicated to the ‘Sherlock Holmes of Praed Street’).
He organized Black Gate’s award-nominated ‘Discovering Robert E. Howard’ series, as well as the award-winning ‘Hither Came Conan’ series. Which is now part of THE Definitive guide to Conan. He also organized 2023’s ‘Talking Tolkien.’
He has contributed stories to The MX Book of New Sherlock Holmes Stories — Parts III, IV, V, VI, XXI, and XXXIII.
He has written introductions for Steeger Books, and appeared in several magazines, including Black Mask, Sherlock Holmes Mystery Magazine, The Strand Magazine, and Sherlock Magazine.
You can definitely ‘experience the Bobness’ at Jason Waltz’s ’24? in 42′ podcast.
“Mistletoe Murders” didn’t particularly appeal last time you discussed it, but it’s striking a chord this time. May have to try them, after I finish listening to Tate Paulette’s “In the Land of Ninkasi” (academic history of brewing in ancient Sumeria and Akkadia; good companion to Patrick McGovern’s “Ancient Brews”).
Definitely empathize with the contentment to listen to some things over and over. I have similar audiobooks that are permanently installed on my device or my car’s hard drive (truly, we live in the future, being able to write that sentence), and anyone else who pages through them for something to listen to tends to react with either “ugh, that again” or “don’t you regularly listen to [genre]? I thought you would have the next [series] book.” And yes, I do, but I probably listened to it on my last long drive and it didn’t make the perma-book list. However, also permanently on my device are the books that I haven’t started (for a long time) or started and have not returned to (for a long time). The things I dread, rebuking myself for having purchased at all, or the ones that didn’t turn out to be quite what I’d thought they’d be when I downloaded them, or the ones that I started and I know I should finish because they’re “good for me.” Things like “The House of Huawei” and “The Testimony of Kelvoo.” Audiomnivore to audiomnivore, how do you deal with those? Are you able to just get rid of them? Are you able to force yourself to listen to them? Or do they also hang around you like gloomy, spectral, tattered cobwebs and dusty spoons of cod liver oil, a list of “What I’ve Been Not Listening To?”
I’m watching the last part of the current streaming season. I still prefer the audiobook, but they’re good Hallmark-y mysteries.
I drive a 2007 Honda Civic. I didn’t even know there were hard drives in cars! When I upgrade to a MUCH newer Civic, I’m gonna find the driving experience has changed a lot. Sadly, the speakers gave out, so I can’t listen to my CD audiobooks anymore.
I don’t force myself to listen, or read, anything, anymore. I’m too old for that. And I’m pretty much into fiction, unless it’s an interesting biography. Sounds like you’re busy learning from your audiobooks. Which is cool.
Though I did make myself listen to the entirety of ‘Toll of the Hounds.’ But the reader was SOOO bad, I’m going to finish up Erikson’s Malazan series, by reading those doorstopper books. So, the next audiobook sits in my Audible account, but I’ll never download it.
I’m finding anything over 15 hours doesn’t appeal as much to me. It feels like work. Even if I like it. This morning I am 18 hours into that Annotated Sword, with 9 and-a-half hours to go. It’s just too long, even though this remains my favorite fantasy novel.
‘What I’ve Not Been Listening To.’ 🙂
I read and enjoyed the first Dungeon Crawler Carl enough to move on to book two. A friend told me I HAVE to listen to the audiobook. That the narrator makes it even better. I want to actually read this series, but it’s pretty high praise. Haven’t decided yet.
Preferring the audiobook for “Mistletoe Murders” fits. As good as some movies and TV series are, it’s very rare for them to surpass the books. I’d argue that the recent “The Amateur” movie accomplished that feat, but it’s probably a personal preference. With books, the movie in one’s mind always seems to make better editorial choices than any director could manage with any sort of reasonable budget.
Oh no! Speakers not working in the car are pretty bad, first-world-problem-wise. Hopefully, your next Civic will come with a disc drive option. The fact that I’ll have a hard time finding one in my preferred car is part of what’s got me babying my 2015. It may end up becoming the car of Theseus. There was a portable Discman speaker deck at Ollie’s, a few weeks back. Maybe that’s an option.
Fiction is preferable. True stuff is just the current kick. I ran out of audiobook inconveniently early in a long commute, and was faced with spectral cobweb, dusty cod liver oil, tonally-dissonant re-listen, or Harold Schechter’s “Maniac.” (Poor Schechter– something about his name makes my mind unfairly trip over whether he’s the author or the subject of his true crime books.) So I went for “Maniac,” and have been in the mood for a progression of Lewis (biography×2), McGovern (relisten), McDowell (biography), and Paulette since then. Next up will be “Mistletoe,” thus back to fiction.
Is sorting by duration an option in your library’s app? That’s always a desirable feature, but it doesn’t show up often. That and the option to cycle between chapter tracks on multiple in-progress books at the simple press of a button, when a change of pace becomes necessary.
It’s a good thing that you don’t let yourself get haunted by audiobooks. I’ll have to figure out how you do it. I can discard physical books that displease me enough, but audiobooks… not yet. Obviously.
“Dungeon Crawler Carl” is a series I haven’t managed to get into. Hoping you enjoy the rest of it. But if you like LitRPG as a subgenre, Andrea Parsneau is pretty much the grand dame of LitRPG audiobook narration. It’s worth listening to the very first version of “The Wandering Inn” just to marvel at how she handled vocalizing Klbkch. She also read “Tallrock” really well. As far as LitRPG and LitRPG-like narrated by others, the “Bee Dungeon” series has been fun recently (skip the final track collecting the author’s serialization comments– those are wasted hours), “Office Maxi” was OK, and both “Heretical Fishing” and “Beware of Chicken” had their upsides. Drew Hayes’ “Roverpowered” series is a lot of fun, though most would say it’s not LitRPG-enough.
My work laptop, and my home laptop, don’t have CD players. My aging home desktop PC does. I listen to audiobooks and music CDs on it. Once that’s gone…
I think I have Schecter’s ‘Fiend’ in my true crime library. Gotta be in a mood for his stuff. Pretty dark.
Obviously, I know when I’m choosing a long audiobook. Sometimes it’s worth it. Like reading a Poirot novel vs a short story (I rarely choose the novel in that case).
I liked Andy Serkis’ Fellowship, but 22 hours and change still took quite a while to get through. Guess I’m not as patient as I was when I was younger.
🙂
I have had a snobby attitude towards LitRPG. I finally decided to try one, and this seems to be the most popular. Figured I’d start with it. I have not yet decided quite what I think of the genre. But I liked it enough to continue on.
Thanks for the recommendations. I will keep them in mind, though I don’t imagine I’ll explore this one too much. I’d rather read non LitRPG, I think.
Though I only just discovered Andre Norton’s Quag Keep last week. I think as a D&D history geek, I need to read that soon. Not took interested in the sequel completed after she passed.
Yes, of course you would know the length of a book as you get into it. I was just hopeful that the library app you use would allow for the sorting of search results for new books by duration. That sort of app is on my wishlist. Ah, well. 🙂
LitRPG quality currently varies wildly– I imagine kind of like the quality of S&S and detective fiction must have at the beginning– so best wishes in your explorations. Thanks for taking the time to try some.
Am not familiar with “Quag Keep.” Sounds great, though.
Back in the early days of D&D, Gary Gygax ran a session for Andre Norton. That seems like a big thing in those pre-social media/celebrities into D&D days.
She used that session as the basis for writing a book about a group of role players. who were transported into the game world.
I’ve read some variations on that concept from Dennis L. McKiernan, and Joel Rosenberg. But Norton’s was the first of that kind of thing, before the explosion of D&D, and epic fantasy, in the eighties.
I’m not into Norton, and reviews seem to be ‘meh’ relative to her other works, but it was a trailblazer in its time.
She and Jean Rabe were working together on a sequel 30-ish years later, when Norton died, and Rabe finished it – Return to Quag Keep.
As I’m sure you know, Andre Norton was a prodigious writer and I’ll pick up any of her books when I find them if they look interesting. They’re short -less than 200 p – so they’re a quick read. She has some good ones ,”Daybreak 2250 A.D.” is very good but “Quag Keep” is very much a “meh”. I read it in the ’80s and reread it recently. Even with the nostalgia and the D&D angles, it was tough to finish. Good luck and thanks again for the articles.
Yeah, I saw a lot of those DAW papaerbacks (mostly Witch World, as I recall) in my early fantasy-reading years. She just never appealed to me. I remember getting into Katherine Kurtz and Anne McCaffrey, instead.
But the D&D and Gygax tie-in will get me to read Quag Keep.
Sounds a bit like Dennis L. McKiernan’s Caverns of Socrates. I’m a McKiernan fan, but that isn’t one of my favorites.
And thanks!