Brief (but worthy) encounters
Fragile Things: Short Fictions and Wonders
By Neil Gaiman
HarperAudio, unabridged short stories, nine CDs, 10 hours and 30 minutes, $34.95, read by the author. Also available as a download from www.audible.com for $24.47.
World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War
By Max Brooks
Random House Audio, unabridged selections, five CDs, six hours, $29.95, read by a full cast. Also available as a download from www.audible.com for $20.97.
A Bit on the Side: Stories
By William Trevor
Tantor, unabridged short stories, five CDs, six hours, $24.99, read by Simon Vance and Josephine Bailey. Also available as a download from www.audible.com for $13.99.
I Feel Bad About My Neck: And Other Thoughts on Being a Woman
By Nora Ephron
Random House Audio, unabridged essays, three CDs, four hours, $29.95, read by the author. Also available as a download from www.audible.com for $20.97.
Short stories and essays usually don't need much time or concentration, so they are perfect for quick commutes or 20-minute workouts. They are an ideal choice for the neophyte audiophile.
Because there are so many essays and short fictions , I'll cover them in this column and next month's. Some of these titles are a little older, but all are available online from
Neil Gaiman is an admired writer because he can create a fantasy world and convince you, through his graceful prose and sharp descriptions, that it is real. And he has done so again with "Fragile Things," a varied assortment of fantasy, poetry, science fiction, and horror. Magic and speculation figure in many of the stories, including the Hugo Award-winning "A Study in Emerald," which combines Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's late-19th-century England with gruesome fantasy akin to H. P. Lovecraft's.
Though the volume is somewhat of a mishmash, with bits of poetry and some stories that feel unfinished, overall Gaiman's words are as enjoyable as ever. The production, however, is another story. Gaiman is a superb reader. He can conjure up various accents, and he has a wonderful sense of timing. But there needs to be either more space or some music between tales, something to give us a minute to digest his words before gobbling up more.
And then there's the prologue. Gaiman tells us for almost 30 minutes what inspired him, where his ideas originated, for whom he wrote certain stories, and which won awards. All very interesting. However, this is not a book; we can't flip back from a story and look at its origins. It would have made much more sense to break up the monologue and place the relevant information about each story just before its reading.
The first book Max Brooks wrote was the parody "The Zombie Survival Guide." He has returned to the land of the undead with "World War Z," a serious look at a post-apocalyptic life in which zombies have almost destroyed the human race.
It is told through journalistic-style interviews and the monologues of survivors. We slowly begin to piece together what happened. Word spread of a deadly virus developed by China, nations began to close their borders, people panicked. The result is seriously creepy because the tale is told in complete seriousness.
In an almost linear fashion, each narrator tells another part of the story, a different aspect from a different part of the globe , which gives us vivid Cuban, Israeli, British, and regional American accents. The cast includes Alan Alda, Mark Hamill, Jürgen Prochnow, Henry Rollins, John Turturro, Rob and Carl Reiner, and, interestingly enough, Grammy Award-winning audiobook producer John McElroy , among others. They lend the story such intensity that you cannot help but be caught up in the fictional weirdness in which the walking dead are just another fact of life.
A somewhat older title is William Trevor's "A Bit on the Side." a brilliant collection of stories from the Irish master. Trevor looks unflinchingly at the quiet desperation in the lives of a lonely heiress who tells her tragic tale to anyone who will listen, a widow who blurts out the secrets of her miserable marriage to the nuns who sit by her husband's body, and the character in the title story who is explaining to his "bit on the side " why she is no longer needed.
Matching this superb writing is the narration by Simon Vance and Josephine Bailey. Both tread delicately through the minefield of emotions just under the surface in each story. Trevor's characters hold it together, get though the day, often suffer in silence, and our narrators express their humiliation and sorrow with pain, but without drama. The result is bittersweet and tender.
Nora Ephron takes a candid look at aging in "I Feel Bad About My Neck," an uneven collection of essays, some of which work very well, some of which don't work at all, and none of which should have been read by the author.
Ephron can be very funny, and sometimes her words are very touching, as when she writes about the death of her best friend. However, the collection does not get off to a good start with the title essay, which is so much navel gazing. The essays that follow, though, are more interesting, and Ephron, who has a strange cadence and a somewhat unpleasant voice, becomes more comfortable as a narrator .
The biggest problem with this collection is that it's hard for the average listener to empathize with a woman who is basically complaining about the everyday problems in a privileged life. And a narrator who could have better delivered her words would have made all the difference in the world.
Rochelle O'Gorman is publisher and editor in chief of audiobookcafe.com, an online magazine featuring daily reviews, interviews, and articles relating to the audiobook industry. 
