NPR Driveway Moments: More About Animals: Radio Stories That Won't Let You Go

NPR Driveway Moments

by Christopher Joyce (Narrator)

If you listen to NPR, you've had at least one "driveway moment." You're still sitting in your parked car, hooked by a story, needing to hear it all the way through.?More About Animals features stories of fascinating encounters with our friends from the animal kingdom. Some whose behavior seems eerily familiar, some we would like to know better, and some who continue to dazzle us with their wild and mysterious beauty. As these stories reveal, our bond with the animals all around us grows deeper as we discover new and creative ways to share the planet.?

Genres: Animals, Nonfiction, Audiobook

Audio CD

First published April 15, 2015

Reviews

[Dale · Rating 3 out of 5]

So-so Collection

Published in 2015 by HighBridge, a division of Recorded Books in May of 2015.
Multicast performance
Duration: 2 hours, 20 minutes
Unabridged


In a lot of ways the first story in this 30 story collection typifies the entire collection. It is called "Grizzly Encounters" and is an almost 6 minute long recounting of three different encounters with Grizzly Bears. We were on a long family trip and you could almost sense the family settling in for what was sure to be an interesting story. But, after we had listened to each of them sort of peter out to a "that's it?" moment I stopped the CD and asked if I was the only one that was disappointed in that story. Everyone, even the nine year old, thought the story was a disappointment.

So, on to the next story - a story about bats in a mine that I remember most for telling me this was the sound of the bats that they had been hunting (and me thinking that this would sound great in the awesome speakers of the rental SUV) only to have it last for about 5 seconds. 0 for 2 so far.

The next four stories were better, the best being a story about tool-using animals, although the story of dolphins recognizing the calls of other dolphins that they hadn't seen for years was certainly heart-warming.

The rest of the collection is mostly like that. A lot of ho-hum stories with the theme of animals with the occasional good story. The story of a Florida sea turtle who was accidentally carried across the Atlantic by a ship was cute and ended well but hardly memorable. A song written for Lonesome George, a last-of-his-kind tortoise was cute at first but I was so glad when it ended.

I have listened to at least seven of the audiobooks in this series and they all suffer from the up-and-down quality but these just seemed to be almost universally so-so. Perhaps the best story was an interview with one of the creators of the humor blog "Animal Review" in which the authors grade animal species from F- to A+. They give Pandas an F for a variety of reasons that make sense once you read them and the octopus gets an A because it's like a "superhero". Unfortunately, the interviewer doesn't go along with the joke very well and drags it down. I felt like she was just getting in the way of a good joke. Surely, NPR must have someone with a sense of humor, right?

So, for a variety of reasons I just have to give this collection 3 stars out of 5.

See all of my reviews of NPR audiobooks here: http://dwdsreviews.blogspot.com/searc...

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

A quick, enjoyable download for listeners who like nature, animals, or essays. The variety of narrators-- and very short length-- would make this a good one to suggest to readers who are interested in trying audio but haven't yet taken the plunge. Nothing to really go out of your way for, but if you have a bit of a drive or are running out of books to listen to, recommended.

Edited to include cross-references: Zoobiquity: What Animals Can Teach Us About Health and the Science of Healing

[Courtney · Rating 3 out of 5]

Really interesting and I learned lots of fun facts about animals.