Audiobook reviews: Blind Descent, Tabor; Crime of the Century, Breo & Martin; Alone Together, Turkle

More audiobooks while painting—all of these are from turning the living room/alcove Urbane Bronze, a rich deep almost-black-almost-brown and a huge job which is still not quite done because one wall requires patching that I've been procrastinating. But it looks really good! The dark walls are balanced by the scale of the room and light coved ceiling, and the color makes the white trim pop. Yes, someday I should take pictures, but nothing is ever finished.

Also all of these books are bad. One good takeaway: Turkle is a stellar surname & great fun to say.


Title: Blind Descent: The Quest to Discover the Deepest Place on Earth
Author: James M. Tabor
Narrator: Don Leslie
Published: Random House Audio, 2010
Rating: 1 of 5
Page Count: 300
Total Page Count: 395,950
Text Number: 1498
Read Because: mentioned in Jacob Geller's video Fear of Depths, audiobook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: Caves are great! Caving is interesting! The hero-worship here decidedly is neither, and the tone (presaged by the early unironic use of "alpha male") irritates. DNF at 15%.


Title: The Crime of the Century: Richard Speck and the Murders That Shocked a Nation
Author: Dennis L. Breo, William J. Martin
Narrator: Christina Delaine
Published: Tantor Audio, 2021 (1993)
Rating: 1.5 of 5
Page Count: 540
Total Page Count: 396,490
Text Number: 1499
Read Because: reviewed by Katherine Addison, audiobook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: Easily the worst true crime I've ever read. It's ridiculously biased: co-written by the prosecutor and so pro-police (and anti-insanity defense, and anti-defense in general, and gently dated particularly re: race, with a fun bit of transphobia in the appendices!) that it's difficult to trust even its exhaustive thoroughness and the solid case against Speck.


Title: Alone Together: Why We Expect More from Technology and Less from Each Other
Author: Sherry Turkle
Narrator: Laural Merlington
Published: Tantor Media, 2011
Rating: 1.5 of 5
Page Count: 375
Total Page Count: 397,870
Text Number: 1503
Read Because: a great quote from this (kids dissect/bury a "dead" furby) from this was floating around Tumblr; audiobook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: An absolute hate-read. These are subjects I'm incredibly invested in, these are concerns I share, but Turkle is so alarmist, negative, and willing to cherrypick evidence that she comes off as a cross between Black Mirror and Old Man Yells at Cloud.