Listening that beckons in a lazy season

The writers focused on a farmer, Newton Knight, who led the rebellion against a Confederate Army that was sucking the life out of the poorest of the South in an effort to fund the war. Not only did they give us a detailed account of Knight’s life, but the historical context in which he, and his relatives and neighbors, scratched out a living. They begin before the war and follow Knight to the end of his life, stopping along the way to tell us about specific battles, Northerners with whom he crossed paths, his neighbors, relatives, and the black woman with whom he started a second family. They also detail some of the terrible racial tension in the South when the war ended. To this non-historian’s ear, it sounds well written, well read, and well researched. The true South is revealed, from the hardships of the war to the hardscrabble, poverty-ridden lives of the farmers who wore gray. Their stories, and that of Knight, are in turn impressive, depressing, complex, and always compelling.

Narrator Don Leslie adopts regional accents, some more successfully than others, but he keeps up the pace and has a lovely deep voice and perfect diction. He has a polished delivery and uses just enough emphasis to underscore the dialogue and descriptions without getting in the way.

Another nonfiction audiobook that seemed perfect for easy summer listening turned out to be disappointing. “Stealing Buddha’s Dinner, A Memoir,’’ won the PEN/Jerard Fund Award, and author Bich Minh Nguyen teaches literature and creative writing at Purdue. But what appeared to be a riveting account from one of the Vietnamese boat people from the 1970s turned into a laundry list of childhood memories that is unremarkable. Actually, not much happens of particular interest, either to Nguyen or her family.

Nguyen only holds our attention when showing us how feelings of inadequacy and being different affected her as a youngster. Sadly, she could have done this far more succinctly. Reader Alice H. Kennedy (also Vietnamese) does a fine job with Southeast Asian words, but her English pronunciations are sometimes difficult to understand.

Rarely is it recommended in this space that one read a book instead of hearing it, but Shawna Yang Ryan’s “Water Ghosts’’ needs to be savored, and one cannot do that on audio, even with a rewind button. This gorgeously written tapestry of a novel weaves together past and present along with myth and reality in a Chinese immigrants’ enclave in an early 20th-century California town, along the Sacramento River. However, the ethereal, dreamlike nature of the prose makes it hard to follow on audio. One needs to be able to reread those rich descriptions as Ryan moves back and forth through time. Laural Merlington does a remarkable job of sounding Asian. In fact, her entire performance is convincing and enjoyable.

HighBridge Audio has published many collections of NPR stories over the years, but two just perfect for summer car trips are “NPR Road Trips, National Park Adventures’’ and “NPR Road Trips, Postcards from Around the Globe.’’

There are lots of interesting tidbits in “National Park Adventures,’’ a collection of 15 essays that aired on NPR over the years. Did you know that sometimes Death Valley is awash in yellow flowers? Or that a building in Pennsylvania is designated as a national park? Brief, lively segments reveal lesser-known facts about our national parks in an entertaining format. They are a great stepping stone - once you hear these factoids with the kids, you can further research them before taking that summer road trip. However, armchair travelers should also find them an amusing diversion.

Somewhat less successful is “Postcards from Around the Globe,’’ in which NPR correspondents report from the field, some more interestingly than others. Many of the stories are intriguing, such as that of the writer riding a bus along the Silk Road or the story of a teen sailing solo around the world. Others are surprisingly inane, like the writer dealing with a GPS in Switzerland. NPR simply takes snippets of radio broadcasts and repackages them. This is exactly the kind of content you should be urging your library to purchase, as it is fun and worth hearing, but not necessarily worth paying $15 for.

Both collections sound much as they did when first aired on the radio. If it was a studio production, then everything is clear and crisp with no ambient interference. If the reporter was in the field and horns are honking, then that is what you hear.

Rochelle O’Gorman is a syndicated audiobook critic.