Track one of fifty-six

I've been playing the ANANSI BOYS audio done by my friend, comedian and actor (and occasional blogger) Lenny Henry, since it came in, and it has made me happier and happier (except where it makes me go "How did I let a sentence like that get out? And now it is too late to rewrite it. Argh.") And I keep playing it for people who come over to the house, even the ones who don't think they like audio books.

I've wanted to put up something from it on the blog for a while, but we weren't sure if there were any copyright or licensing issues that might make it problematic. My argument was that it was just like putting up the text extract from the first chapter, only you could listen to it.

This morning the nice people at Harper Audio phoned to say that they would allow me to put up the first track of Lenny Henry's performance of ANANSI BOYS here at the blog. Stick it on your mp3 players...

I should probably warn you that it's a sixteen meg file. And that you don't get to meet Lenny's versions of Spider, or Grahame Coats or Rosie's mum...

Feel free to spread it around (particularly to people on LiveJournal because they may not know).

Here you go. I hope you like it.