A Place Called Here - Cecelia Ahern

.... . my husband bought a "Best Seller" at the library that was being sold off for 50p and I read it the same night. It was one 'off the wall' book which really struck a chord with me, as my husband often 'tears the house apart" looking for something he mislays; and sometimes it doesn't turn up at all . . . . Or I am looking for a particular CD or Cassette, and I can find the case ~ but it is empty ~ Where HAVE all the lost things gone? ...
...Although it took me a little time to get used to her accent and the delivery of the book was a little slow getting into the action, once it was swinging back between the two readers, I became hooked once more.
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Aiden McArdle, who last year played Richard Sheriden in ''' The Duchess ''' reads the extracts from the chapters featuring Jack Ruttle. These are all in the third person, so you don't get so deeply into his thoughts ... more

I must confess that I was bought the Paperback version of this book first . . . my husband bought a "Best Seller" at the library that was being sold off for 50p and I read it the same night. It was one 'off the wall' book which really struck a chord with me, as my husband often 'tears the house apart" looking for something he mislays; and sometimes it doesn't turn up at all . . . . Or I am looking for a particular CD or Cassette, and I can find the case ~ but it is empty ~ Where HAVE all the lost things gone? Well, it's A Place Called Here according to this book by Dublin-born Cecelia Ahern. She's got some wacky theories, but this one is pretty amazing!
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I really did want to hear this in the "original tongue" (Oirr-ish*) as it were, though, and having an Amazon voucher to spend, I couldn't resist buying the audio version so I could listen to the book all over again.
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Like "Thanks for the Memories" (also by Cecelia Ahern) it was abridged by Kati Nichol for this HarperCollinsAudioBooks version. It is read by (Clare-born) Aoife McMahon and (Dublin-born) Aiden McArdle and Production and Music were done by Peter Rinne.

Amazon's Super Saver Delivery was Remarkably Quick for Once

I was shocked when I discovered that the ABRIDGED version of the book had an approximate listening time of 6 1/2 hours on 5 CDs, as I'm sure it didn't take me that long to read the book in the first place . . . I knew I read quickly (particularly when it is on an off-white page), but I hadn't realised it was THAT quick.
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The Audio Version was released in 2006 at the same time as the Hardback copy and so has the Black design; the Paperback Best Seller was issued in 2007 and is Pink ~ with the same fanciful design of lost items as the discs . . . Each Compact disc has the title, author, publisher and © details as well as the identifying number HCCD1364 and the disc number (1 - 5).
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There is also an insert page which tells you how many tracks are on each disc and how long each track is. Each Disc contains between 19-22 tracks of varying length; the average track is about 3 minutes long. It is gratifying to know that the longest track is under 6 minutes long, because although you can Pause play at any point and Resume at the same place, if for any reason you have to Stop and Restart (or you get distracted and realise you have missed something), that is the longest you will have to retrace to get back to the place where you were interrupted. That is, as long as you have noted WHICH track you were on when you had to stop!

Of Course it WASN'T Quite as Simple as That (for me), Was it?

Well, I wanted to know what had been left out . . . Didn't I? So I listened to the Audio Book while following along with my Paperback Version and made notes in the Paperback as I listened, noting what was excluded and the track (and disc) breaks . . . Surprisingly little had been removed from the introductory first three chapters, where Sandy Shortt (a 6' 1" curly black-haired 34-year-old Irish woman) is soliloquising on how she happened to find herself "HERE" with all the LOST things; and the irony of wishing NOW that she could go home to Leitrim, when there is no way back . . .
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The first eight tracks are read by Aoife McMahon quite convincingly as Sandy, and all the sections she reads, both as Sandy "Here" and the flashbacks to her growing-up years and life before she carelessly jogged off the beaten track to find herself "Here" are all in the first person. Although it took me a little time to get used to her accent and the delivery of the book was a little slow getting into the action, once it was swinging back between the two readers, I became hooked once more.
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Aiden McArdle, who last year played Richard Sheriden in The Duchess reads the extracts from the chapters featuring Jack Ruttle. These are all in the third person, so you don't get so deeply into his thoughts as you do into Sandy Shortt's.
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Sandy Shortt has been obsessed with finding lost things since her schoolmate Jenny-May Butler disappeared without trace when they were both ten. All of her possesions are marked with both her name and address, but they still go missing . . . . Her obsession stretches to asking questions about missing people . . . and wanting to know more about any unexplained disappearances, eventually starting her own Missing Persons Agency.
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Jack Ruttle had been the last client to request Sandy Shortt's Missing Person Agency to help him. His brother Donal had disappeared the night of his 24th Birthday a year ago and never been found. He was due to meet Sandy Shortt the morning she disappeared, to discuss the case . . . and one of the last things she had said to him on the phone before they met was "Jack, I can only assume that there's only one thing more frustrating than not being able to find someone, and that's not being found. I would want someone to find me, more than anything."
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When Jack finds Sandy's abandoned red 1991 Ford Fiesta along the estuary with his brother Donal's files and her mobile phone (complete with missed calls, some of which were from him) he becomes obsessed with finding Sandy, despite her friends and psychiatrist being convinced she must have disappeared intentionally. He feels that SHE is the key to finding his brother and, using her files, tracing her intentions as far as he can, he searches for answers, not just to where his brother is but to where SHE may be . . .

Now We are into Disc 2 . . . Disc 3 begins at Chapter 21

Since the majority of the book is a discussion of what Sandy DOES HERE and what brought her to this point, the abridgement cuts out a lot of the side stories about places and people Jack Ruttle visits, and concentrates on Sandy's adventures. Some whole chapters are virtually omitted. Disc 4 begins in the middle of Chapter 30, Disc 5 covers Chapters 42-43, backtracking to the start of 41, to lead into 44, continuing on to the end, with chapters 52 - 55 read again almost verbatim, so the story rounds itself off well.
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This in itself makes the book more direct and compact, and although I personally felt it would have been interesting to have heard the "two sides" of the story more, it would have made the AudioBook version unbearably long, I expect.
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ldeally, you would want to put the discs into a five-disc changer, in your car, to listen to, without interruption, on a long journey . . . but don't get TOO distracted, or you, too, might accidentally end up HERE!
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Would I Recommend This Audio Version?

I liked the way the tracks were edited ~ the end of each track was at a logical place, and the beginning of the track a good place to pick up the story. Similarly, the discs themselves were well divided, so that if you had to listen to just one disc at a time, you could easily get back into the story when you began the next disc, and you were at a cliff-hanger when the previous disc finished, so you could hardly wait to hear the next disc. The music wasn't intrusive, and let you know when you were moving between that which was happening HERE and where Jack Ruttle was, back in Ireland; or, alternatively, when you were moving into a new phase of the story.
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The characters were sensitively drawn by the author, and sensitively portrayed by the readers, so that you had a better understanding of the story by hearing it read.

I will listen to it again.

Maybe not yet, but in a week or two.

Yes, I recommend it.

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Thanks for reading!
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© 2009 . . . jesi . . . ♥ . . . ♥
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[* by 'Oirr-ish' I of course mean Cecelia Ahern's English the way she would speak it]
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