The Power of Stories Told Out Loud

A WOLF AT THE TABLE By Augusten Burroughs (unabridged, 9 hours, Macmillan Audio: 8 CDs, $29.95; audible.com download: $20.97)

There has long been an impulse in the publishing business to make audio books more entertaining by introducing sound effects and music or by mounting full-cast performances. Though this often propels a production out of the realm of literature into theatrics, there are books that were born for bells and whistles, and Augusten Burroughs's A Wolf at the Table is one. This fifth memoir of abuse and excess is read, bleated, rumbled and, at times, tearfully shouted by the author himself. The audio book includes sound effects and occasional instrumental music, and it breaks new ground by presenting four songs written expressly for the production. There is one each from Patti Smith, Ingrid Michaelson, Sea Wolf and Tegan Quin ("Augusten, if I write something beautiful will it squash the hurt that is living deep inside of you?"). The songs smack vaguely of the New Age and make a curious contrast with this book, whose foul-breathed, skin-rotting, monster-metamorphosing creepiness transports the listener straight into Stephen King territory. Comic passages are rare, though one -- a brilliantly executed rendition by Burroughs of his father's emotionally obtuse, professorial disquisition on "ought" -- is a triumph. This is really an audio book for fans of Burroughs, and maybe of horror. Others will find most of it harder to take than the author's previous memoirs, which, if they did not possess the ring of truth, were at least grotesquely funny.

UNACCUSTOMED EARTH By Jhumpa Lahiri (unabridged, 10 hours, Random House Audio: 8 CDs, $39.95; Books on Tape, www.booksontape.com: Collector's edition, 6 cassettes or 8 CDs: $64)

Sarita Choudhury and Ajay Naidu share the narration of Jhumpa Lahiri's splendid and deeply moving collection of eight short stories, Unaccustomed Earth. Each takes full custody of three stories, and they share two, handing off the narration as it switches between female and male points of view. This and an introductory and concluding passage of music are the audiobook's only frills. Though both narrators are actors, they maintain low-key reading voices, a muted style that is entirely in keeping with Lahiri's narrative temper. Indeed, the plainness of the performance grants these extraordinarily poignant stories of dislocation, alienation and loneliness their full potency. Both Choudhury and Naidu read most of the text in American accents -- appropriately, as most of the characters are second-generation Indian Americans -- but they do deliver fine Indian cadences when characters demand it. It would have been nice if Naidu hadn't pronounced Nice biscuits "nice," but that is where criticism of this performance ends.

THE SWORD IN THE STONE By T.H. White (unabridged, 9 3/4 hours, Naxos AudioBooks, www.naxosaudiobooks.com: 8 CDs, $54.98; audible.com download: $20.95 )

A Royal Academy of Dramatic Art-trained actor, Neville Jason brings a full repertoire of voices to T.H. White's Arthurian tale, The Sword in the Stone. He delivers the narrator's passages with kindly, avuncular calm and gives each character his or her own voice. Among them is Wart (the boy Arthur), filled with youthful eagerness; his friend Kay, tinged with callow conceit; Sir Ector, bluffly benevolent; Merlin, schoolmasterly; and wicked, wicked Madame Mim, malevolence incarnate ("Oh, what a lovely baby!/How nice it would go with gravy"). The beasts and fish speak like English country folk for the most part, though the night congregation of hawks sounds marvelously like a mixed group of Shakespearean players and ex-colonials. And then there is valiant, stubborn King Pellinore, zealously what-what-ing over hill and dale in hapless pursuit of the Questing Beast. The text of The Sword in the Stone was left in some disarray at White's death, but Naxos has produced a fine version that should transfix your whole family, perhaps on some summer quest of its own.

WORLD WITHOUT END By Ken Follett (unabridged, 45 1/2 hours, Penguin Audio: 36 CDs, $59.95; Books on Tape, www.booksontape.com: Collector's edition, $103.20; audible.com download, $41.97)

Quite another England from days of yore emerges from Ken Follett's World Without End, which at over 45 hours approaches endlessness itself. This is a big read, addictive when taken through the ear, an old-fashioned family saga with all the fixings: murder, rape, treachery, foul machinations, doomed love, obsessive hatred, intoxicating suspense and liberal helpings of sweet revenge. Set in the 14th century (viz. Black Death), it is a sequel of sorts to Follett's enormous Pillars of the Earth, set 200 years earlier. The book's main characters are Merthin, a self-made man, and Caris, feisty and a healer -- a trait de rigueur in medieval heroines. The book is read by a virtuoso of historical novel narration, John Lee, whose mellifluous voice comes with a Celtic torque. He keeps the cast of characters separate with discreet modifications of tone and accent, effects that express their dominant character traits. Though one could never imagine taking the time to actually read this book, Lee's performance makes it an enthralling salvation from the tedium of 21st-century tasks.

Katherine A. Powers, who regularly reviews audio books for Book World, writes a literary column for the Boston Globe.