Kant in 90 Minutes, Plato in 90 Minutes, Paul Strathern.
(audiobook). The "Philosopher X" in 90 minutes series is lovely, especially on audiobook, because each narrative is mildly informative about the philosopher's life and ideas, and snarky enough to be entertainingy, well-read in a snooty British accent, and short. What I learned (true or not) is that Kant lived and taught in a podunk town in Germany, didn't have much interaction with other humans, was upset by Hume's assertion that skepticism was more powerful than any other idea, wrote in wretched prose, and built a huge castle of logic around the ideas of categories of things and logic and reason and all of that on a shaky foundation. Dunno how accurate that is, but it was a fun 90 minutes. Whatever I learned about Plato, I already forgot.

The Riverworld series, Philip Jose Farmer.
A horrifying warning tale of what science fiction can be without editorial judgement. The first book, To Your Scattered Bodies Go, is a minor classic with a great premise: everyone who has ever died wakes up, young and healthy and with their daily needs provided for, along the banks of a tremendously long river. Obvious directions for the story to go include presenting the daily mechanics of life in this setup; speculating on how people would react and how civilizations would spontaneously form; discovering the purpose of the "Riverworld"; and introducing historical figures and seeing them act, reflect on their pasts, learn about their legacies, and interact with one another. Book one hints at all of this and, with writing ability more or less adequate to the task, is a great thought provocation and a good read.

As the series develops along four more books, any hint of writing skill rapidly evaporates. With limited exceptions, the characters' dialog, thoughts, styles, and motivations are interchangable. Stupefyingly, dimensions in the third book (and only the third book) are presented in both metric and imperial, woven into the prose: "Burton spared a glance at the tower. It was only a little over 400 feet or 122 meters away." By the fourth book, the arresting ideas have given over to painfully pointless metaphysics in which the aliens who created Riverworld also created machines that make souls, which they buried underground on Earth thousands of years ago, and there's something about how you have to be properly Ethical in order to advance in some fashion, and ultimately it's about as sophisticated as L. Ron Hubbard, but not as much fun.

(Although, in the interests of fairness, I must say that even at his worst, Farmer's prose is still far, far more tolerable than Hubbard's.)

I would cautiously recommend book one, To Your Scattered Bodies Go, but absolutely nothing after that.

Hollywood Animal, Joe Eszterhaus (audiobook) Joe Eszterhaus's memoir of his career as record-breakingly highly paid Hollywood writer is voiced, perfectly, by Eric Bogosian. Eszterhaus has plenty of dirt to dish, and although he cops to plenty of his own mistakes, his narrative is still much to suggestively self-serving to be taken at face value. The book is very entertaining nonetheless, although his return to religion after facing cancer is disappointing from such a vivid and independent mind.

Another Day, Another Dungeon and One Quest, Hold the Dragon, Greg Costikyan.
In a standard Dungeons and Dragons scenario, one cloned by many a successor, the heros form an adventuring party, go down into the dungeons, fight orcs and dragons, and return with treasure. But did you ever wonder how the orcs feel about this? Or how the orcs and dragons and treasure got there in the first place? Or how the heroes can convert their rare and precious treasure, often highly recognizable and with prior owners, into liquid cash? Greg Costikyan gives us two books, with more hopefully to come, delving into all of this via a story line that can only be called revisionist. The priest is a drunk, the magician a pyromaniac, the thieves ex-lovers, the dwarf and the barbarian warrior carved from the purest stereotype. Blissfully funny.

First Contract, Greg Costikyan.
Suppose aliens came, and they had great and advanced technology, and they treated Earth about as well as European explorers treated, say, Micronesians. What exactly would happen to Earth's economy? Another lovely little satire from Costikyan.

The Wave, Walter Mosley
Mosley takes what ought to be hackneyed science fiction cliches and breathes new life into them with his sincerity and his mastery of character. Recommended.

Camoflague, Joe Haldeman
Good, entertaining, enjoyable if mildly undifferentiated characters; a breezy ending.

Dead Solid Perfect, Dan Jenkins
Features at least one shaggy dog story (the source of the title) which is superb; the rest is servicable golf comedy. I imagine it could be turned into a great movie by the right person, and I note that a movie has indeed been made, but I have no idea if it's any good.

1634: The Galileo Affair, Eric Flint, Andrew Dennis
Part of Eric Flint's "Ring of Fire" storyline, which is a wonderful premise that has me hooked even when the writing is merely adequate. An entire West Virginia mining town, everything in a six-mile circle, is transported back to Germany in 1632, smack in the middle of civil wars and religious strife. From that point history rapidly diverges from what we know, as the Americans spread their technology, their influence, and their knowledge (for example, kings read copies of the history books and start promoting and beheading people based on what they are described as having done in the history books).

I like these books because the idea of exposing the past to modernity is fascinating; probably it's mostly as a self-serving mirror for us, but it's still fun. Flint's key innovation, bringing an entire town back instead of just a few heroic figures, reflects his commitment to "salt of the earth" characters, as represented here by the union miners. He's a great optimist, and the books are very upbeat and safe. While I think this raises the bar he would have to meet to produce literature (fairly or not), it does introduce a nice comfort zone.

Ships of Air, The Gate of Gods, Martha Wells
Sequels to The Wizard Hunters, these accomplished science fiction/fantasy novels move at a blistering pace, have engaging characters and scary villains, and the same strong sense of place as Philip Pullman's stories. Wells continues to develop beyond pulp or formulaic genre work.

The Howling Stones, Alan Dean Foster
Light-duty science fiction about a cross-species negotiator dealing with a recalcitrant tribe of primitive aliens who turn out to be backed by mysterious high technology. Easy enough, and a few glimpses of interesting ideas in the ending, but oddly sanctimonious and ultimately not very special.

A Dirty Job, Christopher Moore.
A very funny, moderately moving story about a nebbish whose wife dies shortly after childbirth, leaving him to raise their daughter while also apparently laden with supernatural powers (and enemies) as a deputy of Death.

When I get audiobooks for my ipod, it's a bit of work. I usually get books on CD from the library and rip them, and counting all the overhead and what my time is worth it's probably not that much cheaper than buying a paperback. Nonetheless, I'm more than willing to abandon a bad audiobook, whereas I'm more likely to keepgoing with a physical book. In the last year or so I've started and abandoned several books. Here is my accounting:

The Man in My Basement, Walter Mosley.
(audiobook). I think I've overdosed on Mosley lately. It started well, but when it was explained that the main character has mortgaged the house he inherited from five or six generations of ancestors, and suggested that his need to earn money to redeem his prodigal error will be a pivot point in the plot, I turned it off. That kind of pathos I don't need.

The Myth of Solid Ground, David L. Ulin.
I usually like non-fiction by journalists, and the LA Weekly is packed with good journalists. The notion that earthquakes cause emotional discomfort by disrupting the comforting "myth of solid ground" seems like a great starting point for abook-length report on the state of earthquake prediction in California. But the effort founders on lousy writing and sloppy thinking. After trolling through a few turgid chapters for a meager harvest of new ideas, I gave it up.

Faster, James Gleick.
(audiobook) I listened for a few chapters and didn't learn anything and got tired of the facile tone so I gave up. I like Gleick in general, so maybe it was just the fault of the abridgment.

Clash of the Titans, Richard Hack.
I made it perhaps 30 minutes into this audio book about battles between Rupert Murdoch and Ted Turner before coming to the conclusion that, no matter how well written and read the book was, I didn't want to spend 19 hours listening to stories about these two jerks.