Title: A Christmas Blizzard
Author: Garrison Keillor
Narrator: Garrison Keillor
Publisher: HighBridge Audio
Duration: 4 hours, 56 minutes
Copyright: 2009
Genres: general fiction, Christmas, satire
Filed in: Audiobook reviews
Review copy provided by Kearney Public Library.
PUBLISHER’S SUMMARY: A short comic novel about a Hawaii-bound holiday traveler who ends up stranded in his North Dakota hometown during a blizzard.
A wealthy and depressed man (thanks to the economy he's not quite rich enough to expand his cache of paintings by Vincent Van Guy, the famed Dutch realist) bound for Christmas in the tropics is abruptly summoned home to North Dakota to visit an ailing aunt. He arrives just in time to be trapped there by a blizzard. The electricity goes out, and when it does, figures from his childhood appear, and historical figures too, for a festive candlelit holiday. In his reverie, our man reaches an epiphany worthy of the season-he hears the harkening angels sing, he is awed by the silence of the night (dead quiet: not even TV) and when he is finally rescued, leaves North Dakota resolved to simplify his life.
MY TAKE ON IT: That would be just my luck: on my way to Hawaii, and getting stuck in a blizzard in North Dakota.
Garrison Keillor’s “A Christmas Blizzard” is kind of a modern day take on Charles Dickens’ classic “A Christmas Carol.” A wealthy businessman who is disgruntled with the holiday receives ghostly visitors on a snowy night who show him the error of his ways. Jim Sparrow isn’t quite as mean and miserly as old Scrooge, but the premise is the same.
Garrison Keillor’s humor is clever and witty, and some of the scenes he paints are touching. This was a nice little audiobook for the Christmas season.
NARRATOR: Authors don’t typically make good narrators, but Garrison Keillor is the exception that proves the rule. Keillor has been a radio personality for many, many years so that makes him a natural at the spoken word. Garrison Keillor has a rich and mellow voice that is very pleasant to listen to. To tell you the truth, I think I appreciated his narration skills more than I did his writing.
SPECIAL FEATURES: “A Christmas Blizzard” is enhanced by music, which simply means that there is music playing almost all the way through the audiobook. At times I enjoyed the music, a lot of it was familiar Christmas music, but at other times the music kind of became annoying. There was just too much of it.
One other thing I would like to note about this audiobook, at no time in the recording are the title, author, narrator, or publishing information mentioned. I’ve heard an audiobook or two that didn’t name the narrators, but “A Christmas Blizzard” didn’t even mention the title or author, which is just plain weird. I had to look the information up on the internet.
FINAL WORD: “A Christmas Blizzard” is a touching and heart-felt novel. If you need a little help getting into the Christmas spirit this year, give this audiobook a try.
CHECK OUT THESE OTHER AUDIOBOOK REVIEWS:
A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens (Audiobook review)
The Five People You Meet In Heaven by Mitch Albom (Audiobook Review)
For One More Day by Mitch Albom (Audiobook Review)
----------o----------
If you liked this audiobook review, you can purchase the audiobook here:
Get "A Christmas Blizzard" by Garrison Keillor (Unabridged Audiobook) from Amazon.com.
This audiobook review is based on the unabridged audiobook.
Audiobook review by Steven Brandt
Come back soon for more audiobook reviews from AudioBook Heaven
Good review! :)
ReplyDelete