All Hail the Pop of King!

In this week's Entertainment Weekly, Stephen King hails the spoken word in his regular feature "The Pop of King". In addition to his defense of the audio book genre as a whole, he lists his Top 10 favorite audio listens. I have heard a couple but not all of the books on his list, though I trust his judgement. Seriously, Uncle Stevie says: make this mix CD, I made it and loved it. Uncle Stevie: says watch Lost, and now my obsession knows no bounds. Uncle Stevie: says do not read The Historian it's just terrible, and after Garth concurred, I won't even consider it. (Note that Mr. King refers to himself as Uncle Stevie in his articles. This is not to be confused with my actual Uncle Stevie who lives in Massachusetts and is a lovely man with a fantastic Navy tattoo on his forearm that says "Mom". Seriously, he really does. And I doubt he'd like The Historian either.)
Uncle Stevie asked for feedback in the comments section on ew.com and which has inspired my personal Top 10 as follows...
10. The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis read by Michael York
9. The Cell by Stephen King read by Campbell Scott
8. The Gunslinger by Stephen King read by George Guidall
7. The Wheel of Time series by Robert Jordan read by Kate Reading and Michael Kramer
6. Dry by Augusten Burroughs read by the author
5. Brokeback Mountain by Annie Proulx read by Campbell Scott
4. Holidays on Ice by David Sedaris read by the author
3. The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkein multi-voice production produced by BBC Radio
2. His Dark Materials series by Philip Pullman multi-voiced production produced by BBC Radio
1. Harry Potter Series by J.K. Rowling read by Jim Dale.

The list above obviously leans towards the fantasy world, what can I say I'm a sucker for escapism. Fantasy and young adult books also lend themselves more to being told out loud. I particularly enjoy the multi-voice productions, and Mr. Dale is so talented he makes you feel like Harry Potter is a multi-voice production. Mr. Jordan's Wheel of Time is such a huge epic that I find I have to listen to parts of it just because 11 books at 700+ pages each book is so overwhelming. I find Campbell Scott is a wonderful reader and extremely diverse, Brokeback and the Cell were completely different performances. The items by the authors are particularly hysterical, no one else could nail the narrative as well as Mr. Sedaris and Mr. Burroughs do with their own respective works. (Interestingly Mr. Frey does NOT read his A Million Little Pieces...hmm...curious.)
And a special award goes to...
The DaVinci Code by Dan Brown read by Paul Michael. Not because it's good but because it's unintentionally funny due to it's reveal of Mr. Brown's writing flaws and Mr. Michael's silly French accents.