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| What you're about to read is a collection of pointers to some of the music I've discovered on the iTunes Music Store, music I like enough that I want to share it. If you're an iPod owner and an iTunes fan (and if you aren't, what are you doing here?), maybe you'll find something new. Click on any of the CD covers to bounce over to the store and sample a few tracks. And then maybe stop by my other blog for a few well chosen words (and maybe a random snark or two). | 
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| Have some music to recommend? I can always use a few pointers. Use the comments link at the bottom of the page. | ||||||
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Mon, 06 Jun 2005 |
| Have Space Suit, Will Travel / Robert A. Heinlein | |
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It was back in the third grade, I think, although it may even have
been the second. I was trolling the school library and found this
book. It might have been the title; even then I could enjoy a good
cultural reference. But whatever the reason, I took it and read it.
I don't know how much of it I understood, although little bits stuck
in my memory. The title, alas, was not one of them. And for years
later I wondered about that early, perhaps even first, encounter with
science fiction.
A little over ten years later I was practically inhaling Heinlein: his early adult work from the 40s, his more explicitly adult work from the 60s and, as it came into paperback, the 70s. And, as they were republished, his juvenile fiction from the 50s. Including this volume, which I recognized almost immediately as that book from the PS 162 school library. And enjoyed in ways that younger me couldn't. Reading Heinlein's words are a pleasure. Having them read is a different pleasure. And having them partly acted out, with different actors giving voice to the dialogue, is different still. This production gives life to Heinlein's characters. Well, more accurately it lets us enjoy the life that was already there. Of all the great SF writers, Heinlein was in my view the best writer, the one who could create characters and situations that felt the most human. And it may be that in his juvenile fiction he reached the peak of his humanity, before his interest in politics and, if I may say, his obsession with sexuality took over. I love this book, both for itself and for its ability to invoke memories of that early precocious-but-innocent self. And to wonder how to get a little bit of him back. |
| [ Category: Audiobook | 1 comment | Link ] | |
Take me home: 
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