Tuesday, October 16, 2007

The Thrilling Manuscript

The Chopin ManuscriptI get most of my audio books from Audible.com, and they recently tried something different: a book by instalments. It's not new, of course: Charles Dickens and Arthur Conan Doyle's books were often published chapter by chapter before appearing in book form a century ago.
But I think The Chopin Manuscript is the first audio book to be published in this way. I've just finished listening to Chapter 9, and you can get the first chapter free from www.audible.com/freechapter. A word of warning, though: you're likely to want to listen to the other chapters as well. Audible's DRM file format works on all iPods, in Windows, and on hundreds of other devices, but not all.
The Chopin Manuscript is interesting in another respect: each chapter is written by a different author, so the story jumps around a bit. I think there are 16 chapters, so we're half way. I'm not a thriller specialist, but I'm enjoying the pace of the story, as well as the twists and turns the story is taking. The narrator is pretty good too. I can't wait for the next 2 chapters next Tuesday.

No comments: