Saturday, January 5, 2013

Dramatization vs. Narration

On the shelves in my library we have a flock of Agatha Christie audio books.  I love Christie's novels and after all these years they are still popular with out patrons.  However, most of these audio books are not straight narrations of Christie's novels, but instead are dramatizations.  They are radio plays adapted from the novels acted by a full cast of actors.  They are not, technically, audio books.  And they are, in fact, abridged.

Around here abridged is usually a bad word.  But there don't seem to be any straight narrations of Christie's works out there.  So the question is should these books be shelved with the fiction audio books.  Or should they be shelved in 791 with the rest of the radio shows?

If you're listening to an audio book shouldn't you get the entire work the author wrote?  I want to hear the descriptions of people, places and things.  I want to hear every "he said" and  "she said" not just the dialogue.

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